Oh What a Reunion 5-26-2011

What a wonderful life!  I traveled back to Texas last week because my dear friend Stacy was going to go through the temple for the very first time.  Not only was the event wonderful but the reunion was such a blast.  Our friends Marilyn (Pennsylvania) and Angi (California) also flew in for the event.   It was a memory that I will never forget.  It was a special day for me to be in the temple with dear friends that I love like sisters and to see Stacy take this step.  I have such a testimony of the temple and the promises made there.  I am so grateful for my membership in the church.  It has always blessed my life and the lives of my children. I know it will bless Stacy's life as well. 

 

 This is outside the temple.  Back row: Lauren, Krista, Barbie, Christine, me, Raleen, Angie, Monica, Coleen and Tracy.  Front row: Maureen, Angi, Stacy and Marilyn.



I adore these women.  Me, Krista, Marilyn and Stacy.
What a fun week.  We laughed, we ate, we laughed and ate some more! 



Lunch at Chili's after the temple.

The band  (7 car Pile Up) came over to Stacy's one night so the "girls" plus Rich could practice.  It was so nice to just sit and visit and listen to them practice. 

I took some time out to go see one of my dear friend Mary Lee.  She is Mrs. Dr. Doolittle.  She loves animals and always has a new pet.  This is one of her beautiful tortoises.

Nathan is one of Grant's very best friends.  They have played together since they were tiny.  Grant sure misses Nathan and asked me to go see Nathan and take a picture of him. 



Stacy's son Axel has his mission call to the West Indies...and will be leaving in Sept.

 He is so excited and we are all excited for him.  Here he is getting his papers

 ready to mail so he can get his FBI clearance to enter some of the places in his mission. 

He was so good to us and so much fun to have around. 



Just visiting...Krista, Barbara and Marilyn

On the morning before we flew out we went to see one of Marilyn and my old neighbors Renee.  Marilyn is much closer friends with Renee but it was a lovely visit and so much fun to see her and the old neighborhood. 

  I am grateful for dear friends.  It is "as if" we had never left.  the feelings of love, friendship and sisterhood never skipped a beat.  After such a great week for a wonderful event...I am not sure what any of us could pull off for a reunion like that again...but oh what a reunion it was!

Memorial Day

This is a picture of my father Dan D. Emery.  It is men like him that made our country great!  Oh how I miss him.  They don't come any better... 

We have 4 in our flat..Cockroaches everywhere and not enough hot water for 4 missionaries to shower, but other than that it is all well.

Hello Family

I feel like so much is going on back home. It is always exciting for me to hear the updates of what is going on and mail is quickly slowing to the very occasional letter, so be sure to keep me updated in these emails.

I am sorry to hear about the recent deaths in the family. Like you said, it is a sad time, but it is very comforting to have the gospel in our lives during these times. It allows us to see God's plan and understand that if we are prepared, we will see our loved ones again.

Well for this week I had a few pictures that I wanted to send, but I forgot my camera at home, so you will have to wait until next week for those. I had a leadership meeting to attend this past week, but it was 4 hours away and was to take place at 8 in the morning. Elder Brey and I were able to make a road trip out of it, starting on Thursday and Getting back Friday evening. The trip up there was uneventful seeing as how it was in the Dark, but the trip back was quite amazing. I was able to see the beautiful parts of Africa...mountains, rivers, waterfalls, etc. I got many pictures, so be ready for those! (Speaking of pictures, have you received those pictures I sent to Grant, or the CD's that I sent with that missionary?)

The meeting itself was very good as well. Because it is this far from the office, it was a small meeting with only 10 missionaries. I felt very young in this meeting because most of the missionaries present (including the mission president and his wife) go home within the next two transfers. We get a new mission president in 3 to 4 weeks. Nothing too exciting to report from the meeting other than the fact that it was good, learned a lot, got a few pointers to work on. One of the main pointers that I took out of the meeting was about attitude. They spoke a lot about how ones attitude is everything. Our Zone is the highest goal achieving zone in the mission at the moment and much of that is said to be because of the attitudes. Will you have a positive attitude with the thought that you can and will do all that is asked of you and have a smile while you do it. OR will you complain about your area, companion, weather, etc. Attitude is everything.

The other pointer that we have received a lot lately, especially from Sister Poulsen, since she is leaving, is about marriage ha ha. In the past Zone Conference, Zone meeting, and leadership meeting, Sister Poulsen has chosen to speak on the importance of marriage. I don't really know what to do with this information right now, so maybe Cami can use it while she is in the dating stage? ha ha But it is often pointed out that the Mission is the MTC for the rest of your life. So pointer to Cami, when you are dating, and heaven forbid you get married in the next 10 years, be sure that you date and marry someone who will be/was exactly obedient on their mission. Many many young men go on missions, it is important that you find the ones that served faithfully on that mission. Enough about marriage...that is a ways away.

In other news, I was able to make that call to the insurance company, so I hope all is worked out there. If not, just let my mission president know again.
Church yesterday was quite the adventure. First of all we were asked to bring the bread, so naturally we forgot it and had to run back and get bread. Then we were asked to do the sacrament, so we did, and then as we were sitting down I was asked to give a talk. Right before I stood up an American family walked into the chapel! AMERICAN! You could tell they were American from a mile away, (it's exciting to see Americans). I gave a talk, not my best, but I tried with the notice that I had. Then the next hour, we were asked to teach Gospel principles, so we talked about faith (also a big topic at the leadership meeting). After that we talked to the American family and they have family living in South Africa, so they were on vacation. They have a return missionary son that is going to LDSBC before going to BYU, and a daughter attending BYU, so it was nice to talk to them about school, and everything else. After talking with them the branch president asked if we could teach YM's class. So we did. We ended up just having a discussion about missions.
Oh real quickly, Momma you asked about packages. I don't really need a package at the moment, but you wanted to know the things I like in packages. Pictures are always nice, ties are great, those socks are good, pretty much anything and everything is nice. Just not sugary candy (like the kind you suck on) everything has been great, so thank you tons!

Other that that, I get fed so so so much here. It is crazy. Nearly impossible to teach anyone, but we get fed 1-3 times a day!
Love you all

Elder Blake Williams

PS. Sorry! I forgot to talk about the district. We have 4 in our flat. Cockroaches everywhere, and not enough hot water for 4 missionaries to shower, but other than that it is all well. All the missionaries are obedient and everyone is getting along thus far. Both of our areas are looking like they will have success June!

A friendly conversation, 3 hours, and a large fine got us out of the country and back into South Africa.

Family,

First things first. I got the phone call from our mission president this morning and he has cleared the phone call for me to call the insurance office. I will go searching for an international calling card after I am finished with this email and then give them a call during business hours. I wrote down all your instructions, so there should not be any problems.

I am in a new area! Maybe the fact that I am paying 3 times as much to send this email than I usually do will describe my new area. I have been sent to a VERY wealthy city called Nelspruit to replace Elder Robinson. Nelspruit has a reputation of being a very difficult area (which is backed up by the fact that they only had 4 baptisms last year), and is nick named the refiners fire. It is a very beautiful place, even more so than Botswana. In fact I am further from the office now than I was in Botswana. Our district and zone are very spread out, with our zone leaders 4 hours away. Our branch is also very spread out. Our first appointment in the area was an hour and a half drive from our flat, and apparently half of our branch lives that far away. It is nice though because I am definitely in the beauty of Africa.
One of the best things about our mission is that every area you go to is like a different mission. Daveyton, where I started was poor as anything. Not even grass would grow and the only wild life you would see was rats. Lobatse was in a new country, had middle class and dirt poor. Now I am in Nelspruit, white, rich (I saw a rolls Royce my first day...that is richer than Southlake), wild life (including hippo's, crocks, and black mambas).

I feel like Nelspruit is a mix of Europe and very rich America. Some of the challenges include, very strong anti Mormon feelings by those living here, very raciest, everyone has a large gate with multiple guard dogs, etc. Elder Robinson tracked every house in our area 3 times while he was here. For some reason I am very, very excited to be here. Once again it is a very small branch and is not exempt from the racism that is found all over the city. At church all the white members (about 60% of the branch), sat in the front, while all the black members sat in the back. We had a member family, the Smiths, tell us how grateful they are to get another white missionary, and were thrilled that they had a missionary experience this past week. While telling us about it she said "and the best part is, that he is white!" Our branch president however is black, so that helps out a bit.

Another challenge is that we currently meet at the back of this furniture store in the most sketchy part of our area! I am with Elder Brey from Utah and he is a great missionary. We had a lesson about 2 days ago where a recent converts daughter (who is a danger zone) pretty much asked my companion to marry him ha ha. We were in the lesson, and at the end we were like, so are there any questions? She then chimed in for the first time in the lesson and said "um...so are you guys married?" Elder Brey then chimed in by explaining that we were not but that we don't date or anything as missionaries and then when we get home, THEN comes marriage. This danger zone girl did not even skip a beat before asking whether we were going to marry "that side, or this side" (America or SA). Long story short, it was a very awkward experience as a missionary, but I guess they are used to that here. Dogs, Danger Zone girls, and Dang rich people.....Things are going well. On a side note I was greeted with a very disgusting flat. Tell Elder Robinson's mother that he was a "dirty liver" ha ha. This morning we had a district deep cleaning to try and get the place under control. We have cockroaches Everywhere, and apparently all their previous efforts to get rid of them have failed.

OH! I got your package mom! Thank you for that. I don't need anything else at the moment, so thank you! I sent a CD home with a missionary who just left, so be watching for that. It has my photo's thus far from my mission. The package will be coming from an Elder Durham. We got stuck at the Botswana border together Wednesday morning, because apparently the mission had no way of showing that myself and 2 other missionaries were legal in the country. A friendly conversation, 3 hours, and a large fine got us out of the country and back into South Africa.

Please don't miss read my email. Will this be a very tough area? Yes! Maybe the toughest in the mission, but we are ready for it, and I am so excited! I am very happy and things are going well. Elder Brey and I are already thinking of ways to mix things up and find in unique ways.

Oh, on a low note for the week. We were tracking mansions yesterday and I got rejected SO HARD! I came in contact with one of the rudest people I have ever met. He was probably in the top 5 rudest. I am going to have to have a nice long chat with that man in the after life and ask him what the heck he was thinking! It isn't called the refiners fire for nothing, we will be tried, but I am ready for it!

Well family, I should get off the computer before this Internet cafe takes all my money for the month. Thank you for everything!

Love you all

Elder Blake Williams

PS. We went to a member ladies house yesterday (she lives about an hour away), and she lives in these beautiful hills living in a cabin like house with no electricity. She had this wire fence around her yard and was telling us about how there are crocks and hippos on the other side of the fence. She told us that she has killed a few Black Mambas in her yard. I told her to keep them the next time she kills one so I can make a belt out of it! That would be a pretty sweet belt!

Music Fest 2011

Grant's grade school performed in Music Fest.  It was an impressive production done by grades one through four.  The performance was held at the Jubilee Auditorium downtown.   What a masterpiece the music teacher Mrs. Bridal created.  What a great opportunity they had to preform on a big stage.  I am sure they all felt like stars. 

Dad and Grant before preforming.

Grant was doing a square dance in this shot.

All of the "grade oners" as Grant calls them! :) 

The crocodile that asked us to turn off our cell phones... 

Dad and Grant after the performance.  You can see the city of Calgary in the background.

It was a fun evening and great performances of good old Canadian folk songs.  At this rate Grant will be more Canadian then American by the time we get back to the States.

It may be that point in the Mission where I get doors slammed in my face!

Elder Williams and President Poulson

Family,

Mondays are always exciting. The unique thing about this Monday is that I feel much has gone on since last email!



First things first, I received a call from President Poulsen on Saturday saying that I am being transferred. I am going to "one of the most beautiful cities in the mission", and I will be a district leader there. I still don't know where exactly that is, but beautiful city in Africa usually means white Afrikaners! It might be that point in the mission where I get doors slammed in my face, but only time will tell. I am excited for the new change, but am also quite sad for the change. I have really grown to love the people here in Lobatse. Many are sad to see me leave, and my feelings only exceed theirs.

Side note... this means you can start sending letters to the South African address again. I got South African mail this last week at Zone Conference and I got a letter from the Stanford family from Canada.  Please tell them thank you!

Zone conference was exciting! It was the last one with President and Sister Poulsen, so they did not let up with their counsels of life and suggestions for us when we return off the mission. Elder Hughes and I seemed to get paraded at Zone Conference. I finally got a little pin thing for completing my greeny check list (the award was 7 months late ha ha), Elder Hughes and I then got awarded ties for being the "most valuable companionship" in our zone, and we got a candy bar for keeping our gas records up to date. The joys of Zone Conference ha ha.

In other news we had the best branch activity ever this weekend! We had heard rumor that missionaries a year ago used to have activities with 50+ people in attendance. We have had activities but the attendance stays around 15. This week we had a movie night where we watched the movie the Testaments and we had about 60 people there!!! That is more than attends church! We were really excited about that. Having an activity with members, recent converts, and investigators.

On Sunday I was able to give my final talk in Lobatse. Once again I wasn't sure of exactly what I was going to talk about, but once I got up there I decided to talk about something very fundamental. Lately while street contacting I have started to ask people to question "What do you think is the purpose in life?" It is very interesting, because it doesn't matter whether the person has ever set foot in a church, or thinks he is the next prophet, NO ONE has been able to give me an answer! That amazes me. How can you be on this earth and not even know WHY you are here! In my talk I devoted it to telling the members about this and then explaining that membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gives you the privilege of knowing the answer to this question that so many/most people do not know. I talked a bit about the opposition of all things and was able to read a few scriptures that helps me with the subject. Then I explained how we are to share this knowledge of the plan of happiness with those around us.

I was glad I had this opportunity to share something so fundamental yet vitally important with the members. I got many comments of appreciation following my talk. Quite frankly I am SO grateful to know my purpose in life, and even better, I am working full time to help others realize theirs as well. The things of the world are getting further and further from the ways of the Lord. Many see this, but few understand what to do about it. I am grateful for the time that I have to be a missionary for the Lord's church once again restored to the earth today. The church is so true. Share it with others!

Sorry the email is so short today, but I am out of time!

Thank you for everything

Thanks to those that have sent letters lately, I try to mention when I receive them so you know they got here.
Love you all

Elder Blake Williams

Like it or NOT I am 50!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I was young, my brothers would always tease me on my birthday and say when I was born my Mom ran around yelling "May Day, May Day"  Because my birthday was on May 1st and I guess that my Mother was in distress.  It really happened, I turned 50 and it is me that is in distress!  It is painful for me to even type this.  Not that I had a birthday or even that I turned a year older it is just the sound of the BIG 50... Come on you all have to admit that 50 just sounds old.  That being said I had a wonderful birthday this year! We were traveling  to Utah for BYU graduation and spring break.  It just so happened that we would be traveling back to Canada on May 1st,  my birthday.  I was fine with that because I felt like this was a good birthday to play down. 

Well so much for playing it down....:)

LaNae made me this bouquet of 50 sucker that said "50 SUCKS" 

 My sister LaNae called before we left on our trip and said that she and Rod were going to fly into to SLC and visit with us and then she would drive to Boise with me and the kids to see my Mom and other family.   I was thrilled with that because Steve as flying to Texas for meetings and would just meet back up with us before he headed back home. We had a great time with Rod and LaNae and our kids. The day before we were to travel to Boise LaNae told me that Jason (her son) was flying through SLC on business and had a 3 hour layover.  She wanted to meet him for lunch before we headed to Boise.  I of course was fine with that and swallowed the hook and all it had on it!  When we got to the airport I dropped her off to find Jason and  I drove around until she told me where to pick them up. As I rounded the corner Jason did not look like Jason at all...it haven't been that long since I had seen him but  The heavy set dark headed kid was not any resemblance of the nephew I knew.  Then I saw my mother sitting there with her coat held up over her face...I am not sure if she was hiding so I wouldn't see her of if she didn't want to see me!  HA HA  It would have been hysterical if I wasn't so confused!!  I was within minutes of leaving to make the 6 hour trip to see her and here she sat in SLC.  My mind could not even compute what I was seeing or what was happening!!!  Why would my 86 year old mother fly to Salt Lake so that we could then drive the 6 hours to Boise??  What is going on I said....Camille said, "It's your birthday and we are not going to Boise.  We are going to Park City."  I have to say that with all of the plans over the last month...I had NO idea that Any of this was happening.  Even Grant knew a few days before and I did not have the first clue.  My sisters Dana and RaeAnn were on their way to the condo and we all got there with in an hour of each other.  Can you say GIRL PARTY!???  plus Grant.   They had rented this huge condo and it was so fun.  My sisters Dana, RaeAnn, LaNae and I all slept in the loft together.  It was a blast as we talked and laughed until we fell asleep.

The first night all of RaeAnn's kids and my kids at BYU came up for a yummy dinner that RaeAnn fixed.  We had a great visit and played with My nieces baby Cheyenne.  It a great time!  The next day we shopped and ate!  Grant "babysat" grandma some of the time.  My sisters Dana and RaeAnn are queen quilters and so LaNae had brought 3 quilts for them to help on as she was doing a quilt for each YW and YM in her ward that were graduating. We were so glad there were only 3!  :)  As a side note... my heart was so full of gratitude as I saw my sisters working on those quilts for my sister LaNae.   It was not too many years ago that LaNae was totally inactive in the church and here she was heading up this project for her YW as one of their leaders.   We would have done 50 quilts for this experience.  We would have hated it but we would have done it!!!  The next day we headed out to shop some more and ended up having a fun dinner with all of the kids in town at Brick Oven Pizza in Provo.  It was a snowy cold night as we headed back to Park City for our last night in the condo.  My sisters showered me with gifts that I loved and we gave our Mom several DVD 's of my fathers life the he had recorded of his time in the Army and the prison camp during WW 11 .  It was such a fun week. It made it worth turning 50 !  

Here is a picture of my 86 year old mother....Loraine.  We affectionately call her
"Rainer"

I am so thankful for such wonderful sisters....What a blessing they have been to me.  I can't imagine my life without them. 

Graduation, Easter, The Pit and Elder Oaks... April 2011

The Mother's Day Phone Call Was So Sweet!

Family,
Getting off phone call is the worst thing in the world! You get all excited and then the phone call is so sweet, and then once you hang up its like....7 and a half months till Christmas, oh my! I'll get over it, I loved talking with the family yesterday. It was slightly stressful when the call cut out in the middle. It was like "oh, I guess they are done." ( we were able to call right back!) Hopefully in the next call we can get the entire family in on the call. Who knows, maybe I will be sent to a rich white area and get to Skype for Christmas. Don't count on it though.

Every ones calls went well. Elder Chidzawo got to speak to his brother for the first time in nearly a year and a half, so he was excited about that. Elder Schwab has been out for about a month now and he already got to call home, he was a happy camper yesterday. Elder Hughes...Oh Elder Hughes I can't think of anything exciting from his call other than the fact that his family informed him that they broke his phone and laptop. He was still very excited.

I am just going to run through my list of topics that I had for our phone call yesterday. The important ones we already discussed:

-Motheo family is so sweet! Brother Motheo gave a talk yesterday in sacrament meeting about patience and he will probably be getting the priesthood this next week.

-Be good to the missionaries in your ward.

-This one is so weird that I could not even bring myself to mention it last night, but didn't I have surgery on my eye when I was small? The only reason I mention that is because one of my eyes has decided to be really cool and water all the time? One eye will water like ALL the time and the other is still normal...moving on.

-I want to send a copy of the book "Way to Be" to the Motheo family if you have access to a copy.

-Grant's crying chicken is the best picture in the world.

-Farmers address: got it, thanks!

-This one is also random, but yesterday I was wondering how the Larsen's are doing. Any updates on that family? Tell them I say hello.

-Lately I have discovered a new talent! In Africa we American missionaries run into a bit of a problem when it comes time to get our hair cut. Elder Hughes and I have had to cut each other’s hair a few times so I have become quite skilled with cutting his hair with a razor, but the skill came in when he and Elder Schwab wanted their hair scissor cut. I did it, and not to brag, but I did dang good! Just thought I would mention that.

-I wanted to mention a bit about our gospel principles class yesterday. We are really trying to get the branch involved with teaching the classes, so yesterday we started gospel principles class by having Brother Banda cover the first section in the chapter "Holy Ghost". I don't have a CLUE how it got so far off topic, but I took a couple notes from his time teaching. He compared the Holy Ghost to chickens? And my favorite was when he compared "Evah" (eve) to a rooster and said that the reason she was put on the earth was to wake up Adam in the morning. We had 8 investigators in this class and he convinced them that Adam and Abraham were the same person.

Lets just say that when Elder Hughes stood up to finish the lesson he had some doctrine to correct!

Well family, it was good to talk to you last night. Sorry this email is not too exciting, not too much has happened since last night!.
Love

Elder Blake Williams

My First Game Park!

Dear Family,

It sounds like everyone has had an action packed week. I could not even keep track of all the places you went from your emails.. but it sounds like everyone had fun. I had to laugh that Grant babysat Grandma!

Well little Elder Williams is pretty tired at the moment. I just got back from my first game park! Leslie, the father of the exciting family I just baptized wanted to take Elder Hughes and I out for a treat. He picked us up this morning and drove us to a game park called Mokolodi (just before gabs). It is a very nice park, mainly for the upper class, and apparently President Bush visited it a while back. For this game park you ride in one of their trucks and drive through this 400 acre park. We were able to see everything from giraffes (tons of them) to a rhino, and even a cheetah from a distance. This was very nice because this park has "tracking" just to see rhino's and cheetah's on each of these trips to "track" them are 500 pula (roughly $80) a piece. But lucky us we were just on the normal tour and we got to see both of them!

We saw SO many giraffes! It was very exciting and I am glad that I was able to go, although there were pretty much only white people there and it makes me laugh how awkward I feel around white people now. Afterwards on the way home we stopped by this place on the side of  the road by a village that was making traditional Botswana food. He enjoys the place so he wanted us to taste it. It looked really good, but it unfortunately was a while from being ready, so we had to just leave. At least I know where it is now, so I can stop off later and get some true blue African food.

Before I forget, this week is the phone call! We are going to just have you call our cell phone. No cheating, this number is for mother and father only and is to only be used Sunday at 7:45pm my time (I think that is 10:45 your time?). The number is (00267) XXXXXX. The XXXXXX is my Botswana number, and the 00267 should be the number that you are to call for South Africa. I realize that this will probably be right in the middle of church for you, but that is all we could get worked out, sorry! I am not sure how you want to do this, whether it will be a conference call, or just those present in Canada, but I am only allowed one phone call. I will have from 7:45-8:45. I cannot go over that time or else I will get in the way of Elder Hughes phone call.

Make sure you make a list of questions or topics you would like to hear about before hand. This will be the only phone call until Christmas!

I am glad to hear so many good things from and about Axel. Tell that kid I said hello, and that I lost track of who's turn it is to write.... him or his turn to write me. I think I originally said that he is coming to South Africa, but my new guess for Axel is New York, or somewhere cold like that where there is a lot of people. I get so excited to hear about the mission calls, so make sure you email me when he gets his call!

I hear that there were also a lot of very bad storms in America lately. Elder Hughes is getting all the updates, but be sure to keep me updated on large events such as that. It is nice to hear about what is going on in the world. The only updates I get is every time I walk into a home, the TV is either showing soccer or large conflicts going on in the world. I need updates!

Sadly, I don't have too many updates from the week. It was a good week, I guess one notable event was that we were in a lesson with this 20 year old man and he had a lady friend visiting. Throughout the lesson he was asking all kinds of intellectual questions (trying to prove everything with the bible, which by the way, my companion can prove EVERYTHING with the bible, its pretty nice!) but the lady visitor seemed pretty interested in the message. As we were leaving we got to talking to her more and found out that her cousin was the one who had been in the Ghana prison for 9 months as a missionary! Because of this event her family has grown interested in learning about the gospel, and we are going to meet with them tonight! That's pretty exciting.

Other than that, I would say that my excitement from the week has come from personal study this week. I have decided to stop reading straight through the scriptures and have been doing more study on specific topics. This weeks theme is the Atonement. It has really made me enjoy study much more, and this week I have grown a greater appreciation for the Atonement. I have also been studying the attribute test in Preach my Gospel, and have been striving to improve on my weaknesses.

Well I just got 2 more emails, so I better go check them with my 3 min left.

Love you all and look forward to speaking with you on Sunday.

Elder Blake T. Williams

PS:  Tyler, that is crazy about you being 1/4 of a doctor!  I am almost 1/2 missionary!

April 25th from Botswana

Happy Birthday Mom and Joel! I can't believe that it is almost MAY, but it IS! And Happy graduation to Carly and Joel!

Those were exciting pictures from the family, both the one of Elder Oaks, and the one of Sister Smith. I am impressed that Elder Oaks knows all the missions in South Africa that easily. And I am happy that you were able to see Sister Smith, that just takes me back to the good MTC days!

Once again I feel like a lot has happened this week. I have two intense stories, so I will start with the most intense first. Yesterday we were able to confirm the Motheo family (so nice!) and then when they sat down Sister Motheo was called as the relief Society President, and Brother Botheo was called as the Employment Specialist! Both pretty cool callings. Especially Relief Society President, that just shows how sweet the family is. As a side note from the family, the other missionaries had a baptism after church yesterday and the Motheo's 7 year old daughter conducted the music! They are so excited about the Gospel!

Next intense story: We had presidents interviews this week (more on that later if I have time), but while we were waiting for our interviews Sister Poulsen told us a story from a missionary this week. She said that one of the missionaries from the newest group of missionaries was taking a shower, but he was in there for a really long time, so his flat mates knocked on the door...nothing. So they just let it be for a little bit, and then once again they knocked on the door to see what was going on, once again...nothing, so they broke in the door and found him laying on the ground with blood all over the place, passed out. Turns out he slipped on a tile and landed on the corner of the tub head first, knocking him out. Obviously they took him to the hospital, and when he finally work up they realized that his memory from 2008 was gone. He has not recollection of the past 3 years including coming on a mission. They say that he is slowly getting some of his memory back, so he should be OK, but I thought that was a notable story.

In other news I have been thinking this whole week about how sweet it would be if Cami was in Botswana right now! I'm sure the mission President would have let us go to lunch or something, but its alright, we will just do that in 14 months.

I mentioned that we had presidents interviews this week. That was pretty exciting because it was probably the last Presidents interview that I will have with president Poulsen. He goes home in June. He was pretty happy about some of the success that we have been having and then gave some additional advice for us. I am excited to see what kinds of changes we have with our new mission president. I cannot imagine what he would change. Oh and I almost forgot, when we did the interviews, President Poulsen surprised us 30 min before by changing the meeting place from the church to our house. Anyways, he met in our study room and when he got in there he saw the photo alb you just sent me. He got excited and opened it up right to the page with grants face paint (the blown up picture that would look weird as anything to anyone who does not know what it is). I guess he was a little confused because he just shut the book! It probably does not sound funny to you, but in the MOMENT it was pretty funny.

This week Elder Hughes and I were also trying to find new ideas for finding people, especially because it was Easter and everyone left for the holidays (Easter is a big deal here, everyone leaves to visit family like we do in Christmas). Our idea for finding was to set up a table at one of the shopping malls here while elder Hughes played the hymns on the keyboard and I contacted people. It was actually very successful and we contacted about 30 people in 2 hours. Contact: Talk with someone and either set an appointment or leave them with something to read.

1 more random statement about the Motheo family is that they enjoyed conference so much that they have decided to attend in person! They obviously have to save for it, but I am hoping it will be when I get home so that I can go to conference with them. By that time they will also have gone through the temple, so I will be able to go with them! That would be like Christmas dayX10 for me.

Well that is all the random statements I have from the week. You guys often ask if I am happy/ excited to be on mission, etc. The answer to all these is YES! The mission is so much harder than I expected and you grow so much more that I originally expected as well. Some days are very hard, people ditch appointments, your not feeling well, people are rude, the trials go on and on and on, but that's all they are, trials. Once I was able to learn that all these are simply trials, that's where the mission kind of turned for me. I was able to face the trials as a learning experience rather than a discouragement.

Yesterday was a very rewarding day for me. I don't know what it was about the day, but for some reason I was able to see how much love I have grown for the people here, and as well, how much love they have grown for me. I had to opportunity of stopping by a few recent converts last night and it was a wonderful experience for me. We first stopped by Joyce and Bakang. Joyce is an older lady, and one of the nicest I have ever met. Every time she sees us she lights up as if us visiting her has made her entire day.

We then went to Jumanes place and he and his wife were so happy to see us. We were planning on just stopping by for 30 seconds to set an appointment, but they would not let us leave until we were fed. We sat there for quite some time with not much said, just some small talk here and there, but the family was all smiles from ear to ear during our entire visit.

It is experiences like this when I get to take a step back and realize why it is that we are out here. I am not out here for me, but I am here because the Lord has called me to be here at this specific place, visiting these specific people. Elder Holland explained it well when he was visiting us about 6 months ago. While speaking of our purpose he said, "some days are hard, some people may through rocks, steal your car, even kill you, well so be it!" Now obviously I don't have any of those things happen, (well, accept for the rocks...but that's for another day) but it out lined the importance of our mission. Yes I am happy I am serving a mission, and yes I am happy!

I have said enough

Thank you for everything family!

Love you

Elder Blake T. Williams