July 4th and My One Year Mark!

Hello Family

It is a little bit weird being in South Africa while everyone is having favorite family vacations in Utah! Today is the 4th of July, so I assume that there will be another family activity tonight. Shoot off many fireworks for me!

It is my one year mark! I am pretty excited for that. Before we came e-mailing I went and got a new pillow (a nice one! I am excited for it!), and a new towel! My nice expensive American shoes got stolen this week so I will probably need to get new ones this week. And the hair clippers that I finally broke down and bought last month decided to stop working for its 3rd hair cut, so my companion and I need to start saving money to pay for all this.

We found an email shop in "the hood" which is where I am at the moment. It is 3 times cheaper than the other place! And my companion just got a hair cut on the side of the road, also in the hood. That is where my shoes got stolen. Don't worry mom I didn't get mugged, I just took my shoes to this guy who has a tent on the side of the road so he could fix them and naturally he realized the shoes were worth more than his shop so he is now nowhere to be seen. He picked up shop and is gone!

This week Elder Molai and I donated the New Born Baby kits to a near by hospital. We were able to make friends with the CEO and the Matrons of the hospital so they gave us a tour of the hospital. I still don't know what is motivating half of our family to become doctors and nurses. I have zero desire to be in a hospital...especially in Africa. They gave us a nice tour of the baby sections of the hospital and we got to see all the new born babies! It was pretty exciting to see the babies. New babies are pretty sweet! It was also pretty sad though because we were shown where they were working on the sick babies and the ones born way to early, and those babies were SO small! I could not believe that they were even living.

Funny story from the week: We have a basketball hoop in our flat kind of in the kitchen. I don't know who put it there, but I have been able to resist temptation and not use it...until this week. Elder Molai and I decided to work on our basketball skills. Well to make a long story short I was doing pretty good and I continued making my shots, but then of course I missed, it hit the rim and shot toward the main kitchen area. It was one of those events that happened in slow motion because the basketball shot right at the bowl of tuna Elder Fisher was making, Direct hit the bowl of tuna, and then flung tuna all over the kitchen and Elder Fisher! It was pretty funny. I thought you might enjoy that story.

Random comments:

-As far as I know, Michael is still getting married in 3 days! Congrats my friend, I expect photos!

-I heard the song 99 Red Balloons in the store this week. I like that song....

-I was wondering if people in Canada make a big deal of these Royal wedding that have been going on? For some reason they have been a big deal down here. Apparently the lady who just got married this last week is from Benoni South Africa, which is where I lived for my first 6 months. I was just wondering if it even made it to the TV in America and Canada....

-It has come to my attention that I am loosing a lot of weight lately. My suit pants didn't really fit yesterday so I asked my companion if I am loosing weight and he said that I for sure am. He is a big Tongan, so I am going to have him help me gain weight.

-Today we were going to take the district to this city called Sabie to explore caves and see waterfalls, but it is raining so we will do that next week.

-Mom, I don't know my BYU ID #, but it should be in my password vault. Dad has access to it.

Well, Nelspruit is the Best area in the mission. Is it hard, yes, but it is so fun. Elder Molai and I are working hard and we are seeing success. We had 10 new investigators this last week and we have met many other people. I am very grateful to be companions with Elder Molai. A little background on him. He is 22 and from a little island off of New Zeland. He is short, but a big boy none the less. His branch back home apparently consists of about 11 people and he said it surprised everyone when he said he wanted to prepare for a mission. He said it was hard for him to prepare for a mission, but I am very glad that he made the effort and came. In many ways he is my favorite companion thus far. I have had a lot of favorite companions, but Elder Molai is the man! He has a strong testimony and although he has not been on his mission half as long as I have, he pushes me to always improve. He is an avid rugby fan and player, and it helps him as he connects with everyone we talk to. He is very good at knocking on a door and becoming best friends with the person in 2 min. I hope I have a long time to serve with him so I can pick up that skill as well.

He reminds me of a funny Tongan. Another Funny story from the week: Yesterday we had to go see a member that stays a little over an hour away. On the way up there he was like "yo man, I'm tired man, I fink its all the bacon we ate." (I think its because of the BYU devotional talks we were listening to). On the way back I didn't even realize it, but apparently he was in a deep sleep. When I was making a turn he practically jumped out of his seat and said "WOW! where are we!? (me: um, white river..) him: yo, I was riding a camel in Jerusalem." HA HA He was dreaming that he was riding a camel in Jerusalem. That will only happen to a missionary!

I told him that I will be visiting him on his tiny island in a couple years. That will be exciting!
Well, that's all I have for this week!

Everything is going very well and we are all happy. I hope everyone is remaining this happy back home!

Stay well

Love you all

Elder Blake Williams