Probably the first time in the history of the world missionaries missed church!

Dear Family

I really appreciated the emails today and apologize if I do not have enough time to fully reply to all of them.

This has been one of the most hectic weeks I have had in a long time. I have a lot to mention, and not much time so I will adapt the pullet point format again:

• First of all, I was in Johannesburg yet again for transfers on Tuesday. It was the first transfer meeting for President and Sister Omer, and it was neat to be there. Elder Kelly was one of the many to go home this week. How time flies. We picked up Elder Onsongo's new companion. His name is Elder Van Heerden from Zimbabwe and he is about 4 months out on his mission. This makes us the most diverse district I have ever heard of, we have five members of the district and all representing a different country! New Zealand, USA/Canada, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. He also speaks Africans. It has been a little hard for me to get used to the culture of White Africans. They were raised up very differently than we in America and although they are the nicest people, the speak in a very demanding way. This is something that has tested my patience just a LITTLE bit, but it is good because it is helping me grow even more!

• On Wednesday I got a phone call for the Other missionaries in our district saying that their truck broke down, not in the best part of town (not to worry, we don't really have any parts of out area's that I would consider too dangerous). I had have been working on getting a new truck for them for quite some time, so this was kind of a good thing. Their gas peddle fell off so the mission told me to find a way to get it to the dealership, get it road worthy, and then we worked out a new truck which is now waiting for us in Johannesburg. The reason I even tell you this is that our normal form of payment wasn't working and I had to use my home card which to my surprise was somehow very low on cash. We were in a slight bind, but of course we figured it out. But if you could transfer some money from one of my other accounts to this account in case of emergency's that would be great. I would like to have a min of 1000 rand at any one time. 7 rand is a dollar, so I will let you guys do the math on that. Thank you in advance.

• Saturday we had a temporary car brought up to us and the missionaries stayed over at our flat (7 missionaries in a small flat!). Sunday morning at about 4:45am Elder Ray tapped on my shoulder and was like "Elder Williams, do you guys usually have a lot of water on your floor?" me: "no....." him "oh, well because it sounds like there is a waterfall in your study room, and the floor has a layer of water on it". me "well did you check to see what this waterfall noise was?" him: "no, I didn't know if someone was in the room". I finally went downstairs and opened our door only to see a waterfall coming from the geyser, down to the other missionaries suits and all their clothes, and then adding to the already high level of water on the floor. me "eish! Elders....wake up". Our whole flat was flooded, and I must have been good that day or something, because my stuff was on the other side of the flat and I was able to save it before it got soaked. We cleaned it up, apparently making too much noise as we did so because the next morning our neighbor came and yelled at us. I feel like that was a lose/lose situation. To make it worse, Elder Molai and I had to stay home from church while a guy fixed it. Probably the first time in the history of the world missionaries missed church! I guess it was a good thing though because while at church the senior couple (who are new to South Africa) parked their truck outside of the protection fence (you don't do that), and their truck was broken into. They stole a suitcase full of stuff, and Elder Rays back pack with his scriptures in it. That is the second brake in, in about 2 weeks....TIA

While we were staying at home I decided to make good use of our time and read "Jesus the Christ" to Elder Molai, which of course just put him to sleep. When he woke up we started talking about New Zealand and I asked him why it was so cold while Australia was like the hottest in the world? He was like: "I think it is because New Zealand is further down and closer to the bottom....you know there is like an iceberg down there..." me: "you mean Antarctica!?" him: "yea yea!" me: "oh come on!"

Well I have 60 seconds left, we are having fun! South Africa is getting hot as anything now and it is still winter!

Love you all

Elder Williams

PS: Grant, How does the Hawk know when you have food for it?  Here in Africa the people really like their birds, and all the white people have birds as pets.  Its a little weird because Mom would never let me have a bird (which I am glad of), but now I go into a home and the next thing I know they have put a bird on my shoulder!  While I am eating!  Africa is a different world little brother!