I'm not too concerned about the numbers but its a good feeling when you can put names with that.

Dear Family


It is September. Dad, you mentioned that it is the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. If that is true I cannot believe how quickly 10 years have gone by. This past year being the quickest of them all.

Congratulations Carly on passing the Nursing test! I hope you guys enjoy this medical stuff, because I sure did not get the gene to be a doctor. Good luck on the job hunt.

I should start by answering your questions:

How are you doing this week?

Doing well. I have still been working a lot with the senior couple to get them involved and that has taken much more time that I would have liked, but it is a priority to make sure they get working and get to the point that they feel needed. We took a trip with them on Saturday to see most of our members that stay about 2 hours away. This was a very busy day and even for myself it took all my energy away. It was good for the members, the senior couple, and us. The members here think it is the greatest thing in the world to have missionaries in their home. I just wish they didn't stay so far away or else we would be able to see them more often.

Other than that though, the senior couple has been getting more involved. They made my day when I called them on Tuesday and they were out going through the ward list and taking the initiative to get to know the in-active members. We have a zone conference 4 hours away tomorrow morning and it starts at 7:30am, so we are going to drive up with them today. We plan to leave in a couple hours and make a trip out of it. There are a lot of sites to see from here to there, so we will try to hit as many as we can.

Any baptisms this week?

No. I have only had 1 baptism in this area thus far, but have 3 more planned for the 18th of September. If I get these 4, that will be as many as they had in the entire year of 2010. I'm not too concerned about the numbers but its a good feeling when you can put names with that.

Has this been a productive area for baptisms or reactivation?

Compared to my other areas, no and no. But it is easy to feel like you are making a difference here. We have many people that are making progress and that feels good.

Update on the Happy Clapy Family

We felt that the happy clapy family were kind of drifting away from us until we received a call from the wife this week. They said that their friends were having problems with their 17 year old son and they wanted us to talk to him. We didn't really know what to expect, but it turned out to be a very good experience. When we showed up, the son wasn't even there, but there was this family, so we talked to them for a while and built a pretty strong relationship quickly. Out of nowhere BOTH families started talking about the difficulties they have of raising kids in this world. They even started to go into some detail about their children, and it was very surprising for me. The family that we were meeting for the first time have 4 kids (17 year old boy, 14 daughter, and 2 10 year old boys). Both of their older kids smoke. Their 17 year old son does some bad things with the lady friends all the time and has a new girlfriend each week. And they found out the other day that their 14 year old girl is an emo. Not like the kind of emo that I used to make fun of, but the straight up, cut your wrists, emo. At 14 years old she has carved the word "emo" into her arm with a blade from a pencil sharpener.

We must have done something right, because these families pretty much said that they trust us above their preachers and everyone else. They don't know what it is about our religion, but they see 2, 20 year old boys who seam to have their heads on straight and they want to know how that is possible. Honestly, we didn't through out a of parenting techniques or anything, but we built the relationship with the families and touched on a few doctrines. Most importantly that this life is a time to prepare to meet God. We cant just act good sometimes, but we need to shape our whole character to be consistent with how God wants us to be.

Anyway, I cant really concentrate too well, but the long and the short of it is that these families love us. Happy Clapy family has committed themselves to come to church next week, and this other family wants us to come over for dinner some time.

How are things in the apt. and Did Elder Onsongo come back?

Things are good and Elder Onsongo is a miracle. We gave him a priesthood blessing before he left for his surgery on Monday. Monday afternoon he had his surgery which apparently was pretty intense. They had to break his teeth into pieces to get them out because they did not want to come out. Tuesday they made the long drive back here, and Wednesday they woke up early and went to do a presentation at a school. Here we were expecting him to be out of work for a week, and with zero swelling or anything he started the work on Wednesday. The priesthood works.

Hill Cumorah Pageant?

I'm easy going. I will do whatever the family does.

You mentioned that you wanted to know more about our members, so I have decided to do a person of the week!

This week: Sister Jennifer

Sister Jennifer is an older lady, probably about 60 or so. She was baptized a few years ago before moving a little over an hour away to the middle of nowhere. She lives in a little log house with no electricity and no running water with her 11 year old daughter. She was divorced many years ago and has 3 or so other daughters that are older and moved out. Each day she walks about a 1/4 mile to the river and gets about 20 liters of water (that is very heavy!). This river is full of hippos and crocks. She has the worlds best view including the river, and a hill with endless banana trees. With these trees comes deadly snakes as well. This last week she killed 2 spitting cobras and saved them for me when I mentioned that I would be interested in snake skin (I ended up not taking them because they were all smelly), but she also has black mambas and kind cobras. I might have to make a belt with some sweet deadly snakes.

Sister Jennifer is one of the nicest ladies in the world and will move heaven and earth for anyone. She is preparing with another sister in the branch to go through the temple some time soon.

Other updates:

-My companion turns 23 next month and is growing grey hairs

-We got a copy of the 2009,2010 Mormon messages, and they are Top notch. I would highly recommend watching those when you have time.

-I think I have a cavity so I will have to deal with that soon.


That's all for Elder Williams!

I am going on a trip today, and will get mail tomorrow. Hope I have mail!

Love you all

Elder Blake Williams