Hello Family,
Sounds like you were not able to vacation this week, so Carly and Joel took care of that for you.
This has been a good week for emailing. Sister Purine and her little girl Zama some how got my e-mail, which is not allowed, but they sent me an update from Nelspruit. Things are going well for them and she was called to be a teacher in the Relief Society! and the work goes forward....
Thank you for your e-mails. Dad, thank you for all your help with my taxes. You should treat yourself to something nice (paid for by me of course) because of all your troubles ha ha. You will need to teach me how to keep track of Taxes better once I get home.
This week it dawned on me how the outrageous things of Africa do not even cause me to turn a head anymore. I have been here so long that things that previously would have caused me to take precedence in my emails, do not even stand out to me anymore. I paid attention to that this week and I thought I would mention a couple of them, (the following can all be listed under the TIA category):
-We were tracking this week when we ran into an older lady and her husband. Literally within 20 Seconds she was trying her absolute hardest to convince me to marry her daughter. Making sure to throw out all the selling points the lady said, "She is a Nurse!", and "She is even educated!", my first thought was, "well I hope she is educated if she is a nurse..." That happens all the time, but for some reason this time was much funnier than normal.
-On a less funny note I met a 16 year old girl who has two children and of course no Husband or serious boyfriend. It is very ,very common for a girl to have a child by the time she is 17, but to have 2 by the time she is 16 caught even me off guard.
-I will stop there, the other ones will take to long to explain
But I got a call from the AP's the other day. Tomorrow is Mission Tour. All the missionaries from Botswana including the 5 senior couples are coming together to be taught by President Omer and Elder Cook of the 70. Naturally President Omer requested that I conduct this meeting. This would be no problem at all except for the fact that the only meeting I have ever conducted in my life was a small sacrament meeting about 4 weeks ago! I know it I should not be worried, but I do not feel to confident with my skills of conducting a meeting and now I have to conduct a mission tour with a member of the area presidency! I will let you know how that goes next week.
To get to a few of your questions. You asked a few questions about Botswana. To answer your questions, YES, I do feel quite isolated here in Botswana. Being in another country you just feel a little separated from the rest of the mission. I have come to accept the fact that I will most likely finish my mission here, and I have fought hard to make the best of the situation. To be honest, the last transfer was hard for me realizing that I will be here in the heat of Botswana with the challenges of no one having residency accept for me and a few others. Also, I struggle with maintaining weight in Botswana, and I do NOT want to keep losing weight. Despite all of these low points I have taken a step back, prayed really hard, many, many times, counted my many blessings, and now I am very happy with where I am. Your position in life gets a lot easier when you realize how much worse it could be. Really it does not matter where you are, just as long as you learn to make the best of it.
It terms of the Christmas call. Believe me I wish I could give you details as well, but that's another trait of Botswana. NOTHING is planned in advance. I am sorry to say it, but details will almost positively be given last minute. Just a fact of how things work on this side of the mission...
To mention a highlight of the week. We were teaching this great family. It is a widow and her four children ranging from 12-18. They were referred to us by a member and things were going quite well. We care a lot about the family and planned in depth for the lessons we would have with them. This week they used their agency to begin to slip through our fingers. We recognized this and planned a very important lesson with them. They were becoming on of those investigators who simply spends 100% of their time asking the missionaries questions rather than reading and praying about the message. We were trying everything we knew how to get them to simply pray about the message rather than rely on those around them to tell them if it is true or not.
This happens daily, but for some reason this family has been hard for me to let go of. I thought about it a lot and realized how sad it is. There will come a day when they learn that what we were sharing with them is true and at that day they will be eternally sorry that they did not accept it. Will that day be triumphant for me because I can say I was right? No! It will be sad as anything knowing that I tried as hard as I could to show my brothers and sisters how important that message was for them at that point. I prayed, studied, pondered, searched you out, continued praying, and despite all this, despite how much they needed this message they simply chose to reject it. At that day I better be able to look into the eyes of those I taught and honestly say I tried as hard as I could.
sorry, out of time....
Love you all
Elder Blake Williams
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Purine Makhubu Date: Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 11:15 AM
Subject: Re: FW: HAPPINESS
To: Blake Williams
Hi Elder Williams!
It's been a while since we communicated. Thank you very much for the letter & the photos though Zama cried a river after reading it. To be honest it was emotional for me too. We r still holding on and there's more good news, I've received a calling to teach Relief Society.My lesson will be on the second week of December about the Judgement Day.It so sad that Elder Molai also has to leave us next month.
I'm with Zama she asked me to tell u that she loves & misses u a lot. We r still trying to answer ur letter hope you will get it soon.
We love you very much, may God bless u abundantly always.
Kind Regards,
Sister Purine & Zama
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