Zone Leader Council
Dear Family,?? November 2011. My planner shows that it is the 14th today but I don't feel like that can be right. Time is going tooo fast. I am sure it feels the same for you. Once again you did not disappoint with an exciting trip for the week. Is everyone finally in the swing of Canadian life yet or is it still a bit of a culture shock for some? If anyone is suffering from culture shock just come visit Africa for about a week or so and then go back. Everyone seems very excited about Grants tooth! Ha ha, what is that kid going to do when he is not supposed to be losing teeth anymore? I feel like he will still pull them out just to get the money from the Tooth Fairy. Cami sent a picture, so I was able to see the cave on the top row of his teeth. That kid is growing up too fast!
Well, I got your package this week. I feel like I have been getting too many packages lately! Everyone has told me that when you start to reach 18 months on your mission the amount of mail you get goes up a ton. That is starting to ring true for me, but I cannot tell if it is because my 18 month mark is in sight or if it is because Christmas is around the corner. Thank you for getting the package together. I honored your wish for the most part and did not open my presents...except for the one with grandpa's book. I could guessed what it was and therefore I could not leave it with wrapping. I also happened to be really sick the day I got the package and had nothing to do so I started to read it between naps. That is the best present! What a treat it is to have that record in the family. I feel like I am getting so much more out of the book during my second time reading it. THANK YOU!!
This week Elder Zondi and I had a zone leader meeting in Johannesburg. It is quite a drive to get there, so we left Thursday around lunch time but got a little lost and then arrived at the mission home late. For some reason the mission home was anti fun that night so we did not have any fun stories or anything...it was kind of a disappointing mission home visit. Usually mission home = fun, American food, and story time. For some reason it was lacking all of that! But the next day was our zone Leader Meeting. Nothing too exciting to report. But then it was pretty fun riding home with Elder Copans and Elder Hill. Both very good missionaries who have become good friends. We made it into Botswana late so we had to sleep over in Gabs and then drive again in the morning to finally get back to the area. For some reason my body was not too excited about all this travel or maybe it was suffering from a lack of America food Thursday night but it shut down and I was pretty sick on Saturday. Saturday was full of a lot of sleep and a sweet package from the family and a nice letter from Tyler so my body decided that it was ready to take on the world Sunday.
Sunday night I had my first Zone Meeting (with us as the Zone Leaders meeting with our zone). Traditionally these are done on a Wednesday or something but there is nothing traditional about Elder Williams so I decided to have it on a Sunday night and make it a fun activity at the same time. Sunday night the zone members came to our house in Kanye and I had to have kind of a difficult meeting with them. Ever since President Poulsen left there has grown an attitude of relaxation among the missionaries. In particular, in obeying all the rules. It's not anything extreme or anything, but mission wide it seems like people are just bending the rules and just relaxing where they want. I feel like our district has not been doing this, but there are definitely many in our zone who have taken on this attitude. So the purpose of this meeting was to correct that, which is a HARD thing to address. Elder Zondi got the easy part of starting the meeting and talking about obedience in general and why it is important. Then it was my turn to step in and address very specific rules that some have chosen to disregard. The reason that it is so hard is because I feel that I am pretty good friends with almost the entire zone, so stepping in and correcting them is not always easy, or fun. It went pretty well though. After this meeting we went to the back yard to have a "classy camp fire", which did not turn out to be so classy because the wind was blowing really hard which is not good considering all the houses around us with grass roofs. The members of the zone stayed the night and then this morning we made everyone breakfast, had a short meeting about companionship studies, and then went on a pretty cool hike. I hope it was a successful meeting, but only time will tell!
On a separate note...each time I get a new planner, I have a theme for the planner. As a missionary you don't have too many opportunities to be creative but you can be in terms of your planners. For my last two planners in a row I have chosen a theme of "thoughts". This came about from one of President Poulsens last Zone conferences with us. He walked us through the following diagram:
Eternal Destiny-Character-Habits-Actions-Thoughts. So it is a pretty easy diagram to follow, but the point is that our thoughts will Eventually lead us to our Eternal Destiny. It is not enough to just DO good things, but you yourself must BE a good thing. This leads very well into a quote I came across in one of Boyd K. Packers talks. He said "One who can control his thoughts has conquered himself". I love that quote. Conquering yourself is really what life is all about. You must control that natural man to do and become something that stands for good. Life isn't simply about doing a few good things here and there to earn a few brownie points come judgment day, but it is about going through trials and challenges which will help build us into a being who can dwell in the presence of our Heavenly Father. If our objective every day is not to become someone who is clean enough to dwell with our Heavenly Father, then we are simply missing the mark.
Thank you for all your support! I look forward to speaking with the family on Christmas. We are planning to baptize a family of 5 on Christmas day! That would be so sweet!
Love you all,
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