Dear Family
It is the Christmas season! This season brings mixed feelings for missionaries, but I am very excited for it and plan to have a fantastic African Christmas.
This Saturday we had a branch Christmas party. Tradition from last year followed for this year. We assumed that someone else was planning the activity because we were never asked to do anything for it. Naturally it got dropped on us to carry out. Lucky for us we had about 3 days to pull it together. Because Christmas is hot as anything here we planned to play a lot of games with water balloons. We started the activity off with watching a couple Christmas video's. While the video was going on we were busy doing everything which leads me to one of my favorite T.I.A's of the week. We were having a braai, so I delegated the responsibility of starting a fire to a branch missionary. When I came back I saw this grown man throwing large plastic bags on our fire. I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was adding fuel to the fire. I gazed at the large stack of wood right next to him and whispered TIA to myself as I walked away.
The activity was very hectic because all the activities we planned were outdoor activities and then it started to rain. Probably the highlight of the whole activity was when we got our new senior couple (Elder and Sister Moss) to dress up like Santa Claus. It was awesome for a number of reasons, but mainly because Elder Moss looks just like the old man off of the Movie "ÜP". (Don't ask me why we had a full Santa suit in our flat...). But ANYWAY! The entire point of this whole story was to tell you about some bad news, and good news. Its the same news, it will just depend on how you look at it. Seeing as how we had a Santa, and I am sure the kids have never seen Santa before, we also needed presents. Now don't get mad momma but last minute we had to scramble to find something so I used my 12 days of Christmas presents as Santa's gifts to the kids. I feel bad because you put a lot of work into that, but the kids enjoyed every minute of it and we had just enough candy for each kid to get one thing. Sister Moss says you were inspired for what you put in the package. Thank you for that!
Speaking of the New Senior couple. We are very glad to get the new couple. They stay in Gabs and their assignment is to help strengthen the Kanye and Lobatse Branches. I have felt really bad for them because they arrived about 2 or 3 weeks ago and it is almost like the mission did not plan ahead for them and another new couple. They were almost forced to get a place in Gabs when they would have been much happier living INSIDE their area, Lobatse. On top of that the mission some how overlooked the fact that they and this other new couple would each need a new car, especially since they live an hour away from their areas. The mission is working on getting them a car, but that will probably take months, and their first 2 weeks were spent pretty much just staying in their flat. So this week we kind of just took things into our own hands. First of all we decided to arrange a car for them. Shortly after my e-mail last week I was privileged to make one of the most awkward phone calls of my life to Lobatse. It went as follows:
me: Hey Elders, how was your p-day?
Them: Oh it was great! What can we help you with?
me: Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that I will be at your flat at 10 o'clock tomorrow to take your car....you will now be a biking area until you hear otherwise.
Them:...............
me: The good news is that I just purchased the two nicest bikes in the Country of Botswana for you. They will be here in a week and a half.....
Them: (Well, lets just say they were not too happy, but now the Mosses have a car and they are working closely with the Lobatse Elders so they don't even have to bike that much.)
Tto our great joy they have decided that they want to move from Gabs to Lobatse so they canceled their lease and we are helping them house shop tomorrow. They have until the 20th to get a new house, which is important for the family because we are planning to use their skype from their house. I don't know how the skype is going to work out exactly, but I am confident that I will be able to skype home for my first time!
In other news:
-Look up the Mormon message "The Voice of the Spirit". It is awesome. This video is like scripture to me. The first time I saw it I got nothing out of it. The Second and third and forth I continue to learn more and more from it.
-I solved an Rubik's cube (Elder Finlinson told me that is how it is spelled, so if it is wrong, blame him). I did not have that on my bucket list of things to do before I die, but I decided to do it just so I could say I did. Turns out it is not as cool as I thought....
-Whitney Flake on of my favorite cousins WOULD get married like 3 months before I get home. None the less, I am still very happy for her!
-Dad, you asked about my motivation level for my last 6 months. First of all I have not even hit 7 months yet, but I am getting pretty close. This is something our mission was very good at, and then became very bad at with the new mission president, and now we are working to fix it again. For myself, I feel that my motivation level is still high. Being in a leadership position, it almost has to be because people are always looking to you. They look to your area to see how you are doing and what they can apply in their area, and even more so it forces you to be obedient because if missionaries in your zone see you being relaxed on one or more rules, they assume that it is OK because "their zone leader does it". I do plan to work hard to the very end though if that is what you are asking.
-You asked about my goals for my final 6 months. I have a few Ideas, but I will think about this one a little more and then get back to you next week.
-Thank you for all your help with the ecclesiastical endorsement. I have not heard from my mission President yet, but I will send him an e-mail right now to see if he got it.
Thank you for everything. Love you all
Elder Blake Williams
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