The way we act, speak, look, and even think should be a reflection of him and his ways".

Dear Family

In two weeks we will have already talked for Christmas! It has not really hit me yet that it is Christmas, which I guess is a good thing because missionaries tend to get trunky if it does hit them. We are planning on going caroling soon though, which will be very enjoyable. Everyone laughs at us when we tell them we are going to do that, but its alright, we need to let people know that it is actually Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas. I am trying to get more details on the phone call. We have been quite busy lately with a few random things, one of which is getting a house for the new senior couple. Turns out that buying a house in Africa is not the same as in America. No one puts up signs or anything, you just drive around and look for empty houses that are nice enough for an American senior couple to move into, and then do some detective work to find out who the owner is (which is actually a lot harder than you would think). Funny story with that: We found the perfect house in Lobatse (which there was only one perfect house), so we did some investigating and found out that the DIS (department of intelligence and secret service) owned the house. Thinking that I was the big man on campus I did some more research and found out where the DIS is located (which apparently is not supposed to be known?). My companion and I walked into this DIS building and they were not impressed that we 1. learned that they owned the house 2. Learned where their office was. So long story short, they did not allow us to buy that house from them. But anyways! We found them another house and we should hear word today whether or not we can get that house. This affects you because IF we do get this house AND we can locate a nice internet company, THEN we should have skype up and running by Christmas day.

I don't know how it will work for your side, but I think that skype only allows you to video skype one person at a time (at least that's how it was back in my day...18months ago).

We have been busy with other things lately though, which is not ideal, but keeps us sane during the down time during the holidays. For starters we have been dealing closely with a certain district in our zone lately to help them improve on their obedience level. We love the missionaries that are there, and have built good friendships with each, but they are failing pretty hard when it comes to obedience. Because we are friends with them we tried all the soft correction approaches first by having zone meetings and then eventually by meeting with the district leader. I HATE giving correction, but it came that time this week where I had to give it very firmly. So this week I went on a two day exchange with a fellow Texan brother. I bring the entire district together and lay down the law pretty hard (which was not desirable), but it actually ended up going much better than I thought. It was also fun Spending time with Elder Texas (he is one of those too proud to be a Texan guys ha! He is about 1 month on mission and a recent convert to the church. Currently the only member in his family).

Other than dealing with that district, we have been spending too much time trying to locate a house (I hope we have finished that). And then yesterday I had to take another missionary from our zone to the airport to go home. He is from Uganda and they have not been able to get him residency in South Africa OR Botswana. Poor kid has to fly home to Uganda until they can figure something out. The church threw him a bone though and flew him home business class, so that was pretty impressive.

Other than that we have just been dealing with problems here and there. We have transfers tomorrow so I am going down to Joburg for a Zone leader meeting.

Alright well in other news:
-How come no one wanted to inform me that Zach Boyer is engaged!!!??? That is awesome! I feel like EVERYONE I knew back home will be married by the time I get home.

-Grant is the man! Good job on your piano!

-TIA of the week: This week the other Elders were having a baptism and inside the baptism faunt was a HUGE spider! It was this huge red thing and I was very interested in it because it was so big that I could see its crazy mouth and everything. Because it had nearly drowned it was out of energy and not moving. I asked the branch president if I could pick it up and he said "oh that spider is harmless!" So I picked it up and was fascinated by this thing. Once the spider got its strength back it started to strike at me and the SAME branch president said "make sure that thing doesn't bite you. Its actually extremely poisonous and can kill a person." I walked away speechless as I do with all TIA's.

-Why didn't you tell me Dillon Flake had his mission call!?

-Dad you asked me last week about my goals for my final 6 months. That is something that I have thought a lot about this week and I can still say that I don't know! But I only have a couple weeks until I need to settle on a couple goals. One quote that I have been studying a lot lately though is from Elder Christofferson. It goes, "People should be able to see in us something of Jesus Christ. The way we act, speak, look, and even think should be a reflection of him and his ways". This is a very true statement, and when we think about our purpose on this life we should be striving to bring our lives in line with this quote. While I was studying this morning I came across Moroni 7:48 which reads "Pray with all the energy of heart that ye may be filled with this love (speaking of charity)...that when he shall appear, we shall be like him." We obviously want to be like him and the scriptures stress charity a lot. I would like to work on Charity and Humility for the last 6 months of my mission, but it is hart to make "SMART" (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time bound) goals on those two topics.

Well family I have said a lot.

Thank you for all your support.

I am trying my hardest not to open my Christmas presents early, including the package from the Smiths.

Love you all

Elder Blake Williams