What A Week! The Phrase munch and mingle was used during church this week and I almost fell out of my chair.

 

Oh my goodness! What a week! Sorry I was not able to e-mail yesterday, on our way to e-mail we got a call from President Omer to drop everything and go solve some companionship stuff and today we got a call that there are a bunch of emergency transfers going on. We were going to just skip the week of e-mailing, but Elder Byrnes (my new comp from Australia) has not e-mailed in 2 weeks so we thought we should swing by the e-mail shop and send a quick note!

HECTIC week!
Let’s see, updates from the week:-Elder Zondi (my Kenya companion) lost 2 years of his memory the Monday before I left.
-I feel like I am in a new mission because I was sent to a super cheese boy (very very rich) area called Centurion
-I have had a hectic week because we are trying opening up a new are in the zone for 2 of the elders but somehow they did not have a flat or anything arranged for them? go figure...
-I am back in the same flat with Elder Hughes
-We got a new fridge that has a happiness dispenser (you can get water out the front of it like in America)

Rewind back to Elder Zondi- Monday, the day before transfers we had to run to gabs to arrange for all the missionaries to be car pooled down to South Africa. We went out to eat and then printed some pictures before going to the chapel to wait for the sister missionaries to bring a car that we needed. While there, there were some other missionaries playing soccer in the gym and I convinced Elder Zondi to play some soccer with me since this would be our last chance to play together and we had never played together. During the game he was acting as goalie when another missionary shot the ball super hard and it smacked him right in the face. I think this knocked him out because he did a lifeless 360 right before falling flat on his face. Naturally we ran over to see if he was OK and it was obvious that he had been shaken up a bit, but all looked fine so he walked off to get a breather. A few minutes later an elder from our flat went to check on him and could tell something was wrong so I ran to the bathroom but once I got in he immediately looked at me and was scared to death of me (I have been working out, but I didn't think it kicked in that well yet). I could tell something was wrong so we immediately arranged with a few missionaries to figure out where the hospital was. Meanwhile he had no idea what was going on. He was speaking in Zulu and said he did not recognize anyone. I used my nascar skills and got a car, we got a couple missionaries that spoke Zulu and got them in the car. Elder Zondi had NO clue who I was, or anyone else for that matter, but I was his companion so he was supposed to know who I was. On the way to the hospital we realized how bad it really was. He thought that it was Sunday January 2010. He vividly remembered what was going on a few minutes before he was hit, and even what he did with his friends the night before. The only problem was that it was two years ago! It goes without saying but he was very scared and would not believe that he was a missionary, that he was in Botswana, that he had ever seen me before, etc. We finally convinced him to get to the hospital (which was a challenge in and of itself because he hates hospitals more than anything...even back then) In the hospital, they of course made us wait for a bit but during this time he was not happy with us and he kept bagging us to just let him call his family to really see it he was supposed to be on a mission. It was really sad when he asked to call him mother. It scared me for a bit because his mother passed away when he was 11, but after a couple seconds he realized that his mother was no longer living.

The humor part out of all this craziness was that while waiting for the doctor he pulled out his white handbook and was looking at the front page which is personal information on it. It asks if you are taking any prescriptions or if you are allergic to anything. He started to read where it said ""Prescriptions: Book of Mormon, Preach my Gospel, New Testament… Allergic to anything? Yes, False Prophets". When he read this he looked up and said confusingly "That is my hand writing, but why would I write such stupid stuff!" It was intense and to keep him from freaking out I had to talk to him about stuff I knew he enjoyed from back home. The hospital took a scan and gave him some pills and said he would slowly get his memory back.

We took him to the Botswana mission home and set up a bed for him. Long story short (because I am very short on time), I did not really sleep that night and they said I was supposed to stay in Botswana until he got his memory back. I was supposed to wake him up every hour to make sure he was fine. At about 4:45 am he fell out of bed and hit the night stand where he gained back his 2 years of lost memory, and lost the last 15 hours of confusion. I then made him some breakfast and tried to convince him that he lost 2 years of his memory the night before. He had no idea anything happened. I left for South Africa about 10 minutes later. CRAZY DAY!

To this moment it is still crazy. I am in an extremely rich are at the moment. I feel like I was transferred from the middle of Africa to the Connels neighborhood, because I was! We had a DA in the golf estates which was much like the Connels neighborhood, and apparently we have a DA in the very cheese boy area. I cannot even compare it to anywhere in South or Westlake because it is that rich. But just imagine that Southlake, Keller, and Westlake were an area and that is where I am at. My companion is the man. The members love us, and I have never been so happy! everything is going very well, I am being fed, we are teaching people, What else does a man need?

OH! I must mention. We cover 2 wards which are mostly white. And they are so sweet! The Phrase munch and mingle was used during church this week and I almost fell out of my chair. They are planning activities and everything! Both wards give the impression that everything revolves around the missionary efforts and building Zion. It is awesome.

Well I have to split, it is busy ahead of us. Apparently Elder Fisher who I served with in Nelspruit is being transferred into my zone in about 90 minutes.

Thanks for everything family
Stay classy
Love,
Elder Blake Williams

Mom, Use revelation when it comes to my housing situation ha-ha

Back To South Africa!

I am not sure why he has started to write us separate letters but he has.  :)
Momma Llama,

First of all, I do not know when they send out my actual dates for returning home, but there is a 99% Chance that I will fly out the night of July 10th and then it is about 2 days of travel. I am still convinced that July 2012 will never come. It is a crazy thought to think that I am not going to be in Africa for the rest of my life! ha

Well I got a call on Saturday that I am being transfered. VERY surprising phone call for many reasons. All they told me is that I will continue in my assignment as a Zone Leader and that I will be serving in SOUTH AFRICA! WHAT!? I finally convinced myself that I was not leaving Botswana and I was OK with that, and then they send me to South Africa.  Out of 200 Elders there are only about 10 that have residency. 8 of those 10 go home in the next 5 months. And it is becoming much harder for missionaries to get residency. I was with the mission president last week when he was informed that the price of registering missionaries for the CHANCE to get residency has jumped from 500 pula to 3,000 pula (about 500 US dollars). Even after paying that 3,000 for each missionary (about 8 missionaries every 6 weeks), that only gives them the chance to get residency, and Chances are so low that during the 7 months that President Omer has been here only 1 Elder has received residency. I don't know if any of this even makes sense, but my point is, is that missionaries have not been able to get residency in Botswana, so they desperately need the 10 of us that do have residency to be in Botswana, and during all of this I am being transferred down to South Africa? It makes me feel like there was revelation in this decision. There would be no other reason to take me out of the Country.
Enough about that. I have not received that package yet, but I am looking. You can just send my mail to South Africa from now on.
My health. ha ha, well I did realize this morning that I am losing weight, but that was expected. I have been eating very healthy sense I got sick, and I am enjoying it! I did not know how to cook with fruits and veggies, but I just got to the store and buy whatever looks fresh and then cook with it. It has been a pretty good learning experience for me. Don't worry about my weight though. All but one of the Zone leader areas in South Africa are rich towns which means I will be fed a lot.
Well I don't know where the time has gone, I need to go finish the e-mails!
I love you
Blake
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Dad
Well, because of time I will have to have you just read moms email that talks about my transfer to South Africa. I am quite surprised, but look forward to it.

I am sad to hear that mom is struggling with back problems. I have been keeping it a secret for a while, but recently my back has started to give me problems again. I have looked into it a bit, keeping in mind the things my chiropractor from Texas told me. I have become convinced that it is a result of my bad posture, not really the way I sit, but as weird as it sounds my head rests to far forward on my shoulders and I think that is throwing my spine off a bit. I am planning on just dealing with it for my last few months, but once I get home I want to go see a very experienced back doctor to see what he can do. I do not want to just fall into the trap that mom is in right now of having someone pop your back for a day or 2 of relief. So if you can keep your eye out for very experienced back doctors, that would be greatly appreciated.

I hope everything works out with the business expansion. That is pretty exciting, but I can imagine it would be slightly stressful for you.

Residency in Canada would be nice. I also have the same impressions that you do about work outside of the US. It is best to keep my options open.

Well shoot, I am going to be a bit sad about leaving this area. It has been a time of growing for me. Being here while the branch was passed over to the members has been a big task and we have been very involved in that. There have been multiple things going on with the Zone and I have learned a lot from that. But most important I am going to miss the new people we have been finding. We only have 5 people on baptism date right now, but 4 of those 5 are VERY strong prepared people. All of those 4 were at church this week and I am sure they will be baptised in February. It will be sad to go, but I am anxious about my new area.
Well I have to go get everything ready for the drive down tomorrow!
Love
Elder Blake Williams

Letters from Elder Williams

Momma Lama

I got your birthday package just in time! I we had Presidents interviews on Friday, so I got it then, RIGHT before my birthday. Elder Finlinsons birthday was also this week, so after the interview, us and our companions went out for a VERY classy lunch. It was a nice restaurant that even the mission presidents wife approves of (which is saying much because she is still used to American food). When we got there they were out of the Pork chops that we were hoping for, but seeing as how I have been trying to eat healthy lately I decided to get a classy salad. It was nice, and then my companion surprised me by paying for all of us. That was really nice of him...till he runs out of money for the month and I have to help him through it like usual hahaha (its pretty funny actually, African companions ALWAYS run out of money, so we have to help them out haha).

After this sickness (which by the way President Omer told me that 2 days after I got hospital level of sick, he got a call from Elder Fisher at 4:30 in the morning with the same sickness that I had, he also had to go to the ER) but anyway, after that I have been eating healthy, so this week instead of living off of pasta, salt and water like normal, I bought a package of tomatoes, and even found avocados! I surprised myself by putting both in almost everything I ate. I will get you a picture, but I made toast with butter of course topped with mashed avocado, mashed boiled egg sprinkled on that and then signature with freshly cut tomatoes! It was delicious!

But then right before going to bed I decided to try a piece of that "Maynard's Canadian liquorice" that you sent me, and no offence to you, but to the company, it was horrific! I would have rather eaten all the insides of a chicken, cleaned my teeth with the foot of a chicken, and then eaten the entire foot...Canadians should not make liquorice...

I also got a couple Christmas cards from Canadians! That puts my Canadian Christmas card count at 3 and Texas card count at 1 (not including the package the Rousseau's sent me). And in one of the Canadian letters was some "Canadian chocolate"!
You asked if we are teaching anyone and the answer is YES! I have been mentioning the difficulty of finding those that have been prepared, and how amazing it is to see just HOW prepared they really are! Well we found one of those people recently. It is a lady named Virginia. We were tracking when we started talking to this lady, she did not seam TOO interested so we were going to just leave her with a pamphlet when her sister came out (both of them are upper 20's to early 30's). Her sister asked us why we worshiped on Sunday (because they are from the 7th day church, which is a big deal here). Not wanting to get into a Bible bash like they want to, I told her that I already knew what scriptures she was going to try to throw at me, explained why we worship on Sunday, and then left her with a few scriptures that support what I said for her to look at when we left and to pray about. Thinking that this would get nowhere we invited them to church and then left. Last Sunday the first sister actually came to church! I was quite surprised. We met with her last week with the Mosses and taught her the restoration and left a Book of Mormon. STILL not realizing how prepared she was. When we came back this last week she explained to us in perfect detail the intro to the Book of Mormon and the testimonies and the only question she had was about the four different books that make up the Book of Mormon! CRAZY! We were amazed and then reminded her that she would have to pray about these things. She said she already had. She said that as she read she could find no fault in anything she was reading, but she wanted to be sure so she decided to pray about it. We asked her how that went and she said: "I got this......feeling. This un-describable feeling that these things are true....the feeling left no doubt in my mind". WHAT! Yes, that really happened! She will be baptised on the 12th of Feb.

Well Momma, thank you for everything.
Love you

Elder Blake Williams
************************************************************************************
Dad,

Well, birthdays have lost the excitement they once had. To be honest I felt 21 a long time ago. It's odd to think that I have only had a year and a half on my mission, I feel as if there has been 20 years of growth.


It is interesting to hear that you took another Options trading class. I will need you to teach me everything you know about that when I get home. Did you meet any new friends that wanted you to spend 25k with them like at the last class we took together?


How has the business been? From your last e-mail you made it sound like you went ahead with the expansion of the business. Has it been enough time for you to regret or appreciate that decision?


You asked once again about the goals for my last 6 months on mission. I have really struggled with this actually. Throughout my mission I have been setting goals each 4 months on things that I would like to accomplish like writing in my journal more often, becoming healthier by exercising more and eating better, and not missing a day of reading the Book of Mormon. But this last 6 months has been more difficult for me to set goals for some reason. I do have a new goal, but I am working on making it a "smart" (more specific) goal. While reading from an Ensign, I came across the testimonies of previous prophets. In this, President Spencer W. Kimball referred to the saviour as his friend. That struck me as something new. We often hear people testify that the savior lives and that he is real, etc. But you rarely hear him refereed to as a friend. That communicates to me something much deeper than simply knowing he exists. I have been studying lately how I make him more of my friend, and honestly it usually starts with our thoughts. This is something I did about two months ago with the Holy Ghost, and it was a pretty powerful time of my mission for me. I need to bring that back, and then take it to the next step.


I have also been reading one section of the D&C a day so that I can read it while on my mission, but not so much that it takes me away from the Book of Mormon which should be my main focus.


Well I have spoken a lot, I need to get on to my other e-mails


Thank you for writing


Love


Elder Blake Williams

PS: We have a new senior couple in Lobatse that I have made good friends with, the Mosses. Elder Moss is a big fisherman from Idaho and he would like to go fishing with you in a year when he gets home.
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Grant Bo bant fe fi fo fant

What do you mean about the different animals? If I were an animal though, I would be a bald eagle. That would be my animal.

I saw a new bug this week! Have you ever seen a fire fly? It is a fly that looks like it has a light on it. I saw one of those this week accept it was a worm! We just saw this little green light from a long ways away. It was pretty cool dude if you ask me. That is a pretty exciting house, because the last time we were there a bird poo'd on me while I was teaching someone about repentance...I was so shocked that I stopped talking mid sentence and did not know what to say after that!

Good job at taking piano! Make sure you stick with your piano so you can play it as a missionary. I have been in two branches so far where no one knows how to play the piano, so we have to sing without one! Make sure you get really good at it.

Mom tells me that you got to see the Angel Moroni being put on the temple this week! How come you got to see it and I didn't? I have never been able to see that happen before! Tell Cami that she is supposed to send me a picture.

Stay well little man!
Love you
Brother

PS: You asked when I will be home. Ask me that when all the snow in Canada melts! :)

AMERICA: Where Freedom Grows On Trees!

Dear Family
How is everyone doing? Where has dad been lately? His e-mails are higho (gone).

I got the Rousseau's package! I was slightly worried, and I heard that we somehow have connections with the post office. Because of this I sent out a search party (informed President Kimball, the one who gets the mail) and two days later I had the package. It was pretty sweet! Christmas day all over again. Please thank them for the package, I will get a letter off to them.

I just asked the other Elders if there is anything from America that they want in this next package. Their responses were:

Elder Finlinson: Ask them if they can harvest one of those freedom trees and just send me some freedom. (I am not sure where it comes from, but Elder Finlinsons favorite line to say is "America! Where freedom grows on trees!)

Elder Zondi (who goes home in 4 months, or 1 transfer before me): Well I am going to need a girl from BYU with long hair to get married to...

me: I could use some A1 sauce and some hand sanitizer. After throwing up all the liquid inside of my body I decided to eat even healthier and to watch out for germs. Which is nearly impossible here, but hand sanitizer would at least make me feel better. Other than that I will just leave it up to you, the past packages have been quite exciting. Especially the ties you have been sending lately. That Tommy tie you sent, that I gave away was quite classy.

Well, what a week! It is HOT HOT HOT in Botswana right now. The temperature is only hitting about 40 (104f), but it feels so much hotter than that. In the words of Elder Finlinson it feels like we are ants sitting on an ant hill with a kid standing over us with a magnifier glass. We even broke down and got hats, which I heard our previous mission president suggest to a few missionaries in Botswana, but I never thought someone was weird enough to do it until this week when I found myself buying one. I somehow got away with an uncomfortable sun burn, but Elder Finlinson was not so lucky, his skin is a bright shade of red and we have even had to resort to wearing long sleeve shirts on some of the days to save our skin.

This heat does not come at a very good time either. We have been spending most of our time lately finding people. Many areas have been struggling with finding people lately, and our area is no exception. We definitely still have people to teach, but we find ourselves with many hours each day in the sun trying to find people. It is kind of odd because I am in a village in Africa and it has been quite difficult to teach people lately.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
10 January 2012

Momma Llama! I am sorry I did not get an e-mail to you yesterday! I think this is the fourth week in a row that something has happened to the Internet on Monday! I was e-mailing and I answered Cami's e-mail and a few small things and then was writing my main e-mail when of course the Internet went down and I was not able to send my long e-mail. Today I realize that not only could I not send it, but it only saved about half of the e-mail. In my short time I will try to recall what I said yesterday.

I continued the e-mail by talking about the increase of confusion that seems to be going around...especially in Africa. This week when we were having lunch with the new senior couple (the Mosses, who are great!), Sister Moss mentioned how every time she gets home from an 18 month mission, the things shown on TV get so much worse. My companion and I were talking about that point that she made, and he said he feels like that with the amount of religious confusion in the world. I must agree with him, It is becoming more and more common for our first lessons with people to not go well because they bring up these crazy "doctrines" that they are set on. For example, we met with a new family for the second time this week. We were teaching them the restoration when we got to the restoration of the Priesthood. The father had done his homework and read the pamphlet we left with him (as do most people that want nothing more than to bash with us). He then walked us through a number of scriptures that did not really relate to each other. We were kind of confused as to what he was doing so we asked him (kindly of course) what his question was, or what he was trying to prove. He then said, well your pamphlet says that Joseph smith was given the Melchizedek priesthood correct? Yes. Well then these scriptures prove that you believe Christs death was in vain because everyone knows that the only purpose of the Melchizedek priesthood is for the atoning of sins.

To say the least, it was not a very successful lesson because people just want to bible bash and we realize that bible bashing doesn't do anything. It's getting harder and harder to find those that have not been bombarded with the confusion of the world, but it is all made worth it when you succeed and find those that have been prepared by the Lord. Although more and more are getting completely and utterly confused by crazy false doctrines, those that the Lord is preparing are getting more and more ready for the missionaries to meet them, and eventually to accept leadership rolls in the church. We have a few AMAZING people in our teaching pool right now. One family in particular (the family that prayed for you guys) is just so prepared! The only thing is that because of culture things, the father and mother are not legally married at the moment, so we need to wait for that to take place before they are married, but I am confident that he will help the branch here in Kanye grow.

The gospel is true! Be grateful for the restoration in your lives because we all need it!
Love you all

Elder Blake Williams
PS. Mom, you asked when transfers are. They are the 24th or something like that. I will probably have to go to Johannesburg for that.

Oregon Coast

Just one of the great pictures taken by Camille
 on our trip to the Oregon Coast.
More to come....

Stay well family, Count your Blessings, and be Happy!

Dear Family

Happy New Year! I cannot believe that it is already 2012! Even crazier than that, I cannot believe that I am not even 21 yet! So young....

Well sorry for not writing yesterday. Turns out that the second of January is a bigger public holiday than Christmas! Christmas day there were SO many people out doing just normal day things, which is weird because it was a Sunday also. Usually Sunday is a little bit quieter than other days, but I guess people realized that it was Christmas and could not imagine staying at home with their families, so everyone decided to do their shopping, and whatever else would keep them busy. All of this just to say that the streets were dead yesterday and all the Internet shops were closed.

I finally got your e-mails that you sent to me last week. Sorry I did not get those earlier or else I would have had a more exciting e-mail last week.

This new years we brought two of our zones into Gabs on Saturday to have a small missionary new years party. It was fun, we had one of those Mormon meals where everyone brings something and then everyone shares the food. We were going to be witty and get a 21 piece bucket from KFC (they have KFC everywhere in Africa accept for the 2 villages that I have served in while in Botswana, but they have one in Gabs) like is done on the singles ward, but we realized that it might be expensive, so we brought a watermelon instead... After the food we watched the Movie 17 Miracles. Not sure if you have seen it, but it is a pretty good movie! Then we all got back to our flats by 6...(new years is a little crazy in Africa, so the missionaries are supposed to go home early and then not work on 1st).

At the party I learned why so many missionaries have not been getting mail lately. When our main mission office stopped getting mail and packages in December they decided to do some investigating. Turns out that all of our mail was being collected at the air port in some kind of a holding tank, which was all fun and games until the holding tank was leaking during the rain storms and filled with water. So the mission office has slowly been getting mail again, but all the mail that is coming through has been thoroughly soaked in water (that includes packages). So if anyone has sent any mail to me in the past...month and a half? just assume that it did not reach me...because it didn't. That explained why last year I got TONES of Christmas cards from families and this year the only one I got was from our family because you sent it to Botswana and not South Africa.

Speaking of Packages, No I have not received the package from the Rousseau's...I will definitely keep my eye out though. And funny you asked if I wanted anything from the USA. I actually have a little list here:

-That blue Dial soap you sent me was awesome
-Toothbrush would be nice (I just got a new one but it is not very good)
-"charged" axe gel. I am going to grow my hair slightly longer than a short buzz cut which would require gel...
That's about it. Brownie mixes are usually appreciated as well. Thanks in advance! your awesome!

Random:
-Congrats on Carly's new job!
-I got grants letter! Thanks little man!
-I was called a satanist by some guys driving past us as they drove to the bar....That is a mile stone for any missionary. Can't believe it took this long.

Anyway, it has been a great week! I think the holiday season has gotten to me in a good way. I am not sure why, but for some reason early on in the week it clicked to me (as it often does) how much I have been blessed with. It blows my mind how much our family is blessed and I am so grateful for it! As I look around it is very easy to see people with nothing. It is common for a family to share one room where they cook, sleep, eat, everything. It is VERY common for people to not even have families! Think about how blessed we are to have a family. What greater gift could we have on this earth than to have a father and mother MARRIED who love each other and live together! I can not express how rare that is on this side of the world. This is not even to mention a family who is sealed together in the temple. Probably the saddest thing I do as a missionary is to interview people for baptism and then ask them information about their lives for church records and then to have someone tell me they don't even know the name of either of their parents. They don't even know the name!

It just dawned on me (once again as it often does), how rich we are in every way! Temporally we are rich. I just asked mom for a random gel that she is going to search out and then send to the other side of the world just so I can make my hair sit a different way so kids will stop calling me china. If you can make that kind of request, you are rich! Spiritually we are rich. We have the fullness of the gospel! I just came from a lesson where I taught probably the only white man in Kanye. He has been coming to the church and playing the piano for us for about 6 months now and his wife has made him dodge the missionaries until now. His name is Richard Benjamin and he was raised in the christian science church before he started to get into ALL kinds of christian churches. He is definitely one of those guys that would say "there is not just one true church, we all pray one God anyway, my church uses the name Christ, etc" But as we talked to him today he said "before I visited your church it never crossed my mind that there could be only one true church. But there is some kind of power in the Church of the Latter-day saints that is not felt anywhere else. I have decided that I need to sit down and truly understand this Book of Mormon who too many people just blow off and dis-regard before they even so much as see a copy, let alone read." This is coming from a man who has never before had a missionary lesson, but simply feels the power and authority that comes from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because it is the Lords Church and we have been blessed with the fullness of his gospel.

I have never been so thankful for the restoration of the gospel as I was this week. Satan laughs at apostasy and puts it into the hearts of people every day. This week I was asked two days in a row about Adam and Eve. There is a theory going around Kanye right now that there was a different group of people on the earth when Adam was "made". They say this is because when Cain killed able, Cain went to a new land and married. Then they present the question to us, "how could Cain have married in a new land if he, Adam, and Eve were the only people on the earth?" When someone is that far confused, it is hard for them to see the fullness of the gospel even if they are staring it in the face. The Bible Dictionary states: "Due to the incompleteness of the biblical record many have regarded Cain as the eldest son of Adam. However, latter-day revelation tells us that Adam and eve had many sons and daughters before Cain was born".

How grateful I am that I do not have to get confused over who Cain married, rather I can spend time working on applying Christ-like attributes in my life and preparing myself to be worthy enough to live with my Heavenly Father. Be grateful for the restoration of the gospel because there is no doubt in my mind that it is the fullness of the gospel, and just as Brother Benjamin said, there truly is no other power or authority like it on the world.

Stay well family, Count your Blessings, and be Happy!

Love you all

Elder Blake Williams