I'M GOING THERE SOMEDAY.....WITH MY LADY!

ONLY BLAKE...........

CLASSIC  BLAKE!

Cleanliness is next to Godliness.

 Dear Family,

Well, we had a very good week this week. It started off by having dinner at the temple presidents home. He unfortunately was not there, but he wants to meet with us soon. We had dinner with their daughter and her husband who are a very wealthy couple. He does something to do with Mining. He either owns the mine or manages the finances or something like that. It was something that was quite interesting for me. We talked a bit about his work and that may be something I will give a second look at some point. Do you know anyone in that field that I could talk to when I get back?
Anyway, my comp and I left that appointment very impressed with the family. We both agreed that they are very classy and we first contributed it to the fact that he flies a helicopter to work, has an E class Mercedes, lives in a huge house, etc, but we quickly realized that those things although kind of cool, had nothing to do with why this couple was so classy. When we got back to the flat where we are staying with 2 other zone leaders we started talking to them about why this family impressed us so much. And we quickly made the link from joking about classiness to quite a serious discussion about covenant keeping. Kind of a big jump, yes, but that was exactly it. The first thing we realized about the family is that everything about them is clean. Their house is spotless, their clothing, speech, everything about them was clean. Cleanliness is next to Godliness. The outward appearance of cleanliness reflects a lot about the true person. After Cleanliness we got into a discussion about reverence, and keeping our covenants. (I know it is probably hard to follow any of this but I am quite late to go get a missionary companionship so I have to type fast). But we tied in our whole discussion about Classiness and Covenants with my favorite quote from Elder Christofferson "People should be able to see in us something of Jesus Christ. The way we act, speak, look and even think should reflect him and his ways." This has been the theme for our flat this week. Living in such a way that people can sense something of Jesus Christ. This comes as we truly honor our covenants. Its been a bit of an eye opening week for me and I am very grateful that I was able to learn that lesson while on my mission.
I am sorry most of this probably did not even make sense. It does not help that I have been rushed.

I hope all goes well this week.

Momma, Thank you for your support while I am in the mission field.  I know I do not have much time to update you all that you would like to know but, I do appreciate all that you and the family do for me.
 
I Love you all
Elder Blake Williams



Dosen't this look like so much fun?!



The Next Olympian!!

Grant has loved taking ski lessons and he seems to have no fear.  It is fun for me to see my two boys out skiing together.

 

Grant taking the lead.
This is the ski hill they built for the 1988 Olympics
held in Calgary and where the movie "Cool Runnings" was filmed)



Love these boys!

Look Who Came to Visit

I have to say that we never get tired of visitors.  Even the four legged kind.  It is fun to see them in the yard and Grant always picks up the camera to take a few pictures.

I did see them snooping around my raspberry plants so I may be changing my mind on their visits.  :)

The Dinosaur Capital of the World...Family Day

Canada celebrates a day called Family Day and I think every country should adopt Family Day.  This year Steve was stuck at work and so I took the kids to a place called Drumheller, Alberta to see their Dinosaur Museum.  It is in the middle of nowhere and I was truly not expecting much but was I ever wrong!  The museum was fabulous and first rate.  For a dinosaur lover this is a great place.  They had a collection of all kinds of interesting artifacts.  I think we all enjoyed the day.

This was one of my favorite fossils.
 I would love to put that on my coffee table!



Who does this???! Camille.....



They had this great little play area.
  As you can see even Camille got into the action.

I think we would all agree that it was a great day.  If you have have the chance to go to Drumheller, you better do it!

Puzzle Time

One of our Christmas traditions is to have a family puzzle going.  Everyone (but me) enjoys spending time working on it.  Well, Grant saw this puzzle and wanted it soooo bad.  I was happy to let him pick out this years puzzle.  However, I didn't think about the fact that the kids were not coming home this year (it was (their in-laws year) this puzzle was a HARD 1000 piece puzzle. Grant would be be swayed into buying an easier puzzle and saving this one until next year.  So...it took a couple of months but here is the finished project!

Grant putting the LAST piece in!

The masterpiece.

I have to admit that it drove me crazy to have the mess out for two months but It is a great memory for my little guy.

I feel quite spoiled in a way, but I have learned to Embrace that and use it in the work.

Momma Lama

I am glad the e-mail from the mission office got you excited...so, where did you tell them to fly me home? haha I would assume Canada, but is it in your plans to let me spend some time in Texas before school starts? I am glad they asked you IF you would be at the airport. You would be surprised. I have known an Elder or two that have gone straight back to BYU instead of going straight home to their parents. Differnet thought process? YES!

I am glad to hear about Cami. I am hearing about more and more kids that are going to BYUI. There are many kids that are in her same situation that are going to BYUI and she will learn to enjoy it. She will need to get rolling on all of the details for BYUI. The only bad thing I have ever heard about BYUI is that there are a ton of kids that go there so everything fills up very fast. Housing, classes, etc.

Things are going very well in Centurion. I feel quite spoiled in a way, but I have learned to Embrace that and use it in the work. We get fed almost every day, if not a couple times a day, all the zone leaders got brand new cars a couple weeks ago (that is like the 3rd new car I have received on mission), Elder Byrnes and I decided to get a new phone last week, so we did and I am blown away at the technology that is in this thing! I honestly cannot imagine technology being this intense in the States. It is called a C5 Nokia if that means anything to anyone, but it blows my mind how I was using a flip phone 3 years ago and now I have a phone that is more like a computer and can pretty much read my mind! We get a new flat in a week and a half, our wards are working very closely with us which is the SWEETEST thing in the world. Our members actually care about that whole sharing the gospel with their friends thing and it has blessed us so much. We cover two well established wards and it is amazing how well the work goes when everyone puts even the slightest effort into it! Our companionship has been simply challenging families to forward a Mormon message to one of their friends. That is something very simple to do, but we are teaching a very prepared family at the moment and one of the main things that got them prepared was simply family members from all over the world sending them a Mormon message every now and then...

Eish...I cannot go into further detail. Everyone is leaving so I should go

Stay Classy momma lama
Love you

Elder Blake Williams



This picture was just emailed to me from one of the SR. Couples on his mission.



I guess one of the highlights of the week is that I got De-wormed!

Family

Well, what a week. I guess one of the highlights of the week is that I got De-wormed! Apparently it is quite common for Elders to get worms, but they usually just take the mandatory pills at the end of the mission that kill all of the worms. Elder Byrnes (especially) and myself (a little bit) had not been feeling very well, and even when we were well we would just get VERY tired very early on in the day. They got a hold of the area doctor and he thought we had worms, so EVERYONE in our flat took some worm killing pills. Pretty exciting. I am doing good though and I feel like I am gaining some weight, so that is quite exciting.

Another highlight of the week was meeting with Elder Cook (of the 70). I have seen him quite often on my mission, but we found ourselves at the area office this week so we stopped in to the area 70's offices to say hello to him and he gave us a nice spiritual thought out of his ipad.

I have gained a pet peeve(?) since being in Centurion. I dislike it when people show up to church with their ipads each week. It is like a competition to see who has a cooler ipad (which they are all the same, and everyone has them, so no one wins). So I was waiting for the Brethren to come out and say something about the ipad fad that is going on. So last week when Elder Renlund visited our ward I was excited, until I saw his wife on an ipad. I was dumbfounded so I looked on the stage to see what Elder Renlunds thoughts were of his wife having an ipad at church, but he did not seem to notice because he too was on his ipad ha-ha. I did not see what was so special about them until we were with Elder Cook in his office and he could not find the scripture he wanted so he pulled out his ipad and showed us all the intense (church related) things you can do with an ipad. I must say I am sold. I will have to get an ipad when I get home, but I still disagree with them being IN church. Although it HAS the scriptures on them, it does not seem like anyone USES the scriptures on them.

Anyway, enough about my ipad thoughts. I have another assignment for mom if she is willing to accept. Next time you are in the States can you arrange for a small package to be sent to an Elder T. Once again, keep it anonymous, but just anything you think would put a smile on an Elders face that rarely gets mail. Little background on him. He is from Uganda which has a reputation for sending prideful missionaries, but he has got to be the most humble missionary I know. Just the most sincere person! He has been on his mission for about 6 weeks and him and his companion are leading our zone in almost every category. He came to the mission without a backpack and jacket, so my companion and I went out and got him a back pack and I have lent him my jackets until we can arrange some from missionaries going home. He was SO grateful when we gave him these things. If you could just send him something small it will go a long way.

I am loving my mission and we are seeing success. The church is true!

Gotta run.

Stay well family

Thank you for your support!

Elder Blake Williams