Women's Conference at BYU

At La Jolla Groves in Provo.
Dina, Christine, Lori and Me! 

It was so fun to go spend time with some of my favorite people at BYU's Women's Conference.   I am so thankful to Steve and Camille for picking up my life while I was gone.  It was fun to learn so many great things from wonderful speakers and spend time with some pretty great friends.  W laughed and cried and had the time of our lives.  I am so thankful for friendships.  These women are fabulous mothers and examples to me and they bless my life. 

Remember that we are supposed to find joy in this life!

Family

It sounds like everyone has crazy lives at the moment. Kaylee graduating, Tyler doing 4 weeks of tests, Carly working out my schedule and being a nurse, Joel staying classy, Cami getting ready for school, Grant picking out a dog, Mom going on Women's conferences and having birthdays, and Dad making decisions worth tens of millions of dollars(I just realized that I did not write you back on this point that you mentioned, but be sure to do the morally right thing. I cannot remember who was telling me this, probably the temple president, but he was discussing how all of us have at least one very large trial in life. One that stands above the rest. And as hard as it is and whatever the consequences of this decision, whether good or bad, it is there to test us. To see if we will make the right decisions, even when the world is turned against you. Lucky for you it is just 10s of millions of dollars, and PriceWaterhouse instead of the entire world. Keep that same mind frame that you mentioned, where you can see what is right after 10 seconds of pondering. When you have been guided to know what is right, then act upon it)! I hope everyone is still finding time to read their scriptures every day and not allowing themselves to become TOO stressed. Remember that we are supposed to find joy in this life!

I have about 20 things written here for me to share with the family and about 10 minutes left, so I will try and hurry.

-I got Grants letter! And I also got a package from this girl back at BYU and it was full of cereal. When I opened the package I was like, YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME! An entire package and all that is in it is cereal and smilies? Turns out that American cereals have been missed more than I thought and it turned out that it was a pretty delicious package. Just an idea for anyone sending any packages to any missionaries out of the states anytime soon.

-Mom, we had a TOTAL recreation of what you did to the sister missionaries! Not sure what happened on Friday, but we had 3 meal appointments scheduled (scheduling error!) and we showed up to one of them and the family seemed really excited to see us....but something was not quite right? It was so awkward, but the wife eventually just brought us out WAY too much food. And she was like, Elders it is a great surprise to see you here. Did you see in your calendar that you are also coming here on the 27th? And I was like yea....today is the 27th. She was SO embarrassed. Elder Byrnes blames it on our family forgetting about the sisters. Just a funny little side story.

-Man I have alot to say, but it is all quite insignificant. Just know that things are going very well in the zone. There were only two zones that hit their April goals and we were one of them with 133% goal achievement. Pretty exciting!

-Yesterday it hit me how blessed I am to be in this area. This is my fifth area and it is the first were I feel the missionaries are not playing a significant role in the ward or branch. Instead we are actually fully focused on missionary work. It is sweet! Although it is kind of selfish I realized that in every other area people were always dependant on us, planning activities, giving last minute talks, activating members, etc. But in this ward It is not like that at all! I am learning SO much from all those around me. I have fairly frequent contact with Elder Cook of the 70 (he will probably be joining me when the Motheo family is sealed on the 25th of this month, that is the family I baptised in Bots), We have become close friends with the Temple President (I had a nice discussion with him in the temple this week and he wants us to come to his house again sometime soon for family home evening so he can teach us more about the sealing power and anything else we would like to know about), We are teaching the Stake Presidents daughter in law, There are SO many "classy" people that I have SO much to learn from! Our teaching pool is also growing because the support of the ward, and it is full of well established, well educated people who have become successful in this life and simply have not found that happiness. We stopped by a family in the ward yesterday to give them some of their dishes back and they had a "snack" for us. It was a full on crape and waffle meal, so much food! This family is very strong in the church and you can feel the spirit simply be stepping into their home. But when they heard that we were both going home soon they spoke for 2 or so hours about 1. Finishing strong on the mission ( I have decided not to pack until the Tuesday morning that I leave) 2. Picking the right career. He was quite helpful in giving many tips about what we should be looking for in a career. 3. They spoke about marriage forever! It was pretty funny because everyone has been speaking about marriage to us lately! But the difference was, was that this family gave very good advice for getting home and deciding who to marry.

My point in all of this is that I am learning from everyone because I am surrounded by the best people!

Got to run
Stay classy
Love,

Elder Blake Williams

It is because of those hard times that my testimony has been strengthened and we get to prove ourselves to the Lord.

Dear Family,

There is quite a bit to write about today so I will combine the e-mail and try to go quick!

The week started with a phone call from the Mission President saying that one of the missionaries in our zone needed to be to the airport in 2 hours because he was going home for an un-expected funeral. Missionaries do not usually go home for funerals, but most of the family is not members and they pleaded that he be aloud to go home, and the area 70 agreed, so he went home for a few days and he came back on Saturday. I felt bad for him. It was his grandpa and he was very close to him before his mission. He is a strong missionary though and I am sure he will deal with it well.

• Elder Byran's and I's request was granted and we are staying together for another transfer. That means that we will be together until the 29 of May. My prediction is that he will then go and replace Elder Alder as the AP when he is transferred at that time. Then I will have a 6 week finishing companion.

• I FINALLY baptised yesterday! Had my first two white baptisms and they went very well. It is a part member family so it was another part to that family. The only person in the family not yet baptised is the father and he is a strong Afrikaner. Very intimidating man who could care less if he was your friend or not. That one will take a lot of work.

• Elder Alder was supposed to tell his mom about our exchange that we had, and she was supposed to pass on the word to you so that you could hear about it. But since you did not make mention of it I will give a quick run down before you get the full scoop and pictures. On Friday after going on exchanges in one of the townships in our zone, the Assistants went on splits with us. I first of all went with Elder Hill (Such a spiritual missionary, it is crazy how obedient he is! Elder Alder is like the definition of Obedient and Elder Hill just takes it multiple steps further than the definition of obedient) but anyway I took him to a first appointment with a part member family. Very Very wealthy youngish family. It was probably the nicest house I have ever been in my life. There are quite a few that we have been in lately that are nicer than anything I have been in America, but the only reason I mention that is because Elder Hill did not know what to do around rich people ha ha. Then we all met up at a Child of record baptism our ward was having and it was SOO intense! The Stake Presidency was even there and the chapel was pretty much full! THEN instead of some cookies after the baptism it was a full on dinner where the gym had been converted to look similar to Carly's wedding reception! Actually a step or 2 down from that, but it was way nice! We skipped out on the dinner though because Elder Byrnes (being labeled as the 2 classiest missionaries) had to treat them to a dinner we had provided. You will see photos of it, but we converted our living room to a very up scale dining room with full out cloth napkins and everything. We served Escargot (snails) for appetizers, lasagna,.....anyway, not sure why I am wasting time on this but it was very nice! and then in the morning we played touch rugby with the ward.

• Diamond: No I don't have anyone in mind! That may or may not be the reason it is so hard to pick one out!

• Dad, it was sad to hear about the kid in Canada Ward who came home. It is sad when that happens, but there is no question about it, a mission is hard. People who have not been on a mission have not the slightest clue what trials people go through. That is why they grow so much in 2 years! You grow through trials, how do you grow so much in 2 years? INTENSE trials like you have never faced before. It is sad when it drives the Elder to go home. I feel we have multiple Elders in our zone right now that are going through trials like they have never experienced in their life. It is during this time that they need so much support so that they know how to get through the trial. Once they do, they become so much stronger. It is sad watching them go through it. I look back on those experienced in my mission. I have definitely had that happen many times in these 2 years, and I am so glad that I was able to look heavenward and get through it. I needed to learn those lessons in this life, and although hard, I would not trade those experiences for the world. It is because of those hard times that my testimony has been strengthened and we get to prove ourselves to the Lord.

• This trip you mentioned sounds fun but I would try to shorten it to a 2 or 3 days if possible. I am leaning towards simply spending time with the family until I start school like you were saying. Money will come later.

• We had General Conference this weekend and it was SO good! a few of the talks that I really enjoyed were: Elder Holland (that is just a given), Robert D. Hales (stellar talk), Elder Ballard. Between the sessions we had lunch with that family I told you about that fly helicopters to work (no big deal). The Temple President lives with them so I went over and decided to have lunch with the Temple President (it was a picnic setting). What a man! We talked about so much in our 45 minutes together. He is quite a scholar so I picked his brain a little. We talked about study habits and he said that the turning point for him in his studies was when he realized that what is on TV is garbage and he decided to replace that time he makes for TV to study. Because of the lack of time I cannot get into everything that we talked about, but he invited us over to his house next Monday so that we can further our discussion on the Covenants of Salvation and Covenants of Exaltation. Something very interesting out of our discussion though was when he looked down and saw an African spider on his pants. I have seen pictures lately of what an African spider can do to you and it honestly kind of scares me. Instead of swatting it away he did something very similar to that painting of Christ and the butterfly. He helped the spider onto his finger and then set it gently on the grass. It was something very interesting that I have not ever seen anyone do before.

• Anyway, I am over time, but I have an assignment to give before I log off. I continue to be surprised at who is actually reading these e-mails, so my assignment goes to everyone who reads this to please simply let me know about it. If you don't want to write a physical letter, then simply log onto dearelder.com and Simply let me know that you read these e-mails. I would appreciate knowing who reads this... :)

Well family, that is all I have for you today. We have an exciting week. Our recommendation was also granted and Elder Tamale will be training starting Tuesday! He has only been out for 3 months but we feel he is ready. I am excited for him.

Stay Classy
Love you all,

Elder Blake Williams