A Weekend at "Home"

Steve still has a business in Texas and so every now and then he has to go back for meetings and just to touch base.  Thankfully we have a great office manager that is on top of things.  I love to tag along with him on these trips as I am spoiled by my dear friends at home. 

Lunch at one of my favorite places to eat. 
I love and adore these ladies. 
Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. 
They are life long friends!

 My friend's son Zach got married the weekend I was home and it was a fun celebration.  Steve and I got to see so many at the wedding and the fun dinner.  I wish I had taken more pictures.

My dear friends Krista, Angi and Tracie
at the wedding dinner

Zach and his beautiful bride Kylee

My friend Stacy and her son Axel who is on a mission right now.
They had cutouts of him show up at different times
 all through the evening.

This one was my personal favorite. 
This is "Dancing Axel!" 
Here with Leslie and Nate

The saying..."You can never go home again" is really true.  So much has changed since we have moved from Texas that I am not sure it would feel like home if we moved back today but I will tell you that our friendships continue to deepen.  I love these people.  They are just like family!

The Laughter That Comes From Being Around Elder Black Increases My Life Span And Then McDonald's (as delicious as it is) Steals That Away....

Zone Conference

Dear Family

Well mother, I think you would be happy to know that I have done a little more research into the bilharzia. I did this because all the members that find out about bilharzia kind of freak out and act like I will have it for the rest of my life and say it is a horrible disease. I don't feel sick anymore, but I thought you would be worried so I contacted the South East Africa Area doctor an hour ago and told him about what they have been saying and he said that it is true, it can be something that is life long and not enjoyable, but it is also possible to overcome it, and he says that it sounds like I have overcome it. But just to make sure I am collecting my blood samples for him so he can do some more research into the subject, but he says I have nothing to worry about, that he is quite confident that I was just lucky and got over it. So maybe that is a mission blessing that I happened to overcome it instead of struggling with it for the rest of my life! But just encase we are still looking into it to make sure it is all taken care of.

I went on exchanges into one of the townships this week to do a few baptism interviews. I was with Elder Black who is the funniest missionary I know. He is kind of a quiet kid but then the smallest thing will make him laugh for like 10 minutes straight NO exaggeration! It was actually kind of an intense exchange. I have a few stories from that evening, but I will wait until I get home to tell you about that (nothing to big so don't worry), but just remind me to tell you.

Mom, I realized this week that I am on the McDonald's diet without even really knowing it. Elder Byrnes and I have to travel out of our area quite a bit, so when we do we always go out to eat. We realized that each week we eat out at fast food at least 4 times a week...probably more though. I cannot imagine that is too healthy, so I have come to the conclusion that during the 2 months when I come home and am not at BYU  I will take cooking lessons from you. I will need you to teach me quickly to be a sweet cook so I don't ever have to live off of fast food. The laughter that comes from being around Elder Black increases my life span and then McDonald's (as delicious as it is) steals that away....

Dad, don't be worried about whether or not I am focused for these last few weeks of the mission. That is a valid concern because we see missionaries loose it very often towards the end of their mission. I won't mention names, but I am seeing it from Elders that I have worked very closely with. It is sad to see and makes you wonder if they understand the importance of their mission. We put a lot of thought and action into motivating those that seem to have lost the motive. Do we have any thought toward when we go home? Absolutely. At first I stayed as far as I could away from those discussions, but lately with Elder Byrnes we have had very productive conversations about after mission life. It came about because we see these sweet missionaries go home and then the first thing they do is grow their hair out and get a beard and slip into the way of life they had before mission. I don't want to sound holier than thou or act like beards are of the devil, but a mission prepares you for the rest of your life. You cannot simply go on a mission for two years and then set it aside. I judge a successful missionary by his actions after mission. Does he make mission a part of his life and implement the things he has learned, or does he simply set it aside with the "been there done that" attitude. Because we both go home fairly soon we have many discussions about life after mission and how we are going to adjust back into life. What type of music is good to listen to? Obviously your not going to just listen to Motab for the rest of your life, so what kind is good then and what kid drives the spirit away? TV? Work? Many things. We are teaching many people and we are busy with missionary work, but yes my mind does occasionally turn to home. Not in a countdown kind of a way, but in a way that will help us to prepare live aspects of mission life while back at home.

Sorry I don't have time to expound we have a full day ahead and we need to get going.
Love you all

Elder Blake Williams

This is a picture of Blake when he was serving in Botswana. 
That is cow intestine in the bowl in front of them.



Gaborone, Botswana



Finding Joy in The Journey

Steve and I had to travel to Idaho to help move my 87 year old mother move out of the

ranch house on my Dad's ranch in Boise. It has been a hard journey for the family

as Mom thinks she is 35 and can still drive and live alone. It got to the point where

we (all of my siblings) felt like we were being neglectful and we just HAD to make

some changes. Mom is living at my sister's  in Arizona and is adjusting to her life

of being waited on hand and foot. We took Grant with us and stopped along the

way to let him fish.

I loved all of these railroad tracks along the way.
 I'm not so sure I would feel safe going
 on them if I were in a train. :)

 

Our first stop to fish

We found this little lake and Grant pulled fish out as fast as he
 could throw the line in.  They were not very big but isn't the fun
of it pulling them out? 
We fished until we lost our last hook. 

I meant to take pictures of the ranch house and the move but we worked so hard that week

that I just forgot.  It was hard week both physically and emotionally (so many memories attached)

but we worked hard together to get a job done. I know this is a hard time of adjustment for Mom. 

I do feel bad for her as she is in the eve of her time here on earth. I am so thankful for the siblings I have...each of us wanting the best for Mom. We are doing what we feel is right. None of us want

to get in trouble with Dad when we get to the other side.

Our Soccer Boy

Grant is a great little soccer player and he loves the game!  He is lucky enough to be on a team with his buddies Jordan and Adam. It feels a little like we are traveling back in time as we sit and watch him play.  I see so much of Tyler in the way he plays and his mannerisms.  It is just as fun the second time around! Well, the third time around as Blake played to.  :)



I LOVE this picture...This is the face for "Are you KIDDING me...
I missed that shot?!!) 



So focused!

Grant and his buddy Jordan moving the ball down field.

Stay Classy

These pictures are from Blake's last area but they are all I have.

Dear Family

Thank you for the e-mails this week. That actually reminds me of the first story from the week. On Wednesday Elder Byrnes and I had to go to the office, nothing new. But we had both written quite a few letters in the past weeks and we had calculated that most of our replies would be in the box when we got to the office. It had been a while since we had checked mail, so you can imagine our surprise when we looked in the box and it was practically empty (accept for a dear Elder letter from Erika Brown, which was greatly appreciated). But we were like what is going on? This is the box for the whole zone so it should have a ton of letters and for a change there should be a ton for us. We asked one of the senior couples what was going on and they were like, yea....someone broke into the post office this week, took all the post they thought would be valuable, and then destroyed the rest. While at the same time someone else was at the main post office where all of the post goes and they did the same thing! Someone thought it would be REAL MATURE to go and destroy all of our post, RIGHT when we were actually expecting some ha ha. So yea, the local post office said that this is the 4th time it has happened since December, so they are not accepting any of the post until they have an armed guard stationed at the post office. So Pretty much at the moment, the only post we are getting are the dearelder.com letters. Eish....

Anyway, Mom, did you ever get those photos from Elder Alder's Mom from our exchange? And please send photos next week of Zach's wedding!

Another Semi funny story from the week was that I made Elder Byrnes go on exchanges with the Tembisa Elders (large township). Elder Byrnes was not too excited about it but we had been putting it off for too long, so somehow I talked him into it. He has somehow never served in a township before so he thought he was going to get mugged, and I just added on to him thinking that (sorry, I couldn't resist). He changed his watch and everything just in case he did end up getting mugged. Well, fast forward to the next morning I gave him a call and the first thing I asked him was whether or not he got mugged and of course he didn't. but he was like "no, but I got bit by a dog instead!" ha. I found it kind of funny in the moment. It was nothing to serious, it just bit through his shoe. I thought it was a funny phone call....

I think I am going to do some further research on a diamond today, so I will let you know what I have decided next week.

We had a large Stake activity this week. The stake put on something called the mini MTC for the priests. It was aimed at giving the priests a sneak peek into missionary work. Elder Byrnes and I worked pretty closely with the stake leaders to organize it. The way it worked was that Friday evening all the priests, their leaders, Elder Byrnes, the assistants, and myself went to the MTC where we acted as investigators for the new missionaries. We did it twice and the first one was quite awkward because there were five of us in there all about the same age and they did not believe for a second that we were actually investigators...especially because Elder Byrnes and I were in full suits and everything ha ha. But the second one was so Good! Elder Byrnes and I went into a teaching situation with just us two being taught by a brand new companionship. One was from southern Cal. and the other was from Madagascar and he didn't know how to speak English too well yet. We somehow convinced them that we were car salesmen at Mercedes Benz and that we were just at the MTC with one of our friends who was a member of the church, but we somehow became separated with him and now we were asked to be taught by them. It was so sweet! It explained why we were in suits and why our accents were American and Australian (because we were both recently transferred to the Johannesburg branch). It was SOO good! The Elder from Southern Cal was so nervous because he thought we were real investigators. Even when the teaching was done we tried to give him the Book of Mormon back and he was like, no no! Those are for you to keep! Make sure you read and pray about the message. ha ha it was good. But ANYWAY! the priests then were in pre assigned companionship's. They went back to the house of one of the individuals in the companionship where they were asked to do their own cooking/cleaning/prep for the next day. They slept over at that individuals house and then the next morning they had to get up at 6:30, work out, do their studies, etc. Just the normal Missionary morning schedule. Then at 11 they all met together at a chapel and we also had the missionaries from our zone join in for this part. Elder Byrnes and I put 1 or2 priests with each missionary in our zone and then the district leaders gave them training on what they were going to be doing that day. After training we had lunch and then split to the different areas. I had a very shy kid with me who just turned 16 so I took him to go tracting in a somewhat wealthy section of the township that we were in. It wasn't really a township though because it was larger houses and white people and stuff. But anyway I told him that in our 2 hours together we were each going to try and place a Book of Mormon. He was very shy so I had to do all the talking. and for some reason it was so hard that day to give people a Book of Mormon! I would start talking to them and it would be going SO well, and then I would mention the Book of Mormon and they should shut off! After being rejected time and time again for like 45 minutes I finally convinced this kid to try the next gate. He knocked on the gate, this lady stuck her head out the window of the house and he was just like "hey...we are missionaries. Do you want a Book of Mormon?" And she was like"....um, yes! That would be great!" I was Dumbfounded! I have given out SO many book of Mormons in he last 22 months and then this kid comes and shows me up...it was pretty funny. I finally gave mine out right before we had to finish. After finishing we all met back at the chapel and they had a little testimony meeting for the priests. Which by they way they were all dead exhausted after only two hours of working. It was a pretty good success!

Last thing to mention for the day. This little girl in our ward, the daughter of the man we play squash with, she is 5 years old and she just passed off her last article of faith. All 13 done and she is 5! I hope Grant is done with his and has moved on to scripture mastery!
Stay Classy Family!
Love
Elder Blake Williams

May 7, 2012

Family,
Man, I still cannot believe the news about Zach. That is just SO sad.

Well,  it is sad news on top of other sad news. This week started with one of the missionaries in our zone being sent home. The saddest part is that he is 15 months on his mission and shows no sadness for going home. He is from Australia.

-Mom, did you ever get those pictures from Sister Alder? It would have been a few weeks ago. It is from a dinner we had with the assistants.

-Well, I feel kind of down at the moment so sorry if this e-mail does not sound too exciting, because we really have had an exciting week. One of the most exciting things from this week is that the BYU Young Ambassadors were touring South Africa this week, so President Omer Arranged for every missionary in the mission to attend. Elder Byrnes and I actually attended 2 times. The first one was Thursday night that we attended with the rest of our zone. It was pretty classy because Elder Byrnes and I some how ended up on the front row with Elder and Sister Cook (of the 70) and President and Sister Omer. I think this performance was a wake up call for me. I felt awkward during many sections of the performance. It was all about marriage and love so I was hoping I felt awkward because the performance was awkward, but I get the impression (the wake up call) is that it was just weird to me because I have been a missionary for so long and now I am going to be SO awkward when I go home and have to date....

President invited about half of the zone leaders to the Pretoria performance because there were quite a number of government officials invited as "VIP's", so we went to escort them around. Not to many of the VIP's ended up even coming, but there were no complaints because once the performance started we got to sit on the top level which was the VIP section. The church goes all out for these events so that they can build strong relations with others. Since we were in the VIP section we enjoyed some Sushi platters and some grapetizer (which has been my new favorite). That event was quite fancy pants and we had a few investigators there. Don't take this the wrong way, but I feel like my standard of living is actually going to drop when I go home. In Centurion we get treated SO well. For a hobby we play squash in the golf estates on Mondays, we get fed very nice meals pretty much daily, we go to fancy pants shows and get treated like VIP's, I am driving a brand new car and speaking on a brand new fancy pants phone. My experience here is FAR different than the first 18 months of my mission. I had a LARGE drop in the standard of living, which went up slightly when I went to Nelspruit, then hit an all time low when I got to Kanye, and now it is at an all time high in Centurion.

Well, I was planning on spending most of my e-mailing time talking about the sweet studies and insights that I have had this week, but I will simply over view that. We have quite a few investigators that we are working with at the moment and helping them to experience true repentance in their lives. Naturally, because of this I have spent a lot of time studying about repentance and I have realized the great need that I have for it in my life. This realization came as I was looking further into sins of omission. The purpose of this life is to become more like Jesus Christ. We spend most of our time discussing and struggling with the things that we are not supposed to do. But what about those those things that we ARE supposed to do. It is in the action that we develop more Christ like attributes and as a result become more like Jesus Christ. I thought back on my life and feel sorrow for all that I have let pass me by. The biggest example is seminary. Obviously I went and graduated from seminary, but I kick myself every time I think about all that I could have learned if I took advantage of the situation. If I had simply prepared a little bit and then fully participated in class, my gospel knowledge would be far greater than it is at the moment. I also think about daily scripture study. Before my mission I viewed scripture study as a good thing to do if I had time. I cannot believe I went 19 years of my life without realizing that going a day without studying your scriptures is actually a sin. We are instructed by the Lord through the prophets that we are to study our scriptures daily. It is by studying the scriptures and applying what we learn that we make those steps toward becoming more God like. From experience I have realized that if we are not making steps toward this goal we are in reality sliding away from it. Like always I do not have more time to get into this fully, but I would challenge the family to look at your individual and family lives and see what ways you are slacking. Acknowledgement is the first step in repentance. Sorrow will come, forgiveness will be granted, and improvement can begin.

Love you all

Elder Blake Williams