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| 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!
Stay Classy Family!
Love
Elder Blake Williams
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