White Rhinos

This weekwas my last zone conference. On the way down to zone
conference, we passed by the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, which is a
sandveld of the Kalahari desert! It was a lot of fun. We saw some
giraffe, a kudu or two, some white rhino's some zebra and springbok,
and a dung beetle rolling around a huge ball of dung. The rhino's got
exceptionally close to us in our jeep. It was great. It was nice to
go before I leave. I enjoyed it very much. I was just disappointed
that there are no elephants in that reserve. Maybe next time. But it
was fun, we all enjoyed ourselves. Then we traveled down to Gaborone
for zone conferece. It was great as well. They were talking about
their goals for next year, and it was sad to realize that I wouldn't
be a part of that, but the mission is going to continue to do well.
Those new sisters don't even realize how much they have to look
forward to. Zone confrence was good, but I missed my area and my
people. Zone conference hit us kind of hard, because we missed three
days, and when we got back it was Saturday evening, so we didn't
really have time to invite people to church, and it showed. We only
had around 70 people this week, and from our area there were only
eight investigators that showed up! Eish, leaving the area is not
good. But the ones getting baptized on Saturday were in attendance.
I am very excited for their baptisms! It will be so great! We should
have 3-5 people from our area getting baptized this Saturday. I say
three to five, because I am not sure if two kids will be allowed to
get baptized by their parents, but we will see. Hopefully. So, this
week will be a great one. I look forward to these last two weeks here
in Francistown. Gosh, I am really going to miss this place. I can't
believe it is almost over.

Pictures from Baptism

Roots

This week was good. It was a little hectic. There was a huge storm
on Friday evening that destroyed a lot of houses and uprooted a lot of
trees, and destroyed most of the billboards around the town. None of
us, the missionaries, or members were affected. It was pretty crazy
driving through the town on our way home and seeing the damage.
Botswana is not used to storms like that I guess. It wasn’t even a
bad one compared to the storms we get in the Midwest. But it did alot
of damage here for these people. Especially the ones living in
poverty. So, that was the most interesting part of this week. We
also finally got to watch general conference, and one of the speakers
talked about being rooted deep in the gospel. And that applied so
well to what happened the night before. Those huge trees were blown
right over because they were not deeply rooted. I hope the same would
not happen to us as Satan sends his storms and his mighty winds. It
is so important to be deeply rooted in your faith. That is one thing
I learned from this storm. The church was full again this week.
There weren’t enough chairs again. The kids were sitting on the
floor. Gerald needs to split again. I think there were 126 people in
attendance this week! It is so exciting to see that the excitement
has not yet died off, these people are dedicated. I love the work
here. It is a very exciting time to be here. I have holy envy for
the sister that gets to replace me, that will probably be entering the
MTC this week! Lucky girl!

Rain

Another great week has come and gone here in Francistown. We have a
lot of people progressing towards baptisms, hopefully, if all goes
well, I will get to see four or five or more on the 20th! We are
working really hard for that. We have some good, dedicated people we
are teaching. Well, it did rain this week, which is great for
Botswana, but bad for the church. People here are afraid of rain, and
stay in their homes when it rains, and it was raining Sunday morning.
When sister ChirChir and I woke up, we both said...."Oh no!! People
won't come to church!!" And we were only somewhat right. We still had
a good number of people come out and join us. It stopped raining
right before church started, so more came late. But in sacrament
meeting, we had around 60 people. Which is about half of the people
that came last week. So,the rain stopped alot of people from coming,
but we got to see who the dedicated people were. Church was just
better this week. It was less hectic. I did a lot to help the Relief
Society group leader get more organized, and we had a much better
class this week. It also helped that we got Gospel Principles manuals
this week to use as well. So, the work is going great here. It is
very exciting. I wish all of you could be here to experience this.
We are making history. Francistown also became its own zone. So, now
there are three zones in Botswana; when I came on mission there was
one! Now, there are three! This mission is completely different from
the one that I came to a year and a half ago! Wow, and the changes
are so exciting. So, that is the news from Francistown. One more
thing though, we had a very interesting Friday evening. Sister
ChirChir and I were walking form a member's home to our car, and as we
were passing by this house, the little girl wanted to greet us. The
only problem is, that their two HUGE dogs, also wanted to greet us!
When they came barking to the gate, I immediately went to the car, but
my companion stayed outside the gate in the street to greet the little
girl. Well, the dogs beat the girl to it. Sister ChirChir got
attacked by these two huge dogs, and bit on both arms, and her left
hand! It is really a great thing that it was raining earlier, because
her rain jacket saved her forearms from major bites. But her hand got
bit pretty bad, you could see the bone on the pinky finger! She is
fine now, but dogs and missionaries don't mix. So, that was an
interesting experience we had this week. But don't worry, she is
fine, the dogs had their rabies shots, which we were also grateful
for. Well, I am hoping for another good week here on mission, but I
know it will be because we FINALLY get to watch general conference!!!
Only a month late!!! But i am excited to listen to the prophet and
apostles. And I hope everyone else is as well!!