24 baptisms on the 24th?

This week was another great week. We are extremely busy these
days. We have appointments every hour of the day. Not much time to
do finding on our own. Yet we are still teaching new people every
week. Why? Because the Lord is blessing us, and our members are
doing the finding for us. Just the way it should be. It is really
exciting. Seriously, this week our recent convert, Brother Zhou!!!
Called us and said, come to my house, there are two people here who
want to join the church! So, of course we went, and we put them on
date for the 24th of October  These miracles amaze me every day.
This week while planning we were discussing all of the people we are
teaching, and we decided we would put most everybody we are teaching
on date for the 24th of October! We already have eight people with a
baptismal date of the 24th of October, and we are planning on putting
on 9 more this week! So, we should have 17 people preparing to be
baptized on 24th of October. And we shared this in district meeting
this week, and the district is excited about it, so they are also
going to push and put everyone on date for the 24th of October. So,
as a district our Big Hairy Audacious Goal is to have 24 people be
baptized on the 24th of October. How cool would that be! That is the
goal, but realistically, it might not happen. But on our side with 17
people on date for the 24th, we are bound to get a few out of it. The
goal we turned into the mission president for the month of October was
3. So out of the 17 plus people with a date for October, we should
far exceed our goal! Exciting, huh? I’m sure your prayers and
support will help us to achieve our goals! We are very excited about
the work! Coming into this area, everyone told me it was a dead area,
and they had considering closing it at one point. Really? This is an
amazing area! The best area I have been in! So much potential in
this area! I really think I will get to see my goal of seeing 20
baptisms before I go home. On this coming Sunday we will be having 4
of our investigators getting baptized! We can’t wait! The work is
great. I am loving every minute of it. On a lighter note, this week
my companion made fish this week, only the entire fish! So, I ate
every part of it, the head, the eyeballs, everything. Interesting.
Not too bad. So, that was this week. Thanks for reading.

Be the Lord's Hands

This week was great. We had 13 investigators come to church this week! I think that might be the most investigators I have come to church in a single week! We were excited, yet there were still some investigators that normally come, that were not in attendance. So, we are hoping that next week will be even better attendance at church. Our gospel principles class was very full. It was very exciting. But not as exciting as after church. After church the Elders had two baptisms in the family ward. One was of an eternal investigator, Boitumelo Bakoko. He has been coming to church with his wife for the past 4 years! But never would agree to be baptized. Until yesterday! He did it! And he was so happy, and one year from now, they are preparing to go to the temple to be sealed and become an etenal family. That is the way he put it in his testimony! It was awesome! Everyone was so excited for him!!!! And then in the Singles ward, we had a university student, Refilwe Kabelo, be baptized! That was very exciting! She was very happy to be baptized. She knows the gospel is true, and she is doing great missionary work already. Recent Converts are great. They are all how member missionaries should be. They are so exciting to share the gospel with everyone they know. You can see it in their eyes, and hear it in their testimonies! I think if everyone thought back to the time they were truly converted to the gospel, and started to live that way again, then member missionary work would be what it is supposed to be. Members are crucial for the success of us full time missionaries. Without members the people we find and baptize walk in the front door, and out the back door unnoticed! And when that happens, it is sad. But seeing new members excited about the gospel, that is something that is far better than any feeling I have ever felt in my life. The church is true! If you don't know that, pray about it, find out for yourself, and then please go share that knowledge with others! The blessing you will receive from sharing the gospel with others is unbelievable! So, don't be afraid, just go out there and share your testimony! And I promise the Lord will bless you, and your life will be happier and more peaceful, and so will the lives of those people that you bring to the gospel. Go and be the Lord's hands this week!

2 transfers left

This week another transfer starts, which means I only have two
transfers left. The time really went by way to fast, but a lot is
going to happen these last two transfers. It will be a big couple of
transfers for sister ChirChir and I. This past week we put another
potential priesthood on date. We gave him a baptismal date for the end
of October. That was really great. The only problem is he has
serious Word of Wisdom issues. But we are really going to help him to
overcome those. We had a great lesson with him yesterday. He really
wants to change his life for the better, and we are just what he is
looking for. He read the conference Liahona from 2007,and one of the
talks really changed his perspective. Elder Hallstrom talk entitled
Do It Now, really got him excited to change. He knows he can do it,
and he will. So hopefully we can really help him to change, and he
will be baptized also before I go. Other than that. Not much else to
report on. We are just working hard, and I am just really trying to
stay focused on my purpose here. One of the hardest things in life is
to learn to master yourself, especially your thoughts. Controlling
actions has always been pretty easy for me, but controlling my
thoughts is ridiculously difficult. Hopefully before I go home I will
be better able to control my thoughts, but self-mastery is quite the
difficult thing. But I know it can be done, or the Savior would not
have encouraged us to become perfect. So, perfection is possible.
But it isn’t easy. But one day, I am sure I will get there, if I
continue to work hard at it.

The Heat is On!

This week was good. We set baptismal goals for the next four months. We set BHAG goals (BHAG stand for Big Hairy Audacious Goals, ones that will make us stretch) the goals we are going to try and achieve, and then realistic goals (based on baptisms in the area in the past. And for the next four months, our BHAG goal was 35, our goal is 24, and the realistic goal is twelve. We have 7 people with a baptismal date for September, so we are feeling pretty confident that we will have seven in September, and already have half our realistic goal achieved! The realistic goal is the one we turned in to the mission president, so if things go according to our plans, we will have 200% goal achievement, and everyone will want to know how we did that! It will be awesome! Sister ChirChir and I are working very hard to acheive these goals. But the moment we set them and got all excited, people started ditching their appointments. It was hard not to get discouraged, but we are working through it, and still are confident that we will meet our goals. Like I said last week, I would love to see 20 more baptisms before I go home. And I know I can do it. It will take a lot of hard work, fasting, and prayer (formula for success), but I know we will do it. Botswana will be one step closer to becoming a stake! Unfortunately, I do not think I will be here to see Botswana become a stake. I fear it will be early next year, but I am still excited for when that happens! That will be the best. Botswana is on fire.....literally....it is HOT here again! Eish, summer is coming!

finally.....after 5 years!!!

Dumela all. Sorry there was no post last week. We ran out of time emailing, so I didn’t get the chance. And last week wasn’t very exciting. But this week was VERY excited, and a lot happened. I don’t even know where to begin. First, we had Mission Tour. And the speaker was Elder Dale G. Renlund of the 70 and area presidency here in the Africa Southeast Area. It was great. Really great. He and his wife really taught us a lot about what we need to do to perform miracles for the Lord. He says if we do the best that we can, and keep improving and progressing daily, then the Lord will make up the difference and we will be able to perform miracles for the Lord, but if we ease up, become content, and or fall backwards, then we no longer qualify for the help of the Lord, and will, of course, not perform miracles. It was just really great. We learned many other things from him on how to become more effective, better missionaries for the Lord. Also, Elder Renlund was able to go teaching with my District Leader and his companion, and they planned to take Elder Renlund with them to their eternal investigator, Brother Bakoko, he has been coming to church for 5 years with his wife, but would never agree to a baptismal date, until this week! Elder Renlund went and visited him, and now Bro Bakoko will be getting baptized one the 12 of September, and Elder Renlund will seal him and his wife together next September! Wow, we were so very excited to hear that. I am glad that for most people it does not take a general authority to get them to commit to living the gospel of Jesus Christ! But I am so glad he was able to help out Brother and Sister Bakoko. Yesterday, on our side, we had a husband and a wife get baptized! Yay! It was amazing! David and Rose Gwazarira were baptized! It was so amazing to have a husband and a wife be baptized together! Wow! It was simply incredible; words cannot really describe how that baptism was! It was very very special. They were so happy, and they are also planning on going to the temple in a year from now, if they can save enough money for it. Wow. David and Rose are amazing, David met the missionaries sometime last year and took a pamphlet, actually from Sister Kubheka and Sister Farrell, (thanks JaLeen…and a side note for you, Brother Tekane has a stake calling in the Young Men for Bots! Seriously!) and then David saw Sister Lyon and Sister Toya a few months back, and they started teaching him, and I got to finish up the teaching process, and now they are baptized and planning on going to the temple! It was wonderful! Wow, like I said, I can’t describe it, it was awesome. I can’t wait for the other families we are teaching to also get baptized. We have set a goal to see at least 20 more people be baptized from our area before I leave. I know we can accomplish that. The Lord is really leading us to some great families. So, that is how the work is over here. Other than that, it is really starting to heat up. My companion says how hot it is, and I just tell her to wait, it isn’t hot yet, just like everyone did to me last year. Haha. Botswana is hot my friends. Very hot! It is on fire! I really love it here.

The Lion's Church

This past week, we had eleven of our investigators come to church! It was great. We had prayed and fasted for more investigators to comet to church and progress, and this week it happened. Yet, we still were a little disappointed because two of our progressing families failed to make it to church. But then I realized we had eleven others at church feeling the Spirit, so all was well again. But I was sad for the people that missed. So church was really great yesterday. This week we had a very interesting experience. One of our investigators invited us to go to her church service with her on Thursday. We jumped at the chance. Her church was called Lion of Judah, and the pastors are twins from Ghana. And the whole experience was interesting, to say the least. First interesting thing, they had microphones, yet they met in a small little room, like a conference room in a building. Not very big, no need at all for microphones, and the pastor or prophet or whatever they claim to be yell into it! I just really felt there was no need for that! Also, they sing and dance. And when it is time to pray, they all pray at the same time! And the pastor decides when they finish their prayers, but listening to the pastor and the people next to me, they don’t say anything of substance, and they are all praying at the same time. I am sure they confused God, I was certainly confused anyway. Also this guy, one of the twins, was prophesying that the people who were there would not die until it was their time, until God decided it was their time to go .. I was thinking, wow what a prophecy. I could have told them that. Haha….it was just all so interesting. Everything about it. I did my very best to control my laughter. One thing I know for sure is that the Spirit of God was not there. They were feeling something, but it was not the Spirit. It was the loud speakers, but definitely not the Spirit. His sermon was confusing. To this day, I don’t have any idea what he was trying to say. Going to the true Church yesterday, made me so grateful to have the truth. I learned something at church that will stick with me. Going to the church, really made me realize who true the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is! And I am more grateful than ever to be a member. And it made me want to go out and continue to share this message with others, so they will no longer be confused. Be grateful to be a member of Christ’s church. Be grateful you are not confused. I certainly am.

It's a nice walk!

Eish, you know. Great things happen every week, every day. I know they do, but then I come to sit down and write an entry for the blog, and my mind goes blank, and I can't seem to remember what happened during the week that I could report on. Ha. I must be getting old or something. This week was great! Can't complain. Sister ChirChir and I had the opportunity to walk from the church to our area. Alot of people are complaining that they don't have transport to get to church, so we encourage them to make the sacrifice and walk. We thought it would be a good idea to experience that for ourselves, and we got the opportunity on Saturday to walk home with a few of the investigators children after their primary activity. And come to find out. It really is not that far, and the walk is not hard. It was actually a lot of fun. So now, when people complain about no transport, we can tell them the walk is nice, and that we personally have done it ourselves. So, hopefully that will take care of some of the problems we have getting our investigators to church. It was nice to see what they experience. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be in a walking mission, but then I think how grateful I am for the car, and how much more missionary work we can do because we have a vehicle and can get between appointments much quicker. The great father-led family we are teaching that I am sure I have mentioned, Makesure and Balemogi, are doing so well. They all came to church yesterday, except Makesure never made it in because the youngest, the 4 year old daughter, Mpho, was refusing to go in, he didn't want to cause a scene, so he took her home instead of coming him. We told him later that night when we were teaching, not to let that happen again, that we would sit outside with her. But we were so proud of them for coming. Next time,they all will actually make it in the building! It was great. We got to church early, as usual, and we already had 2 investigators there, and a less active that we have been working with. Church was great yesterday. Fast Sundays are always great though. So, other than that, I can't think of much else to report on. Except I do have a few updates for JaLeen FARRELL, haha. The rest of you may not really care or know who these people are, I but know JaLeen will appreciate these updates. So, JaLeen, I did get your DearElder letter. Thanks, I appreciated that, and I thought this would be the best and quickest way to give you some updates. So here are a few, and maybe...just maybe, I will send a letter with more,but we will see about that one...you know me :) But here are some updates for you. Kgosi Mothei, the less active you worked with for a while, he is engaged to Maipelo. They will be getting married in January! They are doing so well. He is doing great, and changed completely. Also, Brother Tekane baptized Matla last month! And now he witnesses every baptism we have this side! He is doing great! Bro Sima is going to England on his mission, and Mosupi is going to New Zealand! They are very excited for that, and so are the rest of us, and Dorcas is expecting her mission call any time! So, there are a few updates I thought you would be interested in. Thanks for the letter. Enjoy home! I'll be joining you all too soon!