Happy Easter

This week three sisters finished their mission, they only sent two to replace them, so the Johannesburg mission went from 8 sisters to six sisters this week. Nothing really changed for me though, I am in the same area with the same companion, Sister Odongo from Kenya. It was sad to see them leave, but the work continues. It is weird to think I am over halfway done with my mission.
Yesterday we had two baptisms. The first was for Katlego Makati. His aunt is the relief society president and his uncle is the young men's president. They brought him to church the beginning of this year, and he hasn't stopped coming since. He is working on his duty to God award, and he wants to serve a mission. He is a good kid. He is very active in the chruch. He has many friends, and is already doing missionary work. his best friend also wants to be baptized, but just has to wait for his mom to say he can start taking the lessons. The other baptisms was for an eleven year old girl, Valentine. She has been coming to church her whole life with her aunt and uncle who is the branch president of Lobatse, one of the branches in our stake. She told us one week that she was ready to be baptized, so we started teaching her, and she was baptized yesterday as well. She was cute, she did not want her picture to be taken at all. So we had to sneak one. But she was very happy to be baptized.
So, that is the good news of the week. I hope you all enjoy conference this weekend, I am sure it will be wonderful. I am excited to watch it, but the area presidency has decided the south east africa area will watch it april 24-25 when the dvds are made, so enjoy it live. Conference is always a wonderful thing. To hear from the prophet of God and His apostles. How cool is that? Have a great week.

I love Technology.......

Sorry there was no post last week, but I ran out of time before I finished and sent the post to my sister. So, I will recap on two weeks today. What I wanted to say from last week was how exciting the work is here in Botswana. We had stake conference last week, and we watched a live video feed from South Africa. We are still in a South Africa Stake, but I know that will change very soon, because at this stake conference here in Botswana anyway, we had over a hundred more people in attendance than they did in South Africa. The chapel, and cultural hall were full. there was not an empty seat. We even had over flow in the Relief Society room. Every chair in the building was being used, there was standing room only. All of the missionaries had to stand, and there are now over 30 missionaries in Botswana, and two branches in Botswana weren't able to make it becuase of the distance to travel! So, needless to say, the work is progressing at an ever increasing rate. One branch that just opened in a village, Kanye, at the first of this year, brought 59 investigators!!!!and the only members they have, which for now is 7!!! Wow! The work here is just amazing to see. I have seen so many changes already in Botswana since I have been here. I am praying they will become a district, if not a stake before I go home at the end of this year. They need it, they deserve it! That was my main update from last week.
This week was good, we had two more people interviewed for baptism, they will be getting baptized next sunday. One is an eleven year old girl who has been coming to church her whole life with her aunt and uncle, but never got baptized, and now she is ready. She is quiet, but she is good, and knows she is making the right decision. The other is Katlego, he is 17, and the nephew of the relief society president in the ward. He has been coming to church since the beginning of this year with his aunt and uncle. And he desires to serve a mission! He is a good young kid, and will make a great missionary one day, baptism is just the first step in his goal of becoming a missionary. He has a very humble testimony, and it has been great to teach him.
An update on the family we gave the Elder Watson book of mormon to....Well, right now things are shaky..It is not having quite the immediate effect we were hoping for. This family is great, but when we leave the house, something happens and they don't read the book of mormon. So, it is not quite working as we had hoped, yet. We still have faith that it will change their lives, we just need to be a little more patience, and exercise a little more faith, and pray even harder for them to accept this gospel. Satan is working very hard to keep this family from progressing! So, please keep them in your prayers. We won't give up on them yet, I know that book of mormon is powerful, i just hope one day very soon they realize that as well.
Well, thanks for reading, and thanks for your prayers in my behalf. Enjoy your week. Enjoy March Madness.....but please, don't give me any updates....they are distracting :) ok....maybe just a few would be alright! Thanks! Enjoy it double for me!

sidenote: Ashley told me she will have a 3 week delay before they will get conference, so ocnference week if you would send her a little snippit on your favorite talk, or what you got out of conference I'm sure she would LOVE it.

Faith

This week was Zone Conference. It was great. We talked about how we need to have more faith in the work. I have been thinking alot about faith lately and what it actually is. And I have decided through scripture study and prayer that faith is more than just belief. It is actually very deep and implies alot. So, as I need to apply more faith in finding I need to do ALOT. I was reading in Mormon the other day about faith. I believe it was mormon 9. When it talks about miracles and things like that. and twice he says we must believe, NOTHING DOUBTING. So, that is what started me thinking about faith this week, and then it happened to be the topic of zone conference. It is great how that always seems to work out. So, in application to my missionary work, and you can apply to your lives for whatever situation you are in, but in my case, involving missionary work I decided that often time we pray for things, to find wonderful families to teach especially, and we pray thinking we have faith, but then after the prayer, we go to work, and start letting doubt creep in. Saying things like...there are not families home at this time, these people wouldn't be interested, etc.....lame doubts like that, and that is not FAITH. Doubt and faith do not exist in the same sphere, it is impossible. So, in order to have faith we need to doubt nothing. When we ask God to bless us with things we need to trust and actually believe He will give it to us, doubting nothing. I am sure Joseph Smith had no reservations or doubts when he went to the grove to pray, and he recieved his answer. We can have the same answers, if we will pray the same way he did....with FAITH, nothing doubting. Well, that was my lesson for the week that I thought I would share with you. Just take sometime this week to evaluate your faith, do you really have it? If not, fix it, start trusting in your Father in Heaven, and really believing He will answer your prayers. Because He will, if you let him by not doubting. Sometimes it just takes some patient perserverance, if you know what I mean. Well, the week was good, we worked hard, and have FAITH that the Lord will bless us for our efforts, that He will begin to trust us and lead us to those families He is preparing to receive this gospel. Thanks for reading, thanks for your prayers, they are much needed and appreciated

Way to go Red Devils!

We had another baptism this week. Boipuso Mogale was baptized. She was brought to church by a friend, and wanting to make a change and make her life meaningful this year, and she chose the right way to do it. She is great. She was so excited to be baptized. She has such a strong and sincere testimony. We started teaching her beginning of this year, and she progressed so easily, and was more than ready to be baptized yesterday. One of those "golden" investigators as people call them. But once again she proved to me, that we do nothing as missionaries, and the investigator who let the Spirit teach them, and recieves that witness for themselves are the ones ready to make the commitment. With very little help of the missionaries. I wish all investigators were like that, but unfortunately most are stubborn and hard hearted. So, I am grateful when the ones like Boipuso come around. It is just wonderful to see. So, that was the highlight of the week. But another wonderful highlight of my week, which has kind of distracted me ALL week and held me in suspense, was whether or not my basketball team, the Springville Red Devils won the state title, and I was so happy to find out this morning through my sister, that they DID!!!! So, I just want to say congratulations to all of my Red Devils!! I am so proud of you! I wish I could be there to celebrate your hard work with you, but nevertheless, know that i am celebrating over here in Africa, and that I am very proud of each one of you! so congratulations!! You guys earned it! RED DEVIL PRIDE! and Thank you for letting me be a part of your program!

Live Up To YourPotential

So, I am sitting here trying to remember something great that happened this past week that I could share with you. But I can't think of anything out of the ordinary. It was a good week. We worked hard, and we were blessed for it. We have a good teaching pool, and we get to meet lots of great people daily. Such is the wonderful life of a missionary. But actually one thing I focused on this week that really made it a good week was trying to become more childlike in my service as a missionary. Not childish, but child like. I really focused on becoming more like the Savior in my thoughts, words, and actions. Towards everybody. It really made a difference. The week went well, and we met lots of great people. Focusing on becoming more trusting in the Spirit, as a child trusts their parents, really is something. It is not easy at times, but if I just trust the Lord to lead me in this work, guess what? Things go better, and it is a lot more enjoyable. Imagine that? Something I have always heard but never really understood until mission is that we need to be independently dependent on the Savior. Does that make sense? We are in charge of our salvation, completely, independently, but there is absolutely no way to gain salvations without the Savior. I think, or what I have learned is that to be totally independent and free and in charge of our lives we need to be totally 100% dependent on the Savior, and His gospel, and His teachings. Without Him we are nothing. Literally nothing. But with Him we can become everything, even Gods and Godesses. Well, anyway, those have just been some of the thoughts floating around my head this week as I have been striving to become more childlike in my service. So do something for me, think of a child and all the ways they really trust and dependent on their parents, and then try to emulate that in your dependence on the Savior. It will make a difference. Try it. The Lord will bless you for it. This life is much easier if we have divine help along the way. Well, hope that helps some of you out there. Thanks for your prayers. Have a great week. Remember who you really are, and live up to that potential.

Truly Committed

This week we had a young woman, named Tshwanelo Ratsatsi get baptized. She has been coming to church for about a year now, and she was finally ready to be baptized. :) she was very excited. She was so happy afterwards. She is a great young girl. She lives far from the church, so in order to make it to church on Sunday she saves the little money her father gives her for transport to school, and walks to school, which is also very far so she can make it to church on Sunday! She sacrifices so much to make it to church. I know the Lord will bless her for that. I was excied to see her baptized. It was a great feeling. For the rest of the week, it was HOT! I know i've said it before, but this week was extremely hot. I think it is the hottest it has been since i've been here! I'm not sure the temperature, but trust me, it was HOT! We were just sitting in lessons, in the shade, nonetheless, and sweat was dripping down my legs, uncrossed, just dripping. it was nice, just kidding, it was miserable, but while you are teaching lessons, you really don't realize how hot, it is, but once you are done teaching you realize that it is so hot, and wonder why you are not in the air conditioned apartment. But then you teach another lesson and remember why you decided to leave the apartment, teching the gospel is worth it.
Ok, so update on the book of Mormon from Elder Watson. We did give it away this week. It was a powerful lesson. We gave it to the family that first popped into my mind when he was giving away the book of mormon. The Kgosietsile family. The rra is trying to quit smoking, and is doing well, the mma just broke her leg, and is at home for two weeks, and they have two daughter in school. WE jsut felt like this was family that needs this book of mormon because they are each struggling with different things, and the Book of Mormon will help them. they really appreciated and were blown away by the testimony of young eight year old April. the spirit was very strong as we shared her testimony and ours with them about the book of mormon! The mma is very big into religion, but she has come to realize that the bible is incomplete, so this was perfect because the book of mormon fills in those gaps...she is excited to read it, as is the rra, for he believes and has the faith that this will help him to quite smoking. He said he would take it everywhere with him and when he has a temptation he will read from it! so, it is looking good so far. they just have to read it, and pray about it, and then come to church. i am glad we gave it to this wonderful family. i pray and hope you will continue to pray that this book will change the lives of this family. They are a special family, and i love them very much, and want the best for them. One more thing about this family. Kgosie, in setswana means royalty, and so this rra is the leader of his tribe, and he will be able to influence his whole tribe as he becomes converted to the true gospel of Jesus Christ.
I hope you all have a great week, thanks for reading, and thanks for your prayers. Love ya all. Oh, and way to go springville, keep it up, you have lots of fan over here in Botswana as well, I keep telling everyone about my team and how well they are doing! So keep up the good work.

Sorry it's late this week

So this week was a little more exciting than last week. As far as the Jo'burg mission news, there are great changes. Like I told you last week, two zones of our mission are going to now be in the Durban mission, which is great, and with the changes, there is going to be another zone in Botswana! Two zones in Botswana now! With right around 40 missionaries in the country! The changes I have seen in Botswana since I have been here have been miraculous. I have seen three new areas open and the number of missionaries in Bots doubled!!!!! It is very exciting for this little country of just over a million citizens!! With two zones and so many missions in the country I am hoping to see Botswana becomes a district, if not a stake before I leave. That would be amazing, and the greatest miracle of all. Right now, Bots is part of a Johannesburg stake, and they only get to see the stake president like every three months or so! It would just be wonderful for these saints to have local leadership! That is our goal, is to have bots be a stake in less than two years, and so far, it looks like our prayers will be answered. I talked to Elder Watson about it at dinner and he said it was close. So, it is close, and I can't wait for that to happen.
As far as our personal missionary work goes, it is great. My mom asked me this week if we had given away the Elder Watson Book of Mormon yet, and we are prayerfully planning to give it away this week to a wonderful family. The Kgosietsile family is their name. They have two daughters. The Rra (father) works very closely with the president here, President Khama, and the Mma (mother) is an accountant. The rra is trying to quit smoking, and is doing very well. The mma is very strong in her church, but this week she broke her leg, she will not be going to work for two weeks, and we went and sang hymns with her the other day, and both sister odongo and I feel this family may be the one that needs the Book of Mormon with the testimony of the eight year old. I feel it would greatly help both the mma and rra to accept this gospel. So, pray for that to happen please. And I will keep you updated on how that goes, and if the Book of Mormon will help to convert this wonderful family. So that is the news on that.Thanks for your prayers in my behalf, they are greatly appreciated. This work would not move forward without prayers. So, we all thank you here in Botswana.