Hello, it's me

We have a wonderful family who we are teaching, they are the Majola's. The father is our bishops son and he is less active. His daughter Thelma is going to be baptized on the 20th of august. The mom is a wonderful lady and goes to her own church called Everlasting faith foundations ministry. We went and visited her church once on a Wednesday, and its a very interesting church. Lot of loud music and speaking in tongues. The Pastor started trying to release evil spirits from one lady and kept shoving her around.

But the big and great news. Brother Majola came to church on Sunday, which is something i have not seen him do since i got here. We also believe Sister Majola will start coming to church if he keeps coming because she has not completely decided her church is the church, and doesn't know if she should be baptized there. Thelma is doing well and has been coming to church since before i got here but it is wonderful to see Brother Majola coming back to church. 

Another family we just started teaching is the Mje family, we met them while walking from one appointment to the next and when we greeted them one of the daughters kept smiling at us so we went and talked and they invited us to sit down with them. We taught them a little bit and and got to know them. They are very sweet, there was eight of them there when we taught them, and they all agreed to meet with us again but only three of them were there waiting for us when we came. The mother Caroline, and two of the daughters, Elizabeth (24) and Boitumelo (14) We got to teach them all about the restoration and they had very good questions. They didn't make it to church on Sunday, but we hope that as we continue to meet with them they will start coming. 

We also had a pretty interesting experience with our recent convert Elias. We conferred the priesthood upon him and Fannuel on Sunday. And then we went to teach him and his family. When we were there we found that he had not told any of his family what had happened. So we invited him to share it. He started talking and said that he had been given the priesthood and been ordained as a priest. Then he went on "So now that i am a priest anything  i say goes. And i am able to receive Revelation now! so i can tell you something and you have to listen because its revelation." He said a couple other outlandish things and his mom was so taken aback. She asked "so you're gonna start locking us outside the house now?" And he just said "No.... Well if its revelation."  my companion and i were just giggling. Elias was just kidding but we still explained more about the priesthood and then talked more about the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Soooo, i did not get to say much about transfers last time but we have a new Elder here in Gabs, he is being trained by Elder Griffey and his name is Elder Mills. He is from California and is an absolutely awesome guy. He came from the provo mtc, so we get to adjust him to some of the stuff here. When he arrived i was wearing Elder Griffey's tag and pretending to be his trainer. He was chill when he found out so thats good. But i got to teach him the awesome hand shake they have here. But he is in the most dangerous area in Gaberone with him and his companion both being white we will see how long it is before they are given a car. 

My companion is still Elder Mosweswe and he is awesome as ever, though he still like it to be really hot. He makes good food and he is a very clean guy, so we have a good time at the flat. He is also and amazing teacher! and he know a ton of stuff, no matter what question someone asks if it has to do with doctrine he can answer. 

I dont think i have cooked all week because we keep getting fe3d, this is the first week that has happened, its way weird. B

I love serving here and i have seen my testimony grow in so many ways. I love the gospel and i loving sharing it with people! The people here are so awesome, and i find myself so lucky to be here! 

How is everyone! 

The scripture for this week is matthew 7:7 Remember to pray always! whatever it is the lord will answer you! 

Love Elder Smith!

First transfer!

Lets start off with the work! I may have mentioned her but she is my favorite so i'll mention her again.  Her name is Grace, she is a super sweet 21 year old women, with a little boy. She stays with and her mom and a couple siblings and speaks Africans, which is pretty strange here, she also speaks fairly good English as well. But her mom only speaks Africans, and understands little english, so we have not taught her much. But we are waiting for some africans book of Mormons and pamphlets for her mom and their neighbor who are both very interested. 

Grace is on date  to be baptized August 6th and it looks like she will be able to make that date. She does like tea and coffee which is something we are working on right now, she said she would follow the word of wisdom and we just need to see if she is. But she has been coming to church and really enjoys the lessons and is always very inquisitive. Elder Mosweswe and Elder Ludloff met her just before i got here, so Elder Mosweswe and I have got to teach her just about everything. 

We also just taught a wonderful family, The wife is a member and has been her whole life but her husband Mike and her little girl Aiden are not. Aiden will be turning eight soon so her mom wants her to be baptized and so we are teaching her and Mike who is also very interested in the church. They are a super sweet family and they fed us cake so that Aiden didn't feel like we were just coming to scare her with a ton of stuff. Though she was still way shy. 

Other than people we are teaching a lot has been going on, lets start with food. Last p-day we got invited to the ward mission leaders home with the G-West Elders (Griffy and Mapolonka) for lunch. The lunch was cows head and pap, which i have to admit made me a little queesy. I was not able to finish it nopr was Elder Griffy. And they Just laughed at us. W

Another Week!

This week has been great! We had three baptisms on sunday which was great! It was Fanuell, Sadi, and Elias, in the picture the guy next to me is donald, he baptized Fannuel, and on the other end is my companion, then elias is the tall guy, sadi is the girl and Fannuel is the other guy. We found out afterwards however that Donald actually has never been ordained to be priest, so Fannuel will need to be baptized again.

My favorite investigator grace is progressing well and will hopefully meet her baptismal date on august 6. Elder Mosweswe and Elder Ludloff met her right before i came so Its been Elder mosweswe and i that have taught her everything. She is super sweet, and also the one who thought i was 30.Her mom and her neighbor both want a copy of the book of mormon and the pamphlets we give her. Which is super cool, the problem is that they need to be in Afruicans, and we cant teach her mom much because she only really knows Africans, which both of u8s only know a little of. But we are probably gonna start using grace to interpret once we finally get the africans pamphlets and books from Pretoria. 

We went on exchanges this week again, with the zone leaders once and our district, the zone leader was chill and knew the area better than i did cause he is actually from around here. And from my district i got elder Clark and we had fun, it was nice to be with another American, we were able to talk about stuff from back home which i cant do with my companion, we got along really well but had trouble finding a place that i had only been once.

We did some fun service in mochudi. Dug up a very large tree stump, i wish i had picture but my camera was in my car and we rode in the truck with the mochudi elders. It took us about three hours. With four of us. It was for a less active and she fed us afterwards, a giant plate of Pap, some chicken liver and some really salty greens. I actually ate it all, but felt like i was gonna throw up, pap is basically tasteless cream of wheat but a lot thicker and with no nutritional value. And it makes me really queasy, but they eat it a lot here, just to fill their bellies.

  we have two young men in our area who are going on a mission and are just waiting for their calls, it takes a long time to get your call here. One of them junior has been waiting for like six months since he tried to submit and they keep coming back and telling him he needs more stuff. If you are a Mostwana you are most likely to be called to this mission sadly because they cant really get foriegn people in and so they need the people from here to serve here. We know that juniors call is coming soon because our zone leader saw it in the mission office which means he is being called to here. He cant wait for it to come but he doesn't know that we know its already here. The other guy though Nnamika was told he wont be called to this mission because he is from Nigeria and so he would have passport problems.

I finally got some music from one of the other elders which is great.

How is Everyone?

Love Elder Smith

Hey Hey Hey!

So! i have not yet mentioned but my area is Broadhusrt, which is part of Gaberone in Botswana. I am 8 hours ahead of Utah and 10 ahead of Alaska. 

The work is going well, we have been teaching a wonderful sister named grace, she is twenty one and has been very respectful towards us. I have high hopes for her, she seems to truly desire to draw closer to God. We have met with her quite a few times, however this last time we met we found that one of the reasons she has been so respectful towards us is cause she thought we were older than her, she is 21, she though my 20 year old companion was twenty five, and i was 30! But we just got a laugh together, she is surprised that we are able to answer her questions so well when we are so young. 

We have also been teaching a less active who has been less active for 7 years, her name is nametso, she has a friend who is very interested in what we are sharing and we think might be they way to bring her back to church. She told us that it was the leaders disrespecting her that made her leave. Though from talking to a couple p[people who knew her back then it seems like she might be a lesbian. So we'll just have to see whats going on as we continue to teach them.  Everyone says that she used to be a very strong member. 

So in Gaberon their are two missioonary companionship, Me and elder Mosweswe and elder Griffy and Elder Mopolonka, they other two walk, while we drive. And while we were meeting at the bishops house for the first time my companion has ever been (he has been here three months and has never been to the bishops house. the bishop is slippery and even managed to dodge being home for our dinner appointment.) As we finished dinner with the bishops wife and were about to share a message and leave we got a call from a strange number. We hung up the first time intending to call back after we left, and it immediately rang again. So i answered, it was the g west elders, with someone else phone, they said they had an emergency and needed us to rush over right away. 

So we left with a prayer and went to their apartment, turns out they had been robbed while walking back to the apartment, we had to take them to the police station to file a report. They guys did not have weapons or anything but we are supposed to comply if somebody tries to rob us so thats what they did. The next day i had a member come up to me in church and tell me some guy had called her asking if she knew elder mapoloinka, he said he found his stuff somewhere and wanted to return it. So elder Mosweswe and I went to pick up the stuff, the guy had found the credit cards and ids cast away, and the people had kept the wallet and the cash. The elders were excited to have their stuff back. 

Last person im gonna talk about today, Sister Bakoko, she is a wonderful young women with three little kids, who are way adorable, she is a member and her husband joined the years back when the missionaries brought elder renlund to teach him. Her kids are adorable and love me and it made me miss Abigail and liberty. I love little children. 

So my companion is great, and ill be going on exchanges with the guys in my district on Friday, over in mochudi, thats a village and they walk a lot because they elders before them wrecked the car. Today we are going with four missionary companionship's to a game reserve, hopefully i'll have some cool pictures from that for next time. 

Soooo, if anybody wants to offer, i would love some simple food recipes and ideas! Tomorrow is the 4th of july! what is everybody doing? I am not doing anything! Botswana independence day is September 30th.

My favorite song this week is did you think to pray, i forgot to look up the page number but it really touched my heart and brought the spirit. 

so i have two stories, one is old, and i thought i shared it but i was told i didn't, so, we have a very old lady in the ward who nobody but my companion can understand when she speaks, so we go and visit here sometimes, and she will just talk to him forever. when we went to visit her she had a daughter there, probably about 30 who was talking to me insisting that i save Ricky, Ricky is a white boy who is apparently trapped inside her. He has wild hair and eyes and looks very much like Tarzan, and he is driving her crazy, trying to get out. She kept insisting we save him and asking how we would do it. She also kept slipping into setswana so i only understood half of what she said. 

And the second story. So we teach a kid in one sketchy part of town and we had a late appointment with him so it was very dark, it was my companion and i and a young man named junior from the ward. when we came back to the car there were people around, a lot of them looking at me like the wanted to steal my stuff, i unlocked the car and threw my stuff in the back seat, Junior and Elder Mosweswe got in the car but before i could get in a drunk man came up behind me and started asking me to pray for him, he shook my hand and would not let go, i was so paranoid that somebody was gonna come attack me from behind while i was distracted by him so i kept checking behind me. While he kept saying god loves you. And asking me to pray, and he was saying some things about their past president who just passed away. 

Junior and Mosweswe locked the car doors while i was out there with him, and he was scary me half to death in the dark with people eyeing me in this sketchy area. After i was out there for a while the two of them got out, the man asked for my number we gave him a pass along card and he kept asking why we wouldn't give him our real number even though that card had our number non it. And the when he finally left he grabbed my hand and bowed down before me, talking about how much god loves me. so it was a little sketchy and scary.

I love you all and hope you're doing well! let me know whats going on!