And some more time goes by!

So i missed last week because i ran out of time, but now they have given us two hours instead of one and a half, so here we go!

last week we met a wonderful sister from america. Her name is Sierra, she is an exchange student at university of Botswana and a return missionary from the Philippines, she brought a friends to church named Brandon, he also goes to UB and is from Swaziland, we started teaching him and he loves it, and seems very excited to continue coming to church and learning. She keeps giving us referrals and its awesome because that's something our ward struggles with. And people we find alone don't really progress. 

We also had two baptisms last week , though one of them (Aiden) is the child of a member and eight years old. The other was someone in the other ward here in Gaberone. So neither of them were our investigators, the reason i mention them however is because my companion was asked to baptize both of them, which was really amusing, cause he had only met the woman in gwest once for an interview, and she asked him to baptize her. The other was amusing, because the child told us that elder Mosweswe was scary, so we were expecting that i would do the baptism. Also, after Aiden was baptized they asked my companion to confirm her.

People love my companion too much! 

We found a wonderful family while knocking doors the other day, they are a part member family that is less active. The mother started the whole family, she found the church while in america schooling, she saw a tv add and called the number, she then proceeded to have random run in's with missionaries all the time. With missionaries meeting here in america, and in Botswana and a couple other places all at times she needed them up until us. Their family name is Molatudi. 

Now for the greatest experience of the past two weeks. Just last Sunday we had a music devotional at the church which we invited one of our investigators (Tumelo) to because she is part of the praise and worship team at her church. She came and attended, then when we went to meet with her two days later we talked with her about it to see if she enjoyed it. She told us that at the devotional she had a feeling that she needed to join the church, and that night she had wanted to call us and tell us she wanted to be baptized, but she thought it was too late to call. 

That's enough with the work for now though! we had a wonderful basket ball game a while ago on p'day with a couple of the elders, i enjoyed it because i am much better at b-ball than soccer. We invited one of our investigator Brother Nathonson to come and play with us, he is probably about forty years old and has not played in a long time yet, he smoked us all! 

On Saturday we had a YSA activity that we went to which was pretty fun and we had to pick up rope for tug-a-war and it was giant, it fills up our whole boot, i meant to take a picture but i forgot. However we got it from one of the army camps here, and while we were driving around there we saw some pretty sick tanks and stuff. Sadly that's not stuff i am allowed to take pictures of. 

I also went about reorganizing our flat so i included some pictures. I don't know if i have mentioned this but all the houses and doors have other doors in front of them called Butlers, they are basically a metal door like a prison door to keep out buglers. 

Tomorrow is zone conferee and on Saturday we get transfer news! Almost done with another transfer! Soon we will see if my companion is leaving or if i am am! 

At the devotional i mentioned earlier the choir sang David Archuleta's glorious, and it was super powerful, so i encourage everybody to go and listen to that song this week, it'll lift your spirits! 

The scripture for this week is 3 Nephi 7:18, let us all strive to have the faith in Christ that leads to having angels ministering unto us everyday! 

Farewell everyone! have a powerful week! 

Love Elder Smith! 

Another week bites the dust

Kay, so this week was pretty cool. we went through some old area books looking for potential investigators, and found that most of the people there did not have phone numbers listed so that was cool. But we found a couple people who look pretty promising to meet with. 

Also, Grace has been progressing well, she has been off of coffee for almost two weeks, so thats great. 

And one of our less actives Brother Majola is doing a great job, he has come to church twice and seems really excited to be coming back. His daughter Thelma was supposed to be baptized on the 20th, but we found that she does not yet have a testimony of the book of Mormon so we will be waiting for that. 

We also found a new investigator, his name is Winter Ngwenya, he used to be a priest for the roman catholic church, but left because he had planned to be a father for the church and found out he would not be allowed to have kids. Now he is a pastor in another church and has a certificate that says he is a reverend. But he is willing to listen to what we have to say, because he does not want to lead people in the wrong direction. 

Just last night my companion and i were meeting with one of our recent converts and his family, and found that none of them were reading the book of Mormon, so we began to talk to them about the importance of reading the book even if its just one verse a day. And my companion grabbed one of there books of Mormon and opened it randomly to a verse and began to read just one verse. 

The wild thing is that the verse he found was Alma 34:29. Which begins "Now will this not increase your faith" it was wild and powerful! They will now be reading for ten minutes a day so that's wonderful! 

My companion is still awesome! The elders have been talking about how elder mills is basically Elder Calhoun from "The best two years" and all we needed to know was if he liked chess. So we asked him and when he said yes we told him that he is basically Elder Calhoun. He then told us he wanted to play chess with Elder Calhoun. It was pretty amusing when he realized who that actually was. Elder Mills really is a super sweet and awesome guy. 

I keep seeing monkeys all over the place which is cool. They also have mules donkeys horses cows chickens and goats wandering all over the place. 

The scripture for this week is 2 Nephi 32:3. Remember to always feast upon the words of Christ! They really will guide you in your life and show you all the things that you should do. Pray always, read the scriptures and listen to the words of the Prophets. 

I ,miss everybody and wish you all the greatest of weeks! Until next time! 

Love Elder Smith! 

More fun

So i mentioned the Maje family last time. We went to see them again, a niece was there, apparently the mother Caroline has been bragging about us and inviting everybody to come and meet with us. So that was pretty cool and amusing. She like to introduces us "These are my friends." She is a super sweet women who seems to really care what we have to say. 

We also have a new investigator his name is Lesedi. He is a sweet guy, his girlfriend is a member and has been trying to get him to meet with us for a while. It;s super cool to see the members bringing people to church because thats one of the biggest struggles in this ward. Thus far in his life he has not really seen religion make much of a difference in his life. But he is will to listen to us and see if this is the true church. 

Another investigator we have is Tumelo, she is super sweet we met her while street contacting, my companion gave her a book of Mormon and took her number. She did not seem interested at all but when we called her she wanted to meet, and seems to really like what we have to share.  She read the introduction the the book of Mormon before we even met with her, which is something our normal investigators struggle to do even when we invite them. 

So the G-west elder have been out of water for several days now, because someone forgot to pay their water bill. Which is kinda amusing but also suck for them. We keep making water trips to them, bringing them water. Though it would be a lot smarter if they came and stayed in our flat because we have water, two showers, and two bedrooms with extra beds. Like today they are bringing their laundry to our flat to wash it. 

So this week i drove to Kanye which was pretty cool, its a pretty long trip, 180 kilometers round trip. It was way fun and brought back memories of traveling the country back home. I did it twice, the first time to go and get the Zone Leaders (they serve in Kanye and lost their driving privileges.) so that they could get a bike repaired in Gaborone . And then to bring them back to kanye the next day. This country is super beautiful, and im sending pictures, but they wont do it justice, and i was not the one taking them cause i was driving. 

The road to Kanye is like 60 k's most of the way so it takes forever to get there. It's most likely that slow because they have animals on their roads all the time. 

The Scripture this week is actually a talk from the October 2015 Sunday session of general conference, its the address by Russell M Nelson. It is way powerful and i invite everyone to go and read it or listen to it. 

Love Elder Smith