Week 8 - Where has the time gone!

                                               

As one woman said to me last week, "It is finally time for Africa!"  The church here is absolutely exploding, so much so that a visiting Global Services employee told me that over 2000 people were baptized in a northern African country last month alone.  The numbers joining the church, he continued, have overwhelmed local wards and branches, and there isn't enough experience among the members of the congregation to hold together the numbers pouring in.  He said bishops are called as soon as they receive their temple ordinances, some of them just months after joining the church.  Sometimes this results in far too much stress to these new inexperienced bishops and wards, and the results are not good.  How to keep up with the fast pace of church growth in Africa is a major concern for our Prophet and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  Each week we have mulitple baptisms in each unit of our mission.  It's simply amazing and incredible to have a small part in.  

                                      

Today we visited a small ward about an hour away.  After the services, there were six people wanting to be baptized.  Problem was, there was no water available in the small house which serves as their chapel.  So the missionaries got busy and industrious, filling jugs of water and hauling them to the font out back.  After about 90 minutes of hauling, we had sufficient water for the baptisms.

Motswana people are not much accustomed to water nor swimming, and two more ladies wanted to be baptized but were frightened by the concept of being fully immersed.  They carefuylly watched today's baptisms, however, and agreed that they will be brave and get baptized...next week.  So very interesting.

Cows and goats, horses and donkeys roam the countryside freely, including grazing alongside the one major highway in Botswana.  We even saw a troop of huge baboons walking along the sidewalk just outside of town.  With people jogging and bike riding past even!

  

Was a good and very full week.  First we enjoyed Zone Conference with all of the young missionaries in Botswana.  The missionaries in Namibia don't make it over for these conferences; too far away and too much time and money to join the Botswana kids.  I can't wait to meet our Namibian missionaries.  How I love these young people and enjoy serving them.

  

  

Us looking like we know what we're doing in the office.

                 

Part of our job is to assess the needs of the young missionaries relative to their flats.  We found several sisters in need of nightstands which took time and talent to figure out how to assemble.  One young set of elders have such horrid water pressure in their homes as to render their showers useless, so they shower on the front porch using a bucket.  

 

For P-Day this week, we toured sites around the capital city Gaborone where we live.  Even more fun, we spent a couple of hours exploring a game reserve located about 10 minutes from our house.  While they lack the big predators, still we saw a ton of animals including rock rabbits, zebra, impala, our first ostrich sitings, elan, storks, flamingoes and warthogs.  Super cool!