Winter in Botswana and its COLD!

1.Are you still a Zone Leader, we are a little unsure if that is still what your position is at this time?

2.Hey we asked you other questions on the bottom of our letter last week but you did not answer them so maybe you can go back and review and answer them ok.

6. Do black Mambo snakes climb up into moving cars because they portrayed that they had this ability and the land just hoped right out of her car and left it in the middle of the road?

6. not that i have seen yet.

7. Do all the ladies there in Botswana wear lots of beads and necklaces and huge dangle earrings? I thought they all looked really unique? 

7. well i think that's for special occasions

8. Did the ward or stake finally split on the 26th of June as the Morgans spoke about in their blog I am not sure if you will know what i mean but you were there so if something happened to that church area you would know that?

8.not yet

9. How many primary children are there in the ward you are in?

9.not sure

10 shoes did you take a picture or two of the dog bite marks?
10.not yet

 Dear Family

     You'll have to forgive me if i can't write fast enough to say everything i want to. My hands are really cold and it's making it difficult to type. This week has been a little bit rough on the side of alot of success. Monday was a regular old Monday with not to much happening. We had a family home evening with some recent converts as we have done since i've been here. and then we ended up tracting around 7:30pm-8:30pm because our last appointments cancelled. That didn't fly very well. Tuesday we had quite a full day. Some of our appointments cancelled but we did teach some new people, two of which accepted a baptism date. Sister Keatlaretsi and her Daugherty tshenolo. We also taught a sister Named Tebogo, who seemed a bit skeptical, but very willing to listen and try out what we are teaching. Hopefully they each progress well, none of them came to church yet but we'll get there. Wednesday we had a pretty cool day. We did alot of finding. We also taught a new brother named Pako and his Uncle named O.D. Pako accepted a baptism date as well and has tons of questions about why there are some many different beliefs. He was talking quite a bit so we struggled to get in a word, but there will be next time. We had quite a few cancel on us that day which attributed to all the finding we did. Thursday Elder Hove and i had a great planning session which should really help us get down to business this coming week and baptize very soon. We ended up teaching one father led that day , Edwin, which i may have written about last week. The lesson didn't go very well this time. They were very preoccupied with watching the upcoming Episode of Generations that they didn't really concentrate on what we had to say and they seemed very uninterested. It's really frustrating when stuff like that happens. You think you have a golden family and they start showing a little less care then you would expect. Friday Elder Hove and i spent the day in Lobatse trying to help them get the work going there. They have been struggling quite a bit with achieving their goals, so we thought we would go see what we can do. I took the day to go with the Lobatse 2 Elders, Elder Schwab from Logan and Elder Dlamini from Swaziland. The advice that i gave them was to make a list of all their new investigators at the end of each week so as to remember them. They seem to find and teach lots of people but their people fall out of touch pretty quick. I hope that can get their district going.(and to answer the question yes i am still a Zone Leader) Saturday was a bit questionable on the side of how much work we actually did. We got back to kanye by 12:00 and ended up stuck at the flat for about 45 minutes because the other elders had to take the car to run an errand and then got back so we were doing the work by around 12: 45 and our 1:00 cancelled so we took the time to remind invests about church. Then we had just a bit of time to take lunch which we were fed by a member and rush to our 3:00. It was a great lesson with a sister named Sister Koore and her niece/ daughter. she accepted the message quite well and accepted the invitation to baptism. By 4:00 we were supposed to be at choir Practice but everyone was late and it didn't start until later. During that time we also discovered that the Kanye 2 elders were expecting us to do 2 interviews for them during choir practice so we had to exchange so we could make it to the 5:00. I was nominated to do the interviews, so i did and then had time to burn while we waited for everyone to leave and waited for My comp and Elder Kaffeero
Elder T J Jones

LOve Your Family

Well we had a blast for the 4th of July. We just stayed in Joseph because Jo did not get signed up to do the barrels this year so there was no reason to go to a rodeo. The kids were a little put out by that but oh well the fireworks were good.

We had a blast talking to Chad Mcwilliams he asked us all kinds of things and he can't wait until you come home to ask you some more stuff. He told us alot about his areas which were Tazneen and Gaborone in Botswana. But he was also in Swaziland and Lesotho the most. He really did not like the city at all. He also asked us if you had got turned on to the black worms that are fried. Manaputi is what I think he called it. He said he still has his little bushman kit so you should try to trade for one also. He asked if you had learned to hide the stuff you did not like to taste in your tie or newspaper that you stuffed the unacceptables into as they often leave you to eat alone when feeding you in traditional black home. He still can not eat tomatoes because of the pop that was put on them so are you having that same experience? And the spinach mixture that you eat with your fingers he is not fond of either. He said if you get an eternal family carving then you need to carry it on the plane by hand and do not try to pack it. His were broken and so he had to have a friend that he is still in contact with get one and bring back to him. He thinks out of all the things there that is one of the most amazing is the eternal families that they already believe in. He is excited to hear about the changes of the mission area and to see if you might by some great chance know someone he knew in some of those areas but he is sure there has been huge change since 1996.

 

Mark Owen also said he was in Gaborone Botswana and loved that area. They both did not know there was another branch in Kanye. But Chad was there in 1996 and Mark in 2000 so that's a lot of years of change to be made in time.

Well this week was kinda an adventure for Jer. He shut the bathroom door and then pulled out the drawers every single one of them and the bottom on fell of the hinges. So after doing his job he called to have someone come help him and they found him locked in there. He finally helped himself got off and still could not shut the drawer. C got a jack and slid it in and tried to pop the drawer up but started to lift the whole cabinet and got worried that he would break the plumping so stoped. After three hours we finally called Dad and said get home he can not get him out and we are going to have to maybe break the door down. He never cried he played Mc Ds the whole time and one time asked C if it was dark outside yet. One time when C was trying to think of some new way in he yelled hey get me out of here. But otherwise he was pretty content about the whole thing. All Dad had to to was pop the hing with a long screw driver and then talk Jer into doing the other side and he was able to get in. C was like really after that many hours and he does it in 5 seconds. It was kind of funny.

Well its confirmed that the 21st is the day of your homecoming talk and it will be in the morning.

 Jo and C get to go to Youth Conference. They get to go build a log house at the Fillmore state county park and do all kinds of fun things that are pioneer related.
 Today Papa and Dad gave me a blessing as I am going to go in and take the CDL test and I surly want to get it passed and finished off. I hope to be able to pay to send about 5 other boys on missions when the time comes. Love you have an amazing week and we can't wait to hear all the things that you have been able to do with the gospel this week. We sure hope you found some more father led families there.
Love Mom Lots and even the kids love you they are walking their animals right now so they are pretty busy every single night theses days.