December 11, 2011

here is what i wrote last week that somehow didn't make it...

thank you so much for your emails this week! I loved them.
sounds like things are going ok, anyone who knows about life knows that there are ups and downs... this week was sort of a down by way of teaching... HOWEVER I have the best district in the entire mission and we are spending a lot of time planning on how to be more involved with the ward. it is a little bit like the missionaries vs the bishop, our plans have taken us to closing that gap and with the unity of the six of us, we will accomplish it! 

we were asked by the ward council to sing in the choir for the christmas program so we spent a lot of time with them getting that ready. seriously, i wish you could hear how amazing the voices of these people are, they LOVE music, especially when it has to do with Christ. the funniest part was that the four elders in the district can't carry a tune in a bucket so we relied very heavily on prayer. the christmas party itself was a little interesting... africans are also about A LOT of food at parties, it is sort of like the tradition. the goodness of the party is sort of determined by the grandness of the feast. our "feast" consisted of 5 cakes made by sister mudzimba and me (side note, we saw a miracle because those cakes fed 200 + people), and three small finger food trays provided by the Relief Society... nice one! needless to say the party was something else according to african standards, but hey, we had fun getting to know the members of the ward! better luck next time i guess.

my companion is crazy. her name is sister mudzimba, she is 21, from harare zimbabwe, she is 1.3 meters tall (you do the math) she has brown eyes, black hair and she is black! favorite color is blue, favorite food is roasted chicken, with roasted potatoes, and coleslaw salad. she has one older sister and a younger brother. her parents are seperated, she worked as a cashier before her mission. she wants to go to school to become a interior decorator, her personality type is blue and yellow. her most embarrassing moment on mission was when she blew up an egg in the microwave.

i do have a sort of sad heart. transfers here are horrible because the chances of you seeing the people you served with after mission is basically nill. we had to say bye to three amazing missionaries who went home. it is hard to see people go, the older and older i get on mission the more difficult goodbyes become. nevertheless, i know god will put some more amazing missionaries in their place! 

i have realized that Mom, you were right, my goals in life are completely changed since i came here. heavenly father has helped change me into a completely different me. personality wise i am the same crazy kerri, but spiritually wise, there is no comparison between the then and now. i love heavenly father, and jesus christ. mission has proved to be rather like a refiners fire. there have been so many difficult times, for instance, we had an investigator who was progressing so well on tuesday completely dodge us last night. people go home for the holidays, our teaching pool was cut more than half this last week, and sometimes i get really sleepy. 

i find that the hard times are when i learn the most. after the trial comes the reward, and it becomes us to never give up, never quit, keep on keepin till the keepin is done! rely on the atonement of christ. i am not perfect in anything, and heavenly father knows it, but fortunately through consistent prayer, faith and repentance, he is working with me and changing me to something better. i feel like he has become sort of like a personal trainer to change and mold my heart to something completely different! i love the scriptures. i want to follow gods plan for me, to put him first, to be obedient, to be diligent, humble, and repent. it is  difficult for me to explain how i feel.

great news, we completed a family yesterday, the two remaining daughters were baptized into a long time member family! it was so great to watch them stand together after the baptism and people were gone. they just gave each other hugs and they were so bright and shiney. there is another family who is in the running to become eternal. it built my testimony so much that temples are so important. they have plans to go to the temple in april. anyway, love you, that is the week, please pray for us.

love, sister blum

December 4, 2011

thank you for the email this last week i found it very great. i didn't know tommy was there, please give me my BIG HELLOOOOOO! i sure do miss him and think very often of his abilit to serve people and meet their needs. i think he is an exceptional person and i wish i could be there to spend some more time with him. i just can never forget the one time he tried to teach me how to surf... haha, i loved that, by way of my most fond memories, that day lies somewhere among the top. thank you tommy for being such a great person. I am sure you are one of heavenly father's best and most choice people!



if i could give people some advice this week it would be... read the book of mormon. i know it is so cliche but seriously, please read everyday, be sure to talk to heavenly father every day too. those two things are the most important things ever. if you skip them, you will begin to just be a casual person. Heavenly Father loves his children so much and he really wants us to be the best version of ourselves we can be. he gave us the text book to get there (the book of mormon) and all we have to do is just study it like and live what it says. if you decide to do that you will find great peace and true happiness. happiness that doesn't go away at the end of the month when you are out of money.



what a blessing to have a true and living prophet on the earth today. I can't believe that God loves us so much! what a blessing to be able to receive true, divine guidance to help us build faith in the very Jesus Christ who can take away the effects of our sins and the guilt that we feel when we make mistakes. i know that when we use the atonement of Jesus Christ and we soften our hearts and repent, God will take away all of the guilt that we feel, and we will be left to rejoice. I know that God is our Father in Heaven, he created the earth and Adam and Eve truly fell. When they fell sin and death were introduced to the world. and it became impossible for us to return to be with God unless an atonement was made. We are here on this earth to prepare to meet God and when we follow his commandments we are blessed with peace and happiness. When we disobey, we sin and distance ourselves from God (that is why we become sad). when we disobey god's commandments, we can be clean again but not by ourselves. it is through christ, the very son of god that all the forgiveness is possible. Because of the Atonement of Christ, we are able to have claim on his mercy if we have faith in christ, repent of our sins, be baptized for the remission of sins, receive the holy ghost and endure to the end. Salvation, peace, joy and happiness are available for all of god's children if they will just soften their hearts, let go of the sins that so easily beset them, repent, come unto christ and live his gospel. i love this church, it is true, and christ is our saviour



love sister blum

November 28, 2011

my companion says THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! for the gift we will open on christmas eve. Something i really love about her (besides the fact she is from zimbabwe) is that she is a ball of energy, we are having so much fun together. I feel like she is just my best little friend ever. we are sure that we make a lot of mistakes in a day ( sometimes it is sort of frustrating, but one thing is for sure, we do laugh a lot) and we seem to get out of them alright. for instance, the other day we got SOOO lost! i have never been more lost in my entire life. we were trying to figure out where we were for an hour. turns out we had traveled off of our map, so we were like a ship without a compass. eventually we figured everything out and it turns out we were in the neighborhood right next to the the neighborhood with our flat inside.... oh boy did we feel dumb?

i think i need to learn how to manage stress better, sometimes i get a little bit overwhelmed because there 1. isn't enough time in the day, 2. how the heck does one person having SOO many weaknesses?, 3. rejection, 4. investigators go crazy and start ditching us, or stop progressing, or whatever, 5. the to-do list is HUGE and so many other problems. I have come up with a remedy, are you ready for it?... PATIENCE and action. when overwhelmed, just do as nephi did, "go and do" what the Lord commands, requires and expects. please keep praying for us as we are trying so hard to overcome our faults. 

i was asked the question what do you love most about mission... (mar, this one is for you) the answer? not exactly sure. so i will just make a list of things i love

not necessarily in this order.

• study time
• african people in general
• specifically, their humor (they love to laugh, are friendly and accomodating. they become instant friends with anyone they meet. it is very easy to strike up a conversation with them, especially if you are talking about something to do with God, bible, church, prophet, and so on.)
• kindness (they are the most kind people ever!)
• welcoming (if you enter their home, you are their honored guest. if they give you food and you don't finish it, they get really offended, so i am working on my ability to eat the HUGE portions of food they dish out. which if you are a guest in their home, they will most likely feed you, so get ready)
• my fellow missionaries. each one is a different flavor that adds to the mix and i am learning from each one of them
• the mission president and his wife. 
• senior couples. 

just everything i think (except for the heat, ditched appointments, and mosquitoes. but not everything can be perfect i guess!)

please pray for us that we can manage our time better. that is our biggest struggle.

love you all, 
sister blum

training is going great

the biggest news this week...

sister mudzimba and i were tracting and we asked this one guy for a referral, he sent us to his next door neighbors house. we got there and found it was full of rastafarians (you know like bob marley people who smoke weed and have some crazy religion?). we set a return appoinment with this man named rasta sido. when we went on Saturday we found out that the house he was at was like the church headquarters and it just happened to be their sabbath... woops. we started the lesson (we didn't know it was headquarters or it was their sabbath until later) and at first there were only two people, then by the end we were surrounded by a big group of 6 rasta's debating amongst themselves about the restoration and the plan of salvation (we are also sure they were smoking some weed before they joined us...) and the book of mormon and what what. the man we set the appointment with had been visisted by missionaries before so he knew about the book of mormon... anyway, the only thing we could do was testify and laugh because at that point everything was chaos. they ended up wanting to convert me to be a rasta with them. they wanted to know when we would be coming back so that we could discuss more of the "word man". "wow, man, that was some crazy things you girls were sayin!" "you should come back, we want to teach you our ways!" what what. so sister mudzimba decided that it was time to pray so she stood up to offer the prayer and everyone else stood up as well, then they made us join hands and they started to pray.... not exactly sure what they said but we do know it involved a lot of "rasta" this and "rasta" that, at the end of the prayer rasta sido closed by saying "I am Rasta Sido and I have spoken!" then the prayer was over and I had an obvious look of confusion on my face, so i said "amen?" and everyone started to laugh. Maybe the rasta party won't be converted anytime soon, but i sure do love them, and respect them for their dedication to the faith (no matter how bizzar it may be.) i know this church is true by the way. i am sad they are so confused, but alas, their time is not yet.

sister blum

sorry so short, next week will be full of more stories.

the work is great, it is sweet, i love it, mission is the best! keep being awesome and learning tons. 

Middle of November

this week we had a small sort of miracle...

first of all, i locked myself inside of a part member families toilet! that was embarrasing. they eventually realized that i was not there and they could hear me struggling to open the door, so the mom came around the house, took the key from the open window and then came back around the house to unlock the door from the other way!
in the same lesson (we are teaching the two kids, 14 and 9) the nine year old is named elton, he is really smart. we were teaching about the plan of salvation (they lost their father in 2009) and at the end of the lesson elton told me that he had a dream. in his dream i was there, dressed in white, and i was introducing him to his father who was alive. his mom then said, "elton, if you keep listening to them, they will take you back to daddy! do whatever they tell you to and be a good boy!" it was a powerful testimony of the eternal family for me.

next, we had some few minutes before we had to be home and we really wanted to find someone to teach. we were aimlessly driving and we felt like stopping to say a prayer for guidance. right after the prayer we found a house (the only one with electricity in the middle of the night) and a girl closing the gate. so we jumped out of the car and started talking to her. she didn't want to hear from us and neither did her parents, but one of her sisters did. we were able to bear a powerful testimony on the peace that the gospel brings to the chaos in people's lives. she shows a lot of promise and we really felt the spirit so strong as we were sharing with her how she can be happy and find peace and purpose in this life to return to be with the God who loves her so much.

anyway, love the work, it is going great. i have also come to love alma 26:27, alma 17: 10-11 and pretty much the whole book of mormon. I love Christ and i love his children. i love the book of mormon, thomas s monson, joseph smith, inspired church leaders, preach my gospel, the spirit and trials.

probably my biggest struggle has been learning how to use time effectively, for sure, anyone preparing to serve a mission, make sure you spend a lot of time practicing that technique before the mission!
my companion is my best friend. we are loving and learning so much from each other.
here is a question each one of the missionaries has been given to ponder for the next week, it applies to all of us so here it is and i can't wait to hear your responses... "what am I doing to become a better disciple of Jesus Christ?"

i have also been impressed with the scripture in the new testament that says "any man, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is not fit for the kingdom of God." when christ calls, you need to forsake everything and follow him, he is our savior, i love him and i am doing my best to follow him. don't look back, repent and repent quickly, move on and make something great out of your life! God loves us, that is why we have the wonderful plan of salvation. study, pray and keep the commandments,
i love you too much and pray that God is keeping you well.

sister blum

Questions and Answers: One Year Anniversary!

Dear all, 

thank you for everything! to answer your questions

1. did i go to the mission home?

yes, and it was awesome! that was my first and last time there probably until I go home. I do miss the temple a lot, we were trying our best to be able to go but the ap's said "NO, get in your car and go back to Botswana!" (don't worry everyone, I am not bitter). The mission home is a huge home that looks like our house but it has a lot more books and it is all brown, even the piano. otherwise it was so cool to hang out with President and Sister Omer for the evening, we went to dinner, they gave us the tour of the home and everything. 

2. How did I travel?

by car

3. how long did it take?

about 4 1/2 hours

4. where is my new companion from?

ZIMBABWE!!!! her name is Sister Mudzimba. so that means i am continuing with a no american companion spree! (nothing against americans, but i just love africa way too much!) so i have had companions from

madagascar
uganda
new zealand
namibia (companion for three days)
kenya
now zimbabwe

woohoo to foreign companions!

5. what am i trying to accomplish as a missionary?

I want to be an excellent misisonary (i know it is vague but there are so many things that go along with that, great faith in God, christlike attributes, most importantly lost in the work of the ministry)
when this is finished i want to look back and feel like i have finished what i was called to do.
i want to use time effectively (it is sort of a struggle for me sometimes, any suggestions?)
i also want to be a father led converted missionary. 
i hope to baptise the pope (ha ha, that will be hard because he isn't even in this mission. but if he ever stops by botswana, he better watch out!)

6. how is the member work coming?

great, we are completing two part member families in december! :)

7. have i read the book of mormon again since i have been out?

yes, i am half way through it again! i am also through luke in the new testament. i started on page one of the book of mormon at the mtc, now i am half way through it again. I am expecting to finish once more before i get home. I LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON WAY TOO MUCH!

8. what is the new misison presidents name?

President Omer from ogden utah!

9. How is the food?

great, but very different from home, if you come this side to pick me up, i will show you how the food is. i haven't eaten anything too weird but sour milk and pap (pap is like mashed potatoes made from maize meal)

10. how many hours do we work a day?

as many as we can. from 11.30 to lunch at 1, then from 2 to 9. 

11. do we have any good investigators these days?

interesting ones, our golden ones just got baptised last sunday, so now we are once again in the works. our good ones are dying of heart conditions in joburg right now.

12. do we get to trade off with other missionaries?

yes, we go on exchanges two times a transfer.

13. do we tract?

yebo! lots and lots

14. how many lessons do we teach per week? 

it depends on the week but we have an average of 5 a day. so ya.

that is all, my time is up,
love you
sister blum

Happy Halloween

we have an investigator who has a heart problem that no one can figure out. she was just referred to a specialist and is going to johannesburg to receive more treatment very soon. unfortunately for us, we will miss her a lot. we met her by accident, we went to her house thinking it was someone elses house, when we realized it wasn't the right place, we just talked to her. she is 21, a university student, lives alone and has a large yard that didn't look very well kept. after speaking to her we asked her if we could help her with her yard to which she said yes. so the next wednesday we rallied the forces (the elders in our district) and all of the tools and went to work. we gave her a book of mormon and set an appointment to see her the next day. when we got to the appointment we found that she had read from the very beginning to 1 nephi 3. she came to church and left half way through, when we went to visit her we found that she has been sick with a heart condition for a long time and when she works too hard, or is in new situations, she gets very bad chest pain and then she becomes dizzy, even to the point where she can pass out. so the reason why her yard is unkept is because she is physically unable to do it! it also turns out that her parents were visited by missionaries when she was six and she still remembers, especially about the book of mormon. everything about us meeting her testifies to me that it was 100% not a coincidence, when we went to her house the first time, she wasn't even home. she met us outside as we were about to leave. another testimony to me that i don't know the mind of God. we have really grown to love her and she is doing so well (minus the heart thing) truly we will be so sad to lose her, please pray that she can get better soon.

another reason why i don't know the mind of God, WHAT? I get to train?! i am excited and nervous, thank you for all of your advice, i will do my best and the Lord will do the rest. :) 

love all of you, and i love the work! thank you for all the support.

sister blum

October 23, 2011

Dear everyone,

If anyone asks how I am doing tell them... I'M SO GREAT! Mom, thank you for the motherly advice, although, you should probably tell my companion that, she doesn't eat anything. She pretends to eat by putting a lot of food on her plate, but after taking a couple bites, she gives me the rest of it because she is full. One thing I have learned to do is to never take very much because I know she will always end up filling my plate. If I say no, she will sneak it on when I am not watching, or she will feed it to the little kids around her. My Kenyan companion is a funny one! I love her very much, she is a great missionary and we are having a great time serving people around us. Sadly, this is her very last Monday on mission, she will become the dearly departed this time next week :( But the good news is, she is still going strong AND I will be getting a brand new little missionary, either from Zimbabwe or Zambia. Pretty excited about that, any tips for being a trainer?

There is a heat wave blowing through Botswana right now. It started two days ago and is expected to be over by Wednesday. Yesterday it was 37 celsius. today it is forcasted to be 38 and tomorrow 39. whatever the forecast says, it is HOT! 

We were meeting with a member yesterday who has a pretty amazing story, right now she is suffering from a brain tumor and is here in Botswana visiting her children. She is going back to South Africa this week for her final radiation treatment. this sister started having headaches about two years ago, didn't think anything of it until they got worse and worse and lasted for a long time. so she started going to a specialist who didn't tell her anything. after a while of no success, she went to a random doctor who decided to run some type of test on her. When the results came back they didn't really show anything, except for one of the results (that the doctor didn't ask for). at first he was confused because he didn't ask for that result but then he realized that there was something there. from there she went in for a scan and found that there was a 2 cm big tumor just millimeters away from her optic nerve. she has now been battling this tumor for about 6 months. the amazing thing is that she has so much faith and never wants to think of herself. when another sister in our ward got sick, she went over to her house to help her clean, she found that the woman didn't have food, not even a broom, or a mop to clean the floor. so this sister went and got her all the groceries she would need for a week, a mop, a broom, cleaning supplies and the works, then she cooked for her everyday until she felt well enough to cook for herself! this woman is truly incredible. I hope all of us can learn something of her example. let us be more christlike in reaching out to our friends and neighbors. 



the work continues, and i love it here in bots. ke a go rata tata!



sister blum

October 17, 2011

We saw some few miracles this week,

1. secretly I have had this nasty cold that has been staying for weeks. it made me sort of really tired all the time. Anyway, the miracle came just recently, I got a blessing from our district leader about 3 weeks ago, and in the blessing it said according to my faith I would be healed. Well, i guess i needed more faith because I didn't get healed! but you know what, God has his plan for each and everything.

the miracle came finally. as a district we weren't really that unified, so we made a unanimous decision to change that. we decided that each companionship, would take turns every Sunday cooking lunch and then serving our fellow district members. About the same time we made that decision, I got sick. at first it was ok, but then it got somehow worse. our unity as a district began to improve more and more, and i finally got a blessing from the district leader (like i said before). then members of the district began checking up on me to see how i was doing. yesterday, we came to know that they had began praying for me, almost instantly, I got better, and now i am 100% again. I decided that God is funny. that was a good joke on his part. I do know that all things are for our experience, i think all of us needed that lesson. I know God lives, he loves us, and he teaches us what we need to learn. but once the lesson is learned, he moves on to something else. just pray that the next lesson won't include my health.

2. On Monday last week we had a zone activity with this man named Elder Hartman, he came and spoke to us about the color code (you know red, yellow, blue, white personality types? if you don't you should go check out http://www.colorcode.com/ Sister Chirchir and I have both decided that it has revolutionized the way we teach. I think we have finally figured out teaching people and not lessons. Who knew the key would be learning about the color code? We have one investigator in particular that we have been struggling with for the last 3 months. He is a member referral whose family is so anxious to see him be baptized, however, despite our best efforts, he has budged very little. After learning about the color code, we came to the decision that he is a red, thus when we went to teach him this past week, we were able to totally teach to how he wanted us to teach him.

 It was a complete miracle to see the change in him as we taught to his needs. The lesson itself was inspired beyond belief, we talked about goals and about what he wanted to achieve in life, then we helped him realize that there are many things that he is doing that are preventing him from achieving them, he has begun to make steps towards dropping the bad behaviors and picking up good ones.

From our visit with him this last week to now, he is a different person. He came to church on his own after an absence of 3 weeks, and he was actually smiling, he was excited to greet us (which doesn't happen), and the list just goes on! We were able to identify his concern with the help of his member brother, and together they are working it out. The brother is a returned missionary and after that lesson he explained to us that we were totally inspired, he said that "I wish I would have known when I was on a mission that the people who are not progressing are not actually rejecting the message, they just have a concern that won't allow them to progress." I have gained a stronger testimony of Teaching people not lessons.

3. On a sad note, we met a less active return missionary, both Sister ChirChir and myself are not exactly sure what to think. He came home and slowly by slowly, broke some commandments and then tried to justify them, then he got caught up in trying to find "more truth" as he put it by searching for anti-mormon literature, then it began to escalate, now he is totally less-active and wants nothing to do with God. He doesn't believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior, and he doesn't believe that God is our Father, he thinks of God more as a Grandfather (as he put it... not really sure what he meant by that). He still reads the Book of Mormon every blue moon, and when he reads it he feels so good, but he denies that those feelings are the Spirit. He doesn't believe there is the Holy Spirit at all. We are afraid he has been blinded by the craftiness of men. We are not really sure what to do with him. We will be seeing him again this week and we are going to try to rekindle his testimony (which he claims he still has, because he feels good when he reads the Book of Mormon, but he doesn't believe in God, Christ, the Spirit, the church, the prophet, or anything...). 

October 9, 2011

hey hey, mi familia! 

I just love you all. 

Thank you for your emails (tonkie rolie mashie) as my companion would say. So once again i decided that i love africa. i miss home, but i think home should come here. it is the best! the greatest blessing is my companions! i have had companions from madagascar, uganda, new zealand, and now kenya. I know none of them are from botswana, and one is not from africa but i sure do love them. the greatest things that i have been learning lately are:



1. the mission is the training center for life.


2. the world is like a fruit salad, each person brings their own fruit and when it is mixed together it is nice, but when there is the sweet dressing stuff poured on it, it is divine (the yellow personalities, such as myself ;), are like the dressing).


3. your sanity is based on how well you can adapt to different situations and circumstances.


4. obedience is the most important attribute of Christ. if you are obedient, you will grow in every attribute automatically, without even trying!


5. i am a child of god (it isn't just a primary song)


6. God wants all of his children to be happy, he doesn't give a hoot if you are black, white, purple, red, yellow, orange or blue. He just wants you to live his gospel and have joy.


7. serving will make a friend faster than anything else.


8. the five words that (if applied) will change you completely, smile, be kind, show gratitude.



at the beginning of this transfer, God threw a whole new ball of wax at the botswana missionaries, i can't really put my finger on what it was, things just became so complicated and hard. emergency transfers almost every week, missionaries without residency getting kicked out of bots by accidentaly crossing the border... illness (i was sick with a cold on wednesday), and many other trials. on the bright side, a lot of dinner appointments. 

thank you for your prayers, aunt tami, i needed those prayers a couple of weeks ago, the whole mission did, that was an inspired thing you did and i am happy you listened and obeyed that spiritual prompting. as a mission we are fine, just random crazy trials that have been coming. and where there are trials, no matter how small, there is a need to pray. thank you again.

 I love you all.



HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!! 

Stephanie, even you 

hyrum, even you i guess.

 


ha ha, love you all. serious



sister blum

October 3, 2011

WOW. i have been out for a long time. things are great still. Sister
Chirchir says hello to everyone.

we were teaching a seventh day adventist the other day, ironically she used
to be a seventh day adventist herself. threfore she could relate so well to
him. it was a very interesting lesson to sit in on. it wasn't the first time
she has shared her experience of conversion with a member of the sda faith.
normally when they hear that she changed to become a "mormon" they say she
is lost and decieved. in that lesson we were able to find the man is
actually rather prepared, we gave him a baptismal date, and when he heard
the story it was like someone turned on the lights in his brain. he
understood the whole thing and what was greater, he felt the truth of what
she said. turns out he has been studying our literature, especially the
lesson pamphlets that he inherited (found on the ground) from his house
mate. i guess sister chirchir uses her story to test the preparedness of the
people we teach. this man passed the test

a muslim investigator i taught with sister clendon was baptized this week! i
am learning more and more that the true gospel of christ doesn't care who
you are, or what religion you are. it is the truth, and if you aren't living
it, you must re-adjust your path. also, there are prepared people everywhere
to receive the gospel. keep looking and you will find em! God is great, the
gospel is true, please pray for me that i can learn scriptures better.

the diet is going great, i have lost 7 kg's! only a few hundred more to go
;)

please keep praying for the missionaries out there, they need your help.

sister blum

End of September Already

i have never had a more crazy week! transfers was the most stressful thing of my life. i found my bed and my closet, and my new companion. her name is sister chir chir from kenya. we have been flat mates ever since i came on mission and i will finally be her companion. this is her last transfer. please pray that i can learn this area in 5 weeks so that i will be able to train a new sister here.


the events of this week are sort of hard to explain, we took sister ndahalele (not sure if i mentioned her in the last email or not...) to the
airport. my companion, sister clendon, was in Johannesburg for the week, and sister ndahalele was my companion in the area that was no longer mine (as i had technically been transferred to my new area). the world sort of threatened to fall apart while we were trying to work out who was where, what was what, who was who's companion and so on. i got a blessing a couple weeks ago that said i would have the ability to handle that challenges that will arise within the coming weeks... WOW, i sure hope this was the week that the blessing referred to. i am not sure how much more challenging things could have gotten. the storm has settled and just like everything else, it passed. now we are trying to put together the pieces and clean up the mess. so what did we do to celebrate the end of a crazy week?... we deep cleaned the flat! let out the old, welcome in the new. the new area is awesome, it sort of took a massive hit and has a lot of improving that gets to happen, i am just happy for the chance i have to improve it.


i love quilting because you can make the quilt whatever you want it to be. it is the same with the different areas i have worked in. you make it what you want it to be with your own design, pattern, and flavor. the beginning, you plan, then you cut, design, do rough drafts, practice pieces, and so on until each piece is put together exactly how you want it to be. in the end you are left with your own thing. i saw the final product of my efforts in broadhurst this sunday. it was stake conference and as a result we were able to go to church with the broadhurst ward. i was so excited to see that so many of the people we taught came to church. so many of the ward members we worked with were so much happier than when i first arrived here, and most of our recent converts were there with smiles on their faces. my work there is done, but hopefully i won't be forgotten. it was a sweet feeling to look at all that i had accomplished. whew, i love missionary work, it has so many rewards, as great as the challenges.


in the end, it was a nice week.

still loving life,

sister blum

September 18, 2011

this week was full of some interesting times. on tuesday we got a call from the mission president, he informed us that we would be taking a new missionary under our wings for about a week. the new missionary is named sister ndahalele from namibia. she was called to serve in the kenya mission and will be reporting to the mtc this week wednesday. her parents were VERY against her coming on mission and as the time was getting closer for her to come, she was facing more and more danger. finally the Spirit told her it was time for her to go early. basically she packed her bags, and snuck out of her house in the middle of the night, and went to the senior couples in her area at home. the senior couples contacted president omer (our mission president) and she was given special permission from him to join us for the week, until she can safely enter into the mtc. she was set apart that night, and then put on a plane, on wednesday she was with us. I really can't believe she hasn't gone to the mtc, i feel like she is so much more experienced at missionary work than my companion and i! she will be very missed when she has to go to the mtc.

this week is transfers, my companion and i will be seperated (sadly) she will be training and i will be going to the neighboring area. you know you are a sister missionary in the botswana mission when transfers consists of you moving closets and beds!

anyway, the work is sweet, pray for us,

love you

sister blum

September 12, 2011

as far as adventures, this last week we ate at a members home from nigeria.
 they fed us their traditional food. the meal was of fried fish, a HUGE bowl 
of custard, and this strange bean bread. they make the bread by cooking
 these beans, then they skin the beans, then they grind them down to a paste 
and make a dough. then they deep fry the dough to make bread. being a missionary 
is a challenge sometimes, especially when they dish the food for you. they 
gave us two plates heaping with food, and then a bowl of custard on top of 
that. the bean bread (called "akara") was super spicy because they put
chilies in it. otherwise it was ok. my faith in prayer grew because i had to
 pray to get all of it down. that meal was on monday, then the rest of the
 week i was a little ill. 

so this week was strange.
 we did have a monumental lesson last night, for any of you who know who 
ellen white is, you will know that she is the founder for the seventh day
adventist church. we were in a lesson with two investigators who are getting
 baptized on the 23rd of sep. we asked how their praying is going, they said
 they know joseph smith was a prophet. then we started to discuss their
 baptism. one of them is an sda, the other is a muslim. the sda asked us a 
question that related to the priesthood authority. we asked him if he
 believed the power and authority of the priesthood was restored by the
prophet joseph smith in these last days? he answered that he had no doubt
 about that, but he also thinks that ellen white restored the priesthood as 
well. then he began to tell us her story. the muslim in the meantime was
 sitting back sort of chuckling, then when the time was right, he added his 
story about mohamad! can you say confusing? my question is, who would win, 
ellen white, mohamad, or joseph smith? the muslim was just adding
 information, he doesn't believe in islam anymore and is converted, but the
 sda, he is still working on his testimony. he'll come around.

 

in the meantime, keep praying for our investigators! love all of you, have a
 super week and just so you know, the answer to the previous question is 
obvious, joseph smith would win because he was a true prophet called of god
 in these last days, he restored the priesthood, and translated the book of 
mormon.

 this church is true.

 

love you again,


sister blum

August 29, 2011

sounds excellent! i love the part that you were saying that the little ones 
are so cute, i am sure they are. WOW, that is a lot of new little kids in 
the fam. can't wait to see them at the reunion. way to represent the blum
 family at the wedding. i hope they know that i would have loved to be there
to support them. just turned out that god wanted me more on this side of the
world. i guess they will be together forever, and hopefully i do a good job 
and make it to heaven as well. then we can just be next door neighbors for 
the rest of forever! hopefully that will make up for the fact that i wasn't 
there. is it possible to have more than two next door neighbors? i have a
lot of friends that i want to be next door neighbors with!





we learned a big lesson in faith this last week. we were setting our 
trimester baptismal goals (the ammount of baptisms you wish to achieve for
the next four months) and sister clendon and i decided to be safe and set a 
rather low number. we thought they were rather good until the zone leaders 
found out. basically they told us that we needed more faith. they urged us 
to repent, and gave us a number that we were to pray about. the number was 
higher than both of us ever expected. we have both been reading 1 nephi in
our studies, pretty much this whole week has been dedicated to building 
faith. i especially like the verse where nephi tells his brothers that God
 performed all of these amazing miracles so why the heck was it impossible 
for him to be commanded to build a ship?! Sister Clendon and I have decided 
that we need to repent from being like laman and lemuel and we are 
stretching ourselves. We are excited to see how this next trimester works 
out. my bet is that the miracles will not cease, as long as we have faith
and keep working our tails off. in reality, god has really been blessing us
(we had two baptisms yesterday and we acheived our goals!!!!) and we are off 
to a great start on achieving next trimester as well :). we are working 
hard, we are praying and we will continue. next trimester is looking NICE, 
and full of miracles, more to come next week. love you, keep up the good 
work and can't wait to hear about everything else exciting that is going on. 




great job with the neighbors, i am sure you are making God, the neighbors,
 the ward and some missionaries somewhere very happy! way to fulfill your 
missionary responsibilities. if you have access to the book "teachings of
the prophet spencer w. kimball" (i believe it was a lesson manual for sunday
school or something...) there is an awesome chapter about missionary work. 
you should definitely read it!

 

once again, i love you!



love sister blum

August 22, 2011

to answer some questions:

how am i holding up so far from home?

i don't even feel like i am that far away. it is just as far away as any other place in the world because i still don't get to see all of you all the time. and the best part is i get to email you, once a week, but hey, it is better than snail mail eh?

am i getting enough rest and relaxation?

... not really sure what rest and relaxation means anymore... i guess i can say, i am getting enough that i am not dead yet.

am i eating enough?

too much! the food is good, and the members decided  that they need to feed us more often, so now we are very well fed.

am i able to exercise?

every day (except sunday)

am i keeping warm?

botswana is funny, it seems that all of a sudden summer has come. winter is now over and it feels like overnight it changed to really hot.

my over-all well being?

EXCELLENT!

any new investigators or baptisms to speak of?

YEBO! (tswana for "yes") the best part of missionary work here is that the field is white and when you thrust in your sickle, you reap so many rewards. those rewards are convert baptisms. botswana is doing so well by way of baptisms. in fact, my companion and i are happy to announce that within the last transfer and a half we have had three people baptised and confirmed, and are expecting two more next week. Heavenly father has been greatly blessing us, september is looking very promising for our area. it promises to be the best month of our entire missions. people just randomly find the church every sunday, then they love it, and then they just cling to it.

currently we are teaching two people who found the church on their own. They said they were just walking in the morning and they ran into some members who were walking to church and they asked if they could come.

they were saying it was because the members looked different so they came. pretty cool i guess. the best part is, they have accepted baptismal dates and are pretty

much keeping every commitment we leave them. Nigh unto golden i think. Keep praying for miracles for us. things are really going great.

mom, my companion and i just finished up the last of the coconut for macaroons, we are so thankful for the package you sent. we are still enjoying them and the macaroons are now her favorite cookie. also thank you

for the package, i am not sure if we need anything but we will let you know as time goes.

sister blum