February 20, 2011

first thing first... HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD!!! next thing next, transfer news came! say hello to my THIRD transfer with sister Randriampamonjisoa. we are really looking forward to this next transfer. i am happy to have another six weeks to learn from this one. she is a powerfull missionary who is full fun and love for all. it sounds like you have been having a lot of busy things happening. it makes me happy to hear that things are going so well at home. sometimes it is strange for me to think that life is still happening back home while i am here. Thank you for making the most of your time without me!

 

i have been here for 12 weeks. i can't believe how fast time has gone. seriously, we are getting our new planners in a week and we can't believe the one we have now is already filled. we are teaching and teaching and teaching and loving every minute.

 

we have had many disappointments, especially this last week. i told you about the family that had the word of wisdom problem. they are doing very well, the mom has been sober since she got that blessing 6 or so weeks ago. she comes to church faithfully, reads the book of mormon every day, and is absolutely golden. the dad took a little bit longer to quit but got a blessing and for three weeks now has managed to not drink or smoke at all. (the power of the priethood is amazing). he is in the military and has been on a trip for the last two weeks. he returns on thrusday and is so excited to be baptized as a family this next week. unfortunately he has only been to church once because of his crazy schedule. their baptism will be postponed until april so that he can come to church. i guess we will see how committed he actually is. i love that family so much. it is a dissapointment that they will not be able to be baptized this coming week, but they will be someday and when they are how happy that will be because they will be a family!!!!!

 

i love you all very much and am excited to see what this next week has in store for us. sorry that this one is short. may the Lord keep you safe while you live life this next week. until i email again.

 

sister blum

February 14, 2011

dear all,

we went on a game drive today! Mom, i saw a million giraffes! i
thought of you as i was taking pictures of them :) we saw warthogs,
impalas, RHINOS!!!! (right by the car!) zebras, birds of all shapes
and sizes, gazelles, green mamba snakes, wildabeasts, mongooses, and
ostriches! we saw many different kinds of antelopes and gazelles but i
don't remember their names. it was a very good time and i have many
pictures to show from it. unfortunately it takes longer than an hour
to load any pictures so i will not be able to send any for now. i have
been printing many pictures so hopefully when i get home we can share
EVERYTHING that happened here.

we baptized four people on saturday! all are priesthood age men, they
will be receiving the priesthood in two weeks. i hope i will be around
to see that happen. transfers are on the 22nd and it is hard to say
what will be happening in this neck of the bush. the senior couple
that resides here will be leaving and moving back to arizona at the
end of this transfer. the replacement couple will be arriving in 2
months. the Cardiff's will be missed terribly, they are the head of
the missionary work here. i hope this old donkey cart of a mission
will still be in tact by the time the new couple comes to replace
them.

i was thinking about how stinking fast this last transfer went. i
didn't tell you about last transfer because my companion and i stayed
companions so there really was no change. the last six weeks have
seriously flown soooooooooo incredibly fast.

i have been so blessed to have sister randria as my companion/trainer
for these last two transfers. she has been such a blessing to me, i
hope the luck will continue and she will stay here with me. of course
we can never guess what God may have in store, i just know that this
is Gods work and he cares too much about it to let someone like me
mess everything up if she, in fact, does leave me with the reigns. i
know that if she does then i will God's help every step of the way and
it will be 100% for my good. if not, i am SOOOSOSOSOSOOSOOOOOOOO
excited to give another six weeks a go where i can learn more of the
things i am supposed to with her.

this is a miracle that happened to me a couple weeks ago brought on by
your prayers (i am sure about that)

one time my companion, another sister and i were helping one of our
recent converts wash every single dish in her house. i have never seen
so many plates, bowls, cups, utensils, tupperware, etc. in my life.
before we began to wash, they had made two loaves of bread worth of
sandwiches and put them in front of us. we somehow fit them in our
stomach and washed the dishes. after we finished they brought out a
heaping (seriously heaping) plate of spaghetti and they watched as we
shoved it down. that night sister randria and sister clendon (the
other sister who came with us) were deathly ill to the point where
they needed a blessing. me on the other hand was fine. i guess i am
just used to eating a lot of food. thank you mom for always feeding me
so i would be prepared for this.

i love you family, and friends. i am doing all i can to magnify my
calling here in francistown botswana. time is short and i must go, i
love you all and am so thankfull for the prayers. they are really
keeping me safe physically and spiritually.

i will share many more experiences as i have time.

peace and blessings.
love very much sister blum

Message from Elder Cardiff

We had a good week, Billy and Tsotse spoke in church, The latter was just baptized last week and gave a great talk.  I think he will be an assert to the branch. 

The branch is growing and  growing, as you know we will have to move out of the F-Town  building sometime this year, we have the possibility of a new building but it may be already too small.  we had 117 in Sacrament; 65 investigators; 20 Primary Sunday School 10; Youth SS 19; young women 9; Relief Society 31; Priesthood 41 including 9 Ym.

Gerald had 77 in Sacrament, 28 in Primary; combined class RS and PH 23; Young Men 12; Young Women 12; Seminary 20 and 20 investigators.

As you can see, we are trying to ease the pressure on the cars so the sisters are taking donkey cart lessons.   I believe Sister Blum is ready to graduate,   Sister Randria is already using her donkey cart license and is instructing Sister Blum.  The  Sisters want an increase in their allotment as the hay bill is mounting up.
We had a wonderful group of new members.  The Sibanda's own the school the Bishop works at.  The wife and daughter were baptized.  I talked with the owner and head master, he is also now on date.  The young man in the wheel chair is also being baptized.

Elder Hope is trying to corner a tasty mopony worm,  he says it is delicious.

The work is going so good here,  we have the best missionaries in the world.

Elder Cardiff 

dear DAD, mom, family, and all the others who will be reading this,


it is good to hear of all the going ons at home. i am glad all is well.
i love what you said about consistency in our
efforts to be obedient. i completely agree with that. consistently
applying the atonement changes us from bad to good.


for some clarification on past emails, "trips to the dentist" meant,
my companion was having some pain in her mouth so we went to the
dentist. we thought it would be a five minute thing but then it turned
out she had a lot more problems than just the pain. within an hour she
was down a wisdom tooth and a couple cavities were filled. and then we
had to go again because they didn't finish everything. we went the
second time about a week later and they found more cavities. then we
had to go back again because one of the fillings wasn't done
properly... eesh, by the last appointment i pretty much had to force
her to go. all is well though, she now has a happy and healthy mouth.
my teeth are great.

"many priesthood blessings" so for some reason that week that i was
telling you about was crazy. we had some ivestigators who decided they
were done having us come over because the songs we sing at church are
too boring, and the wife has "already been saved and it is a sin to
be baptized more than once". anyway, we have been working with them
for a while and we decdied she needed more clarificaation on the
restoration of the gospel. we taught a powerful lesson on the
restoration and set a return appointment for a couple days later. when
we got back the mother was in a lot of pain, she had some unexplained
back problem that was so bad she couldn't move. my companion and i
knew without a doubt that she needed a blessing and then she needed to
go to the hospital. we put her in the car and took her to the branch
presidents house. she got her blessing, then we went to the hospital.
by the time we were on our way back she was fine. we know Heavenly
Father set that up, we had been praying very hard that somehow their
hearts would be softened. they still won't come to church but there is
a definite change in them since that day, and their hearts really are
softer. the next appointment we had was with the family who had the
word of wisdom problem (the dad still does but the mom is going to be
baptized on saturday!!!!) and they needed blessings, the branch
president (again) was called and he came over and gave the mom a
blessing. the dad is in the military and was called to go on duty somewhere
far a way for a couple weeks. he is still struggling but the mom is
wonderful, she has a bright and shiny face and she is a completely
different person today than she was when she got the blessing.

this week was C----R----A-----Z----YYYYYY----! as a zone we decided to
kick it up about ten notches. as a companionship we have 21
individuals on date this week. the Lord is doing some marvelous works
here. there were 154 people at church yesterday, there was no space in
the church (we are renting the building which is basically a house,
about the same size as our house and the owner decided that we weren't
allowed to rent it anymore so the church will be moving next month,
bummer, but hey, the next building will be MUCH LARGER). our faith has
increased so much this week, as a companionship we are working hard
and efficiently. (the francistown zone will have 20+ new members next
week [once again fingers crossed]).

there is a quote by ezra taft benson that says,
"the secret to missionary work is work, if a missionary works [she]
will get the spirit, if [she] gets the spirit [she] will teach by the
spirit. and if [she] teaches by the spirit [she] will touch the hearts
of the people and[she] will be happy... work work work, there is no
satisfactory substitute, especially in missionary work!"

we go to bed at night with our heads spinning and new ideas coming
like crazy. this last week i realized i was on a mission and we are
now lost in the work.

i say to all who may be reading this, "if ye have desires to serve
God, ye are called to the work. For behold, the field is white,
already to harvest. and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his
might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not but bringeth
salvation to his soul." ( refer to D&C 4)

every member is a missionary, serious, if you have been having any
doubts on your ability to serve God with all your heart, might, mind,
and strength, repent now and get to work. missionary work is one of
the greatest blessings to those around you who have not heard the
truth you have. WOOHOO, I LOVE BRINGING SOULS UNTO CHRIST.

many sincere blessings, keep on keepin'
sister blum

(ps what ever happened to my vehicle?)

first to answer your questions...

how did primary go this week?

WHEW! it seems as though the more we try to help the branch run
independantly the more we end up running the branch (or the primary part
that is). we were left completely to ourselves this last week and what was
worse was that last week we were told to plan nothing so the president would
have a little more of a desire to get things going. our bad i guess, we
should always be prepared, fortunately we had a whole bag of cookies and new
crayons :) it went well though, most of the time the kids don't really say
much when i am around because, you know, i am white and they think i am a
ghost. ha ha.

i can receive emails but i am not supposed to email back unless you are kin.
i will ask however that you give my postal address rather than my email
address. it is easier for me on email days to only read and respond to
letters from family. please be sparing to who you allow to have my email. my
postal address for here in francistown is as follows:

sister blum
P.O BOX 301797
Selepa, Francistown
Botswana

the package can be sent to gabarone

now an update on the work... sometimes things are hard because of the
amount of work that is here (imagine that huh, i am complaining because
there are too many golden ones), i seem to have mini stress attacks
sometimes because i rely too much on my own strength. we have a white board
that has all of our progressing investigators, people we are working with,
and our on-date investigators written. we have so many people that we are
preparing for baptism that sometimes i look at the board and SERIOUSLY
question, "how in the stars will it be possible?!" something my dear
companion is really good at is putting things in God's hands.
my companion is the best, honestly. i can't believe how lucky i have been to
have her as my trainer for the last two transfers. she is so good at being a
missionary, i marvel at how faithful, virtuous, caring, loving and giving
she is. she takes so much time to help me with the things i struggle so hard
with. one of those is remembering things. for some reason, i am here and i
can't remember anything some days, like how to get to investigators houses,
names of people that we work with all the time, lessons that were taught,
information i am supposed to share with people, etc. she is patient and
always caring when we make the millionth u-turn because once again, i forgot
where our investigator lived. or when i re-commit people to be baptized for
the 50th time because i couldn't remember ever putting them on date before.
also, i love to talk and talk and talk about one principle in a lesson, if i
am not careful, i can still be talking about our loving heavenly father
after 20 minutes. she has been doing an amazing job helping me teach to the
point. it has been hard though, sometimes i get frustrated because when i am
talking too much she will interrupt me and move to the next topic. yes, i am
thankful for that because it is helping remind me to be brief and sweet,
just sometimes it hurts my pride. which is a weakness i have developed over
the course of my whole life.

i wish to be a good misisonary, often i feel so inadequate for the job at
hand. we have so much work to do, so many things to improve on, and so many
rules to apply. i know that God is in charge here, i just don't want to let
him down.

i have been studying a lot on pride the last few weeks, mainly the talk by
benson titled "beware of pride" it truly is the biggest stumbling block. i
wish it was easy to get rid of, unfortuanetly it is like the morning
glory of sins, it roots itself deep and spreads like crazy. it is almost
impossible to kill, sometimes i fear that it will never be gone. in the book
of Helaman chapter 3 it says there was no contention in the land, save a few
instances brought up by the pride of the people. i am working oh so hard to
rid myself of it, and i am finding that the deeper to the root i get, the
more the roots resist being pulled and the more painful it is. sister
randri is like the gardener who is digging, and pulling and wiggling on that
root. she is doing such a good job but man does it hurt sometimes, one day i
wish to be free from this great evil that holds my heart.

i am sorry for those that i have not had the opportunity to contact may the
lord continue to bless you and i am doing my best here, if you wish for me
to write you, i plead with you to write me a letter so that i can 1)
actually respond to you and 2) so i can send you more than just a two second
shout out via these letters. i only get to see a computer for one hour on
monday.

times up, love you
sister blum

this last week was possibly the craziest week ever! it involved one of our
recent converts houses lighting on fire, some investigators having a baby, a
lot of meetings with the second counselor in the branch presidency because
the primary president decided to stop being the primary president, trips to
the dentist, the announcement of the loss of our chapel (we are currently
renting it and the renter decided to terminate our contract) some other
investigators getting deathly ill, a lot of priesthood blessings, and lastly
and most importantly 2 baptisms!!!! WOOHOOOO MISSIONARY WORK!

as i am typing this i realize there is not very much that i have actually
told you, let me try to fill in the gaps. the branch we are a part of is
small in members but HUGE in investigators, we had 106 people at church! the
leadership are very small babies still. we are having a problem with the
leadership in primary so sister randria and i have been running it for the
last few months. two sundays ago we were told by the branch president to
stop planning lessons and to pull out of primary to let the newly called
persident do her job. we did that last week and it worked well, then this
week she decided that she was done for the second hour. i went to the room
to check on her and as soon as she saw me she said "ok kids, and here is
sister blum with sharing time." then she left quickly. there i was, 43
children starring at the white girl in the front of the room... needless to
say, we did a lot of singing time, a lot of coloring and a lot of playing. i
did tie some gospel into it, we have bodies that move so we must be thankful
for them! whew, that was a tough one. i sure am happy for an inspired bishop
who gave me the calling in nursery before mission.

the work continues, we are trying hard to build up the branch by finding
good strong people that can lead. we found two of them and baptised them on
saturday. the Mom is married ( we expect the husband will be baptized soon,
she reads the book of mormon with him every night and he has a strong
testimony of the book of mormon. he just needs to be taught). and she is the
headmaster of a school. her daughter will serve a mission, she is 22 and i
know that if she continues the way she is, absolutely she will be on a
mission in a couple years. 

anyway, i know there wasn't a super amount of explanation in that email
but i must go, my time is up. i was hoping that i could get a cd sent to
me. i wish for the cd to have the prince of egypt soundtrack, dad playing
hymns on his guitar, and karli playing songs on the piano. so i guess it
would have to be three cd's. as well as many chocolate chips, and brown
sugar. i also need a watch. 

i love you and i am happy to have you tell me your testimony every week.
sister randri and i have been doing our best to work our tail ends off. i am
doing VERY VERY VERY well though, i love the work and i love the people.

sincerely,
sister blum