Week #32 - Granny

Blessings in Botswana!!!

Dear Family & Friends,

We have had such a marvelous week that I’m not sure how long it will take me to tell you about it, but I’ll try to keep it brief.

I think Dad wrote last Sunday, but I also wanted to tell you how special the day was opening a new building for our Kanye Branch. We love those people and they seem to think we can do anything and answer every question and we find ourselves just wanting to bear our testimonies to them ALL and wrap our arms around them and hope and pray that they stay active in the church. We helped them clean ALL DAY Saturday and it was a project and a half---but Sunday was all worth it and Dad and I each had people just wanting to talk to us about their life and it’s problems, one in particular asked to visit with me and she is 18 years old, pregnant from a rape and scared and alone. I am trying to get her some counseling through Joburg, but I’m not sure if anything is available yet so I have found her some articles in the Liahona that might help her for now and I will continue to try to visit with her when we go down there but that is only every two months. HARD!!! Another lady has had 3 children and only been married when she had one of them and is afraid to go to the Branch President so she can be baptized, I will continue to help her to realize it is a necessary step for her progress. I’ve gone to her home once and met with her individually and sent her a couple of articles also from the Liahona, but she is still hoping for me to talk to the Branch President for her which I’ve told her I can’t do. The Branch President is also the Missionary that is teaching her so it gets a little sticky at times and hard for them to understand. She is doing well though and I’m hoping soon to help her complete the process so she can be baptized.

On Wednesday this week we were involved with training meetings with President and Sister Poulsen. So on Tuesday evening the Poulsen’s came to our place and we had dinner together. I was also cooking for the dinner for tomorrow for all the Elders so I just fixed Meatloaf and Baked Potatoes and a green salad for our dinner but they seemed to enjoy it and we had a really nice dinner discussing lots of Mission plans, ideas, and a few problems that President needs our help with so it was a very delightful evening with them. Wednesday was FULL of training for the Zone Leaders, the District Leaders and all the Trainers and we started at 9 O’clock and didn’t get through until 5 O’clock and we actually had a nice discussion on teaching experiences during the lunch hour so we didn’t even have a break all day. President Poulssn really knows how to get the best out of a day with the Elders and it’s great to learn from him. Sister Poulssn never gets to spend any time with the Sisters, so I fixed a special lunch for the Sisters and her and she skipped out on the Elders and their training meetings for about an hour and a half and just had lunch and talked with the Sisters. They weren’t invited to the other meetings as it was just a Leadership Training day so this way they didn’t feel cheated as they were afraid they wouldn’t even get to see President and Sister Poulsen after they came all the way to Botwana for the day.

The next day our Elders from Lobatse called and said they had some bad news and that they had hit a cow on the way home from the training meetings and also that their Power was off the whole time they gone and all their food was spoiled. We’ve actually had a problem with the Power Company in Lobatse and they moved into a new flat there 4 months ago and we’ve never been able to get them to send us a bill. I’ve gone to the Power Company at least 6 times and even wrote a letter to the company requesting a bill. I’ve also gone to the landlord twice telling him that we don’t get a bill. Well, I went into the Power Company Thursday morning and I won’t even go into all the details, but they said they would turn on the power that day (after I paid the bill of course) which I did and left. Thursday night when the Elders came in from working there was still no power. I called again Friday morning and they apologized and said they would do in Friday, for sure so when the Elders called me Friday night late to say they had come home at 9:30 to find their house with no power and it had been broken into during the day and every room in the house was completely torn up! You can imagine how upset I was so on Saturday morning we left for Lobatse by 7 AM to see what we could do. They called the Police (emergency phone number) that night but no one answered so we called them again Saturday morning; they came out and the Elders filled out a bunch of papers, but……………..you know!

I called the Power Company and they said they would be right out; but we had an appointment with a Finance Guy coming from the AREA Office in Joburg at 10:00 so we couldn’t stay. I told the Elders to call them every half hour if they didn’t come, they finally did show up about 10:30. We also called a fence company that would come and repair the Elders electric gate that was cut and another spot in the fence that they had torn down but we couldn’t get the Alarm Company to come back and hook it up until Monday so we are praying that no one breaks in again before we can get them hooked up to the Burglar Alarm System. When we moved into the house 4 months ago, we chose not to have them hooked up to the Alarm System as the house was very expensive, in a nicer neighborhood and the landlord said he had lived their for 6 years and hadn’t ever had a problem. As you can see, that was a bad choice because that is actually the second time those same Elders have been broken into so we are hooking them up the Alarm System and just paying the fees to do so. We do love it here, but Safety is a issue for us all.

One of the Highlights of the week I just slipped right over, but on Thursday afternoon we had the privilege of helping with the wedding for two of our couples that were being married so they could be baptized. They went to the Dist. Commissioner 3 weeks ago and “Posted their Bans” which basically means they declared they wanted to be legally married and they have to sign an agreement that they will pay their Lobola (The Bride Price) to the family at some point in time. The family has 3 weeks to complain or make trouble for them, and then if no one objects, they can be considered married legally. They do it in a big group and then they just sign the papers and there are legally married. Then they drove to the church and we had a nice little reception for them which basically included remarks by some of their friends and family and refreshments. They didn’t have any money for a reception so the missionaries and dad and I did it all except for a nice lady in their ward who decorated a couple of tables very nicely and brought plates and glasses for the refreshments. I should say that one of these couples is 61 and 42 (respectively) and they have two grown children and have lived together for 20 years. The other couple is probably about 35 and they have 2 boys about 15 and 10 and they have lived together for 15 years. They asked Dad to say a few words at the reception and they considered that their Church Wedding. Dad has applied to be a marriage officer, but it hasn’t come through yet but these two couples seemed so excited to have “President Morgan” a their wedding and they just kept thanking him for his wonderful words of advice and just for taking the time to come to the wedding that we kind of felt guilty because they thought we were somebody important. We told them we were just a Counselor to the Mission President and he really would have like to be their also, but he was clear in Joburg and couldn’t make it. It was a really special day for them and they spoke also and bore their testimonies of how important this day was for them and how they were so happy to finally find a way for them to be married and knew that God was happy that they were able to keep His Commandments.

That brings us to today and today we were able to go to church in Molopolole and see all of the people I’ve been talking able go into the waters of baptism. The older couple were both baptized, the younger couple and their two sons and also another lady that dad had a 2^nd interview with is from that same branch and they were all 7 of them baptized today after church. We had to go to Mochudi (North an hour) to church, but we only stayed to Sacrament meeting and a meeting with the Branch President and then we took off for Molopolole (almost 2 hours East and South of there) and arrived just in time for pictures with all the candidates involved (they all wanted Dad “The President” in their pictures and again we felt a little funny, but we obliged them and jumped in the pictures and then we got to witness their wonderful baptisms. It was truly a great day and a very busy but wonderful week.

I almost forgot that last night we were invited to two meetings by the Stake President. The first one was for all the local leaders and is concerning Botswana becoming a Stake of its own. Right now we are part of the Roodepoort Stake which is located 5 hours away in JoBurg. The Stake President gave the Brethren some challenges and Dad will tell you all about that later, but basically they are shooting for us to become a Stake by next June 26^th. We are excited.

The 2 meeting last night was for all of the returned missionaries from Botswana. It was a great meeting and this letter is too long to even go into that. I’ll just close by saying that Dad and I were called out of the audience to speak and I told them that we had a Grandson being blessing in Church today and we also had a Grandson speaking in church before leaving for a mission in Argentine. I bore my testimony that we are missing some very special and important things at home, but that we know we are where we are suppose to be because 27 people were being baptized in Botswana this Sunday and we were thrilled and happy about the missionary work that we are privileged to be involved in. We are working as hard as we can; but we miss every one of you at home and we know that we are missing some very important things in your lives. Please know that we love you and we are proud of you and we thank you for “Carrying On’ in the work of the Lord. We are so blessed because of the way you are living your lives.

We Send ALL OF OUR LOVE

Mom and Dad, Granny & PaPa Lynn, Lynn and Lorraine

PS We sure hope Trey’s blessing day was wonderful for the Barnum’s

And Bryan, we certainly missed being with you today. We are proud of you! Thanks for

being the fine young man that you are. You will be the best missionary in Argentina!!

Week # 31 - Papa Lynn

This has been a mixed up week as It started out a little slow but it changed about Wednesday. Two sisters who served here in Botswana called about a month ago to see if they could come and visit their old stomping grounds. We said sure because we knew them as Sister Farrow was here for about 3 weeks after we arrived here in Botswana and Sister Kubecka was six weeks longer than that. The first day was very hectic as they kept asking us to drive them or pick them up from different things. So we have been very glad that we had plans for Friday in Mochudi and the again Saturday in Kanye. They have done really well these last couple of days as they have people to visit and see and I’m not sure how they are getting from place to place but they seem to getting along just fine without us.

Friday we hurried around and got things ready for Saturday as we knew that we couldn’t put things off until Friday night. I did some things for missionaries on bike issues and had to get the trailer ready to haul the big ladder to put up a sign on the building in Kanye and all this took place before 9:00 as we headed to Mochudi for a district meeting. It was a fun district meeting as we drove around one of the small mounts on the edge of town and had the district meeting on the edge of a cliff. The wind was blowing more than usual but it made it so it wasn’t so hot. We saw some wild monkeys and Elder Hope the district leader had a great lesson. On the way back we stopped at the immigration office to see if the first batch of Elders that we want to get residence permits were ready. Not being very surprised they said come back in a few days. We keep getting told to come back in a few days. I think they just like to see how much we will put up with. I made a note on my calendar to come back in about three weeks so they can’t tell us they aren’t ready.

Saturday morning which was this morning we got up at 6:00 and headed to Kanye. They are moving into their new church building and will hold their first meeting in it tomorrow. Here is list of things we did today. First thing we went to the Elders flat which is the old church building also and meet with the elders just as the zone leaders that had been in Mafikeng on splits for Friday arrived. As they changed their cloths we headed to the new church to get started for the day. We had a big sign to plant in cement by the road which pointed to the new church meeting place. We had an even bigger sign made to put on the outside wall of the building that I borrowed a huge extension ladder and hung it. I put a small one by the front door also (three different signs). Then I hung paper towel dispensers in both the men and ladies bathrooms. Then we moved the baptismal font and it had to be buried as the walls are to week without support around them. In between all of this I had to make a couple of trips with the trailer back and forth between the old church site and the new one to move chairs, tables, books, bookcase, podium, easels, and many other things.

All and all it was a wonderful day but Mom and I aren’t as young as we used to be so we are very tired after a full day. It was fun and hard at the same time, but very rewarding. We plan to go to bed a little early tonight. Tomorrow we head back to Kanye as they have asked both Mom and I to speak in the new building sacrament meeting. They also asked me to offer a special prayer to help tie the new building into missionary work and to help people to remain active. I will do the best I can and it will all be part of my talk.

Please find attached some pictures we took today. I will close for now but we send our love clear from Botswana to each of you. Thank you for your letters and all you do for us. We love serving here in Botswana and thank our Father in Heaven for such great families that support us her in the mission field.

With love out of Botswana, DAD and MOM

TO THE MEN OF THE FAMILY

TO THE MEN OF THE FAMILY,

PLEASE CHECK OUT THE ATTACHMENTS OF THESE TWO PICTURES. I KNOW THAT YOU WILL GET A KICK OUT OF THIS.

LOVE OUT OF BOTSWANA, DAD

Week #30 - Granny

Dear Family and Friends

It’s my turn to write this week and the week has been full of many blessings that I’ll share with all of you. The last 6 weeks have been so hectic that I started into the week not sure if I could handle transfers and new missionaries and immigration and all that was on the schedule. Monday we were still trying to get information on our last set of missionaries and we so badly wanted to finish that up before the next set came in. Lynn made an appointment and filled out every paper, letter, and form we could imagine they might want over the weekend. We went to immigration and met with one of the dignitaries that said he would meet with us at 8 AM Monday morning. We left about 7 AM knowing that traffic that time of morning was challenging, but we were surprised when it wasn’t too bad and we actually were there 20 minutes early. We met with Mr. Wiseman and he went over everything carefully and took our paperwork into the back and met with some other people and came out and told us to come back later. We left and tried to get our Utilitiy bills (for the 4^th time) but to no avail, part of them were ready but not all. To make a long story short though, after 3 trips to Immigration and 2 more trips (one on Tuesday and one of Wednesday) to the BBS Mall (where I pick up Utilities) we finally got approval on our missionaries and MOST of the Utilities were available. Immigration and BBS Mall are clear across town from our office and just happen to be the most stressful places we have to go each month. The lines are always long and we get anxiety attacks just knowing we have to go there. However, we were thrilled and greatful when by Wednesday evening we had enough of what we needed that we settled for the Miracles, and prepared for our new missionaries to come in late that night. Last transfer they didn’t get through the Border until 1:30 in the morning, but this time they didn’t have any trouble and arrived at the mission home by 11 PM and we were thrilled and again recognized the Miracle.

We got 5 new missionaries this transfer and we gave them and their companions a quick bowl of soup and some cookies, collected all of their documents and sent them to the Zone Leaders flat for the night. Lynn had to get up really early to copy all of their documents and get the forms ready to head off to Immigration again the next morning. The missionaries all came over at 9 and we fed them breakfast (banana bread and fruit), they completed their part on all the forms and we were Off! We go get passport pictures, then to the Police Station to have all of their documents notarized, then to the Doctors office for physicals, then to immigration. Everything went really well and by 1 O’clock we were at immigration waiting in line. Amazingly enough, we only waited a little over an hour and then it only took them another hour and we were done. We were shocked as we actually made it in one trip and they accepted everything we turned it as final. We are now getting Residency for all of our missionaries instead of 90 Day waivers that we had to re-do on all of our Elders so they can stay 6 months. If these all go through, President will be able to let them stay in Botswana as long as he wants and even move them around without having to send them back to South Africa. It’s been a lot more work getting to this process, but if it works, it should be much easier for all of us. We are hopeful and grateful that everything has gone so well this transfer.

By Thursday evening, we were both exhausted, but grateful for all the help we had received from our Heavenly Father. He had truly worked miracles in our behalf and we recognize His hand in getting the work done here in Botswana. Friday and Saturday we spent some much needed time on cleaning our yard, washing down the outside of our house, especially the dirty windows and window sills and scrubbing our fence. By Saturday afternoon I even had all the laundry caught up and the house cleaned inside and we went out to dinner to celebrate the fact that we had lived through the past 6 weeks. It’s not always this hard, in fact we are kind of thinking since all the training sessions are over, we are only going to have Zone Conferences once each 3 months and President will only come up for interviews every 3 months, Life might get boring around here! I’m kidding of course, but this should be the hardest 6 weeks we will have the whole time we are here and quite frankly, we have loved it but it’s nice to have it done. Lynn is busier with his new calling and gets lots of phone calls and assignments from President and we are always anxious to do whatever President wants us to. We will be going to Kanye (about 1 ½ hours away) this coming Saturday to help their Branch move into their newly remodeled building. They have been meeting in the living room of their missionary flat for church, but the church building maintenance group has finally remodeled an office complex area into a building for them and it is ready for occupancy this week. Lynn will go down and put up their sign and we’ll take the Bakki (pick-up) and the trailer and help them move all of their old chairs and tables and pulpit and etc. into their new place. Eventually they will get new equipment, but there is no money right now so they have to use their old stuff. The missionaries are going to be so happy to have their flat back and not have to have classes in their kitchen, their office, and their living room as well as sharing their bathroom. Kanye has only been a branch since February, but they have about 100 people at church each week and they are finding lots of Priesthood to teach and to lead their Branch. Right now they have an Elder as their Branch President, but they have a couple of choices when it’s time to change that situation. They have a great Primary President, the YW President just got transferred so that’s been hard, and their Relief Society President keeps cancelling each Sunday morning, but they have a great 1^st Counselor. You can see that things are a bit shaky yet, but we are all praying for them and we go there as much as we can to teach and interview and talk with their investigators.

We are healthy and happy and love serving together. Lynn is such an asset to the missionaries here and they ALL love him. He is a real spiritual strength to the mission here and they truly look to him for advice and help in all of their situations. He even fixes their EVERYTHING! I hope some of them learn how to be “fix-it men” like he is, it’s such a blessing when a man knows how to keep things running and keep old things from falling apart. I think all the Elders want to be just him, they just haven’t had Dad’s that taught them how to fix things and they don’t have a clue! I am a lucky woman and I think all the Sister Missionaries want to find a husband just like mine!

So far this week, we have a busy Monday, some things to do on Tuesday, and really busy Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but we actually have some free time to catch up again and that seems really nice today. We went to Mafikeng to church (2 hours away and across the border into South Africa) and we did our planning on the way home. It actually looks like a “possible” week and we are going to fill it full so we are worthy to receive more of the Lord’s blessings. We feel his help in the work, and we pray for our family all the time. We’re so sorry to hear about Corbin breaking his arm; Corbin be careful and it will heal just fine. The picture of Garrett running with the football was fantastic and is now the screen saver on Dad’s computer. Mom and Dad asked if we are serving 18 Month’s or 2 years, our call is for 18 Months this time and our scheduled release date is August 22^nd, 2011.

We love you all and hope you too can recognize the Tender Mercies of the Lord in your lives. He truly loves us and wants us to be happy, we just have to do our part; His promises are sure!

We love letters (even short ones) and pictures are always fun. Congratulations Dax and thanks for calling us and including us in your big news. Kricket, thanks for doing the blog, we get lots of comments from family and friends that love to read it. Thanks for everyone who has time to write and Thanks Roger for the great pictures of our place. It looks beautiful and I think it made me a little homesick. I had almost forgotten that we have a new home, we only lived in it for a little over a year and I think I've forgotten how nice it is and what green grass looks like. We stay busy, but we do love to open our e-mail and find letters from all of you. Our skype works fine, but our Magic Jack isn't working at all so don't try to reach us on that.

Mom and Dad, Granny & PaPa Lynn, Lynn and Lorraine

Week #29 - Papa Lynn

Dear Family and Friends 5 September 2010

This has been a very different week because we finished the Principle Training lessons and we are very glad to have them done. It was a month of a very heavy extra load. That is now behind us and we don’t see anything like it in the future but who knows? On Thursday the 26^th Sister Morgan and I went to the border to pay the 3 months insurance that we have done for longer than we have been here and they border people didn’t want to let us buy it. He said the cars could only stay in the country for 90 days and then they had to leave. That has worked on some of our cars as we take them out for transfers or even when we go across the border to visit Mafikeng every two month but most don’t leave Botswana ever.

He made us meet with his big boss and he told us the same thing. So we left with another difficult problem as we didn’t have insurance and they said we have our cars in Botswana illegally and we must register them in Botswana. Well that is well and good and we personally would love to do that as it would take of several problems but the cost would be about 12% value of each car. I talked to Rob Dickie who is the fleet manager and he said no way. By this time they had a list of our cars because they got it when we went out to by the insurance. I really worried about them impounding all of our cars. I talked to Elder Watts who is over the cars in the mission at least in South Africa and we decided to swap each of the cars across the border. We took 3 on Thursday and 3 on Friday and 3 on Saturday the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th of this month. That gave me a lot of border crossings in three days plus one extra as one of our missionaries left their flat (apartment) key in the car heading to Johannesburg. We called and they were only about 30 kilometer out and they turned around and I had to go back across the border just to get his flat keys. Even though I went across the border 4 times I didn’t loss my passport.

As we came into Botswana each day with three cars we were able to purchase the 90 days worth of insurance which now made us legal again. We won’t tell them that we will most likely have several of these cars go without insurance before they change across the border again. But we will try to keep on top of this much better.

I had another run in with the immigration last Thursday. One of our missionaries was in town on the car exchange thing and so while he was here his 90 days is up so I wanted to take him to get his waiver renewed. They said things are not right because we come in the country as visitors and then in 90 days we ask to have them registered on their waiver as a volunteer. Well am I ever glad that this will be the last set of waivers as we will now be on residence permits. Not only will this be easier but they can stay to the end of their missions here in Botswana.

Enough of the pity party in my behalf. It is all the more reason I get the big bucks in my pay check. At least maybe I will get the big bucks but the big bucks would most likely if I didn’t complain in my letters to my family.

Some have sent packages and had them return. Let me put what address you should use to get mail and packages to us.

Elder and Sister Morgan

Postnet Kgale

AD P. O. Box 172 ADD

Gaborone, Botswana

PH: 7132-0394

Of course it looks different to you because you don’t live in Botswana but that is the way it should be on the packages or letters. If you put the phone number as I have it below on the left or right but not as part of the address they will call us when it comes.

I will close for this two weeks and Mom will write again next week. We love each of you and are very proud of you and pray for you each day. Please continue to send e-mails and your love to us. DAD

Week #28 Granny

Monday August 30, 2010

Dear Family & Friends,

Another week has passed and our life continues to be most interesting and it changes by the day!

This past Tuesday we went teaching with our Missionaries from Mochudi (45 minutes North) to a man they have been working with for a couple of years. His wife is a cute little black lady that is super active and does a great deal to run the ward in all of it’s organizations. Her husband is white and comes to church with her every Sunday, supports her in all of her callings, but has an alcohol problem. He even goes out during church to have a drink and then comes back in. During our meeting with him, he is just a congenial as can be and knows all the answers to the questions we ask and doesn’t seem to have any questions of us; but he says he’s perfectly happy with his life and was baptized when he was just one year old so he doesn’t want to change much with his life. It’s unbelievable for me to see how many families can be destroyed because of alcohol; and yet it is such an addition that they just can’t give it us. We challenged him to prepare himself for baptism and he said, “I guess I can try” but I actually think we didn’t get anywhere with him. Dad is going to call the missionaries today and see how he did this week.

On Wednesday we had our 3^rd big Training meetings with all of our missionaries. We taught from 10 AM to 4 PM and seemed to go well. The missionaries are being very responsive to the lessons and tell us they are learning so much and becoming more confident in their teaching which is the main object of all that we are doing. We just have one more week to go and then it will be finished. I have to say I’ll be relieved when it is over; a whole month is a long time to stress and it’s weighing on me heavily.

Thursday we made quick trip out to the Botswana/South Afrikan Border to get the Insurance for all 13 of our cars. We have to go out and renew it every 3 months; only this time they said we couldn’t renew them anymore and we would have to start registering all of our cars in Botswana. They are bought in JoBurg and therefore the Car Zar in the Area Office registers them all in South Afrika and then sends them up to our missionaries to use. We have to pay every time they come in a out of the border and also to renew the insurance for all of them. However, now the rules have changed (no surprise) and they wouldn’t let us pay the insurance, they want them registered here. Since that would cost the church 12% of the value of each car; the area office doesn’t want us to do that unless we absolutely have to. The man we talked to at the Border took a copy of the sheet we were carrying that gave the license numbers and registration numbers on all of our cars and sent us walkin’. We called the Area Office and told him what had happened so on Thursday, Friday and Saturday we will be switching out all of our cars for different cars from JoBurg to hopefully alieviate any problems for now. The Area Office is going to get the legal department involved and see what can be done, but hopefully they will let these new cars into the country without any trouble, if not we will be without any cars for our missionaries until this can be resolved.

Every Friday now we visit a District Meeting, this week we went to Molepolole which is about 1 hour West of us. They live right next to their Branch building which is actually held in a school. They hold Priesthood and a Sunday School class in their apartment and the rest of their meetings are held at the school. The school, however, doesn’t have running water and the outhouses are “horrid” so we always have to plan well before we go there and don’t drink any water all morning before we leave. Dad can use the Elders bathroom, but women aren’t suppose to be in their flat, especially down the hall where the bathroom is and I hate to ask for special privileges.

They did put on a great District meeting though and the 4 missionaries that we have there are doing a great job. Molepolole has been open for a couple of years (maybe less) and now has a local member for their Branch President and only uses one missionary as his 2^nd Counselor. They have a big watering tank for a baptismal font and are pretty self sufficient for leadership so we hope they can become a Ward one day so Botswana can become a Stake. If we could get 2 more wards formed and working sufficiently we know they would make us a Stake as now the Stake President and all of his Counselors are from South Afrika and they come up every month for meetings and training. They do a great job, but the trip is 5 hours and can’t be easy for them as they are all family men with teenagers and younger children.

Dad is actually organizing a weekend when Elder Bricknell can come and talk to the entire Stake to inform the people of what it would take for us to become a Stake. We think if the people knew how close we are they would work hard to help us find people to teach and most importantly to hang on to the people that our missionaries baptize. I think we have zeroed in on October 9 and 10^th for the firesides with a whole Stake one on Saturday afternoon, a missionary fireside with Elder Bricknell earlier on Saturday and then we will take the Bricknell’s to church with us on Sunday to Kanye which is one of our newer Branches about 1 ½ hours from here. Kanye has been meeting in a home and the FM group has approved for them to rent another partially completed office space and remodel it to make it a chapel. They have been working on it for about a month and we hope it will be finished by then so they can be hold church in their new place by the time we take Elder and Sister Bricknell. We are excited for them to come and stay with us and hope they can stay for an extra day just so we can spend a little personal time with them. We haven’t even seen them since the Couples Conference we went to in JoBurg which was soon after we came into the mission.

Dad chewed on sometime the other day and broke a tooth or pulled off a cap; he isn’t sure but we are trying to find the name of a good dentist that we can take him to. He called the American Embassy this morning to see if they had anyone they recommended, but no one has gotten back to us yet. It isn’t causing him any pain, just irritating and rough in his mouth.

We get to go out teaching with the missionaries more and more all the time. This week is so busy though that we aren’t accepting any more appointments this week; (we already had a couple pre-arranged) and then next week is our transfer days and new missionaries coming so we’ll have to limit things a bit that week also. We love the work and enjoy going out with the Elders and Sisters. They are great teachers and very obedient missionaries; we are proud of them and love them a lot. Two of our 6 Sisters will be going home the 1^st of December and that will be a sad day. I especially love the Sisters and they are wonderful missionaries. The two leaving are from Iowa and Nevada and we only have 1 other from America (actually Preston Idaho) and the other three are from Kenya, Uganda and Madagascar. We have Elders from Kenya and Uganda but also Zimbabwe, Tanzania, South Afrika,

Better run, we have lots to do today and it’s the only day this week we have to actually accomplish any Office Work before starting into our meetings and car exchanges and on Tuesday we have a Counselor of some kind coming up here to meet with 3 of our Elders who need some help. Dad knows more than I do, I just don’t ask any questions I just get the room ready for interviews and cook the food. President was pretty vague, but they seem to know the counselor by name so they must have met with him before. He and his wife will be coming in the morning and the interviews will be here at the Mission Home with us providing lunch for everyone. Should be a really nice week, busy, but we like it that way

Love, Mom and Dad, Granny & PaPa Lynn, President and Sister Morgan