Week 18 - Granny

Dear Family, Sunday, June 20th HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BARNEY and HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO MY DAD! and TO EACH OF OUR SONS & OUR SON-IN-LAWS!!!.

I hope you are all having some good summer weather by now; I have to say I think about you on our cold nights and also our short days. Roger sent me a copy of the Weather forecast for the past 10 days and it was actually pretty close. We did have a copy of days that were colder but it actually warms up pretty good during the day, it’s just those nights in the high 30’s and low 40’s that are difficult when there isn’t much heat in the house. I keep trying to tell myself I’m from Idaho and those temperatures aren’t that cold, but I’m actually freezing after 5 O’clock at night when it gets dark and I know there is no more sunshine or not much heat until the next day when the sun comes out to warm us up. It’s much nicer during the day outside than it is inside the house. We had a couple of small space heaters that helped warm up the house, but the Missionaries were freezing at night so we let them have ours as we at least have heat in our bedroom. Dad even wears a jacket in the house and he’s never cold. We are going to go out again tomorrow and try to find dad a sweater to wear and some more heaters, but the only places we know of are out and won’t be getting any more in this year. We actually turned on the oven and shut the kitchen door and sat in there for a while today and it felt pretty good. Anyway, Roger; thanks for the weather report it was good for me to see that it was actually up to the 70’s during the day and I kept wondering why I was so cold; it’s mostly the cement homes with cement floor, cold tile, and not heat that make it much colder than we are use to but we’d better not be complaining as we know lots of people here that have no heat at all, no electricity even, no windows or doors on their little shakes and I bet they aren’t complaining at all. I keep thinking about the young girl that came to our home a few weeks ago begging for food and was so cold. I gave her some food and some socks, but I’ve collected a sweater and a pair of boys pants that would fit her and I keep praying that she will come back so I can give them to her. It kind of haunts me that I didn’t give her more warm clothes when she was here, but I only brought two light weight sweaters and one pair of long pants to wear on our P-day, but I could have given them to her and I surely wished that I had. I’ve prayed that Heavenly Father would help her find her way to our house again, I hope she is all right and found someone else to help her more.

We’ve traveled a lot this week, visited a couple of branches since I wrote, did some Leadership Training yesterday and also received 8 new missionaries. We trained in a new branch in Kanye, about an hour and a half from Gaborone. It’s the village that we count donkeys when we travel there, but there weren’t so many out today; probably because there isn’t much green grass along the road side right now. We did see hundreds of goats though and lots of Brahma cattle. We did actually count over 100 donkeys still and figured we had to have seen at least that many cattle and about 5 times that many goats. People eat a lot of goats here and they even eat the donkey’s but we haven’t tried those yet.

Thursday was transfer day to Botswana and everyone got through the border without any trouble coming and going to South Africa; and our day at the Police station getting papers certified and at Immigration applying for 90 Day waivers for the Elders was perfect. Either we are getting better at it or last time was just a “big test” and perhaps we failed. Anyway, this time was much better and we are starting to feel like we might just be getting the hang of things here. We received 8 new Elders and as usual we think President Poulsen sends us his very best missionaries. They are all sharp young men and we are thankful to have them. It’s always hard to see the old ones leave and we lost some really good missionaries this time, but we have put the new ones to work and they are working hard already.

We have fasted today for our little Trey Garrett Barnum and we know that you have all joined us in this pursuit. It’s such a blessing to have a family like ours to join together to pray for and to ask our Heavenly Father to bless and protect. We are sad to be so far away while all this is happening and we ask each of you to look out for Kricket and Garrett and their family. Please call them for us often, pray for them daily (especially Trey) and we are assured that all will be well and soon their family will be at home together.

We love each and every one of you, we are also sorry about Shaundalee’s grandma passing and know that you will all keep in touch with her and help her through this difficult time for their family.

What a great family we have been blessed with; know that we love you and pray for you each and every day! We are safe, healthy and happy together servering the Lord. We have much to be thankful for; especially all of you. Thanks for being faithful and bring us so many blessings and so much true happiness. We are proud of you!!

Love,

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