Week 26 - Papa Lynn

Dear Family and Friends 8 August 2010

What another week it has been here in Botswana. A young sister we meet in Molepolole branch a few months back has been assigned on the Pease Corp to serve in Nata which is a city up north. When she can she comes into Francistown to attend church services. Her sister is getting married back in Boston and she came as far as Gaborone by bus and stayed the night with us and then on Wednesday we took her to the airport where she made connections through Johannesburg to fly to Boston. I think this next Thursday she will make the reverse trip. We will most likely take her to Francistown as I have been asked to do an audit on the Francistown Branch financial records. We will most likely pick her up at the airport and head straight up and do the audit Thursday evening and stay overnight then come back Friday sometime. That is about a 5 hour drive each way but when the area office calls us to do something I want to get done before they need it. We are to do it in the month of August and have it turned in before the 30^th of September. Well they should have it before the 20^th of August back in their office completed.

Friday was a great day as we had the Broadhurst District have district meeting here in the mission home. It was a good meeting and we talked about having the missionaries do 2 hours a week of working with less actives. They asked me to go to Bishop Tembo’s office and ask him for two names of people less active that they can work on for each of the companionships. Mom and I went and he was thrilled to think we would help in that way. He said he will be happy to get us some names.

Saturday which was our preparation day I watered all the plants and washed the car and did the vacuuming around the house and then we studied for the coming up mini zone conference where we are to train the two zones except for Francistown. Elder and Sister Cardiff will take the four elders from Francistown and train them up there. We will have 30 missionaries from Gaborone, Molepolole, Mafikeng, Kanye, Mochudi and Lobatse. They will come in about 8:00 AM and watch a two hour DVD then we start the training from 10:00 – 12:30 with a half hour lunch. Then in the afternoon we start at 1:00 – 3:30 and then send them back to their areas to practice what they have just learned. This is happening throughout the mission. President Poulsen will have the biggest group from the Johannesburg area and then ours will be the next biggest with about three other couples doing like the Cardiff’s are doing in Francistown. I don’t know if we are up to it but we will do our best. After we studied for the training we went a Cottage Meeting that was held in the Broadhurst Area. It was fun and the missionaries had about thirty out but most were members. After that I took mom out for dinner at the Red Lantern which is a Chinese restaurant, that was all last night.

We went to Molepolole Branch today and were asked to teach two lessons on preparing for some of the members to go to the temple. It was a great experience. Sometimes I wonder where we even get time to prepare lessons but we seem to get it done and again today we truly felt the spirit directing our thoughts and words. After the block of meetings the missionaries had a baptism.

Prior to all the meetings today I had made previous arrangements with the elders to hook up a font water heater. Here in Botswana and especially in South Africa the baptisms are almost all held outside in a font made of mess wire on the outside and plastic lining the inside. They fill them early the morning they plan to have a baptism and the water is really cold. I have tried to find some kind of heater and everything I have been able to find doesn’t do the job. Twice I bought some inexpensive heater that you plug in and then put into the water but both times it didn’t seem to heat the water even a little bit. Well during the past few weeks I have been thinking what I could do. Several weeks ago when President Poulsen was up in Kanye with us (the same day he told me to try and become a marriage officer) we talked about the cold water in fonts and I told him I had a plan and asked for his blessing to carry it out. He was concerned about safety of course so I have had to be very careful n putting my idea into practice. Please find the attachment and see the font heater that we tried today for the first time. It worked great. It took the water from tap temperature to almost bath temperature in 4 hours. In fact it was probably even to warm for a font but at least it worked. I need to get a thermostat to check the temperature before and after we us the font heater.

I don’t know if President Poulsen wants me to make any more or not but it worked well today and the cost is about $75.00 from start to finish. The ends of the cords plug into outlets which are 220 Volt here in Botswana and South Africa.

Well I will close for now. Thanks to each of you that write.

LOVE OUT OF BOTSWANA, DAD and MOM