Well it's been awhile since I've sent a nice long letter! Sorry about that, but there was nothing I could do about the fact that internet was closed. It's been a good couple of weeks! I a lot of good things have happened, but it's been stressful as well. First I'll tell you about a cool/stressful experience that has happened over the past few weeks.
So ever since I've been in the MTC I've always tried to focus a lot on the Christlike attributes in Preach My Gospel. I think I've done a pretty good job developing attributes over the past few months, but a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to focus on patience. I developed a lot in Quelimane, but I want to be more patient with situations that I can't really control. For example, the power goes out here in Manga a lot. And that's so annoying. I always get frustrated when the power goes out.
So what I decided to do a few weeks ago was to pray for experiences an situations so that I can develop for patience, and have situations where I could show patience. And our Heavenly Father was quick to hear my prayers. That is one thing I have learned on my mission, is that God really is listening to our prayers. Because He definitely gave me an opportunity to show more patience, because we didn't have power or energy in our house for 10 days after I prayed! But the interesting thing is that it was just our house. All the other houses around our house had energy, except ours. And I can honestly say that the worst experience in the world is sleeping in Africa, in a mosquito net, without air-conditioning. It is miserable.
But I really am grateful! I kind of just laughed about the situation that was given to us. It made me so much more grateful for the circumstances that I have been blessed with back home.
But I really didn't complain about the situation, I'm grateful! Because I really did develop more patience in those 10 days.
But something else happened as well that helped me to develop more patience. So we had 3 families, marked for the wedding and baptism that will be happening the last week on January. They are great families who really have applied the gospel in their lives and have seen changes. Well each family is now not going to be able to participate in this combined wedding because a member of each couple needs to leave town for a few weeks for work. Such bad luck!
But we will excited for what will happen with Diogo and Gida, Rudy e Edna, e Sabedo e Laura after the trips. We have some nice goals set for the wedding and baptism that will happen after this one. It's just a matter of getting financial things ready. Because spiritually, these people have already made commitments to follow our Heavenly Fathers plan!
So those are some things that happened with us over the past few weeks. The conference we had this weekend was really good! Elder Carl Cook is a stud, and I learned a lot of stuff from him on how we can become better, especially in our companionships and how we plan for our investigators. I got to talk to him as well, and he definitely remembers Elder Reynolds! He said he was a great missionary who really had a love for his mission. Sister Cook even remembered where he was from! So that was surprising!
Sounds like things at home are good! Super cold there, and nice and hot here! I sweat more than I thought was possible to sweat!
But hang in there! It will warm up there in a few weeks.
Small babe, do not settle for the 3-point shot. You are faster and have better ball-handling skills than anyone else on the court. So take it to the rack, and get yourself an easy layup. And yeah lets get him on a better team as well... I'll coach the team when I return home.
Dad, make sure you take Mom skiing before the end of the season! She needs to go and remember what it's like! It's been way to long.
Well I better go because I'm gonna try to send some pictures... I got a lot to send! So we'll see how it goes. Have a good week! I love you all!
Love, Elder Williams
ps. Yeah I'll prepare something for the friend newsletter and send it to you next week.
