mission blog

We have the assignment to visit the Kasane Botswana group each quarter and give some inservice and Priesthood training. I hope each of you take the opportunity to look them up on lds.org. So this past weekend we were there and met all the members and held training sessions on Saturday and in the Sunday school hour Sunday. We spent a lot of time with Cornelia Rautenbach who is the driving force behind this small group of saints and has a remarkable story of conversion and commitment. She is the only Caucasian in the group and really holds it together. There are three Melchizedek Priesthood holders who are married and have families whom are sealed. The children and youth are really well schooled in the gospel and its amazing to see them keep it all together. Kasane is about 500 kilometers from us and puts us in a great place for wildlife and cool scenery. Then we are just two hours from Victoria Falls which is one of the seven wonders of the world. It is out of our area so we can't visit there without special permission from our mission Pres. I believe that will happen this year sometime as we start the new mission and meet the new people. We did go 10 kilometers from the Chapel and visit the 4corners area. Not the same you might know, but the only place in the world where 4 countries come together. The Zambezi and the Chobe rivers confluence and become very large, and right in the center of them is the borderline of Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. We were there right at sunset and it is really cool. Things here are just at a fever pace for us and quite frankly we get frustrated often because we pick up the pieces of many things and keep running from one to another and yet the Botswana people are never rushed and rarely on time for anything, including services of all the things we need. The economy is in drastic shape and the government doesn't know how to help so they just keep employing everyone and it takes 8 people to do small tasks as 1 works and 7 watch. All the infrastructure has fallen apart and is run down and there seems to be very little work ethic or motivation to do a good job on things. Driving our car here is really a crap shoot. If you think Sister Davis had a hard time with my driving before, you should witness how she panics when we are on the wrong side and there are a zillion cars going fast on 2 lane crummy roads with people walking along teach side with dark clothes and black skin at night. It may take a while longer for us to ever get comfortable with jaywalking mothers and kids and simply no rhyme or reason to where they are all going. Its like they have a death wish or something. Sister Davis is driving here a bit too and does really good. You may know that we have six young sister missionaries in our zone of 20, they have a car to each companionship and they drive all over this area and do an awesome job of finding and teaching investigators in some really tough circumstances. They concentrate on mission work and not too much on the cars they drive and wow do they have trouble with tires, batteries, dents, windshields and all other things that can go wrong. We end up getting all these things fixed and when the car is tied up in repair, we take them to apps and go with them too. Getting repairs is simply as slow as anywhere you could find. The young elders are not much better, I have yet to find one that has any car savvy, so it is a bit tough to see any pride in what they drive. Well it is late and we need our rest so I will say goodbye and tell you all that we love each of you and ask for your prayers to be with the missionary effort here in Botswana. Elder and Sister Davis