Adventures in Missionary Land

Dear family,

Sister Fokoto and I have decided this week that there is no such thing as a problem or a challenge- instead, we have decided to look at every thing as an exciting new adventure. Whether that is 3 hours of tracting, or getting lost, or having plans change last minute, or whatever it may be. Its all just an adventure! Exciting and full of opportunities to laugh and learn. This change of perspective has been quite beneficial.

This past week, in fact, was full of adventure! It all started on Wednesday. For most of the day we went as a district to the distribution centre to help Grandma Teke again! We did it once when Sister Fokoto first got here. She needed more help so we went again. I got the job of scrubbing the plastic mats and sweeping the carpet. Yup- scrubbing the plastic and sweeping the carpet. I'm not sure how that makes sense but that's' how she wanted it done so I did it. I also helped Sister Fokoto dust and organize a few of the shelves. That's what she did most of the time. It took a while but everything looked really nice once we were finished.
 

Then that night was very adventurous. First of all, I tried to make brown sugar muffins. Way back when you sent me the recipe, I just took a picture of the email and when I made them the first time back in Francistown, I just used the picture. At some point I was copying the recipe from the camera to one of my planners. So I found the planner where I copied it and started baking. It wasn't till I got most of the way done that I realized that for some reason I can't remember, I only copied some of the recipe, not the whole thing. And I had already deleted the picture. So I thought to myself ''Well, I don't want to waste the ingredients I have already used, and I really want muffins... I know! Il'l just guess on the rest!'' So I added a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and a little bit of something else until it looked just right. Then, I baked it.... I learned a very valuable lesson that day- I  am very bad at guessing. The muffins turned out so disgusting. Somehow I managed to make them rock hard and foamy and spongy all at the same time. Plus they tasted super awkward. It was pretty sad.
 

But to make up for it, we, as a flat, did something very fun. Mattress surfing !! We got some new mattresses and they came in these thick plastic coverings which we discovered slide very nicely along our tile floors! We don't have stairs or anything but we pushed all the furniture to the sides of the front room and made a nice little runway. It was pretty silly but it was a great stress reliever. We had a lot of fun. Eventually we had to take the plastic off and use the mattresses for their proper purpose but for the 20 minutes while it lasted, it sure was nice.
 

Friday was an adventure too. They are finally paving the road that leads to our flat (which is long past due so we are glad its finally being done). But that means road construction... For a while, there were huge piles of dirt completely blocking the road leading to the flat. A worker directed us to use a back road. I thought our road was the back road but apparently the back road has a back road. So for the next 10 minutes we had to drive around the ''back roads'' trying to figure out how the heck to get to our flat. it was very exciting. And luckily we made it home with only minor emotional scarring.  Then when we finally made it back, there was a mound right in front of the gate. The workers then told us to just drive over it. We have a small car. It really doesn't like bumps. Lets just say it was a miracle the car was ok after that.

The next adventures were on Saturday. First of all, we were finally able to teach Oswald! Sort of... He is awesome and he has so so much potential but the problem is that he loves to talk. Which is not a bad thing at all but it makes it hard to teach. We'll be talking about the gospel and all of a sudden we are talking about something completely different. He is very willing to learn but we just need to figure out how to control the lesson so he can actually learn. So we finally saw him but we barely got to teach anything. But he came to church again! So that was really good. I have no doubt that he'll eventually be baptized. I just hope we can be able to teach him!
 

As we were coming out of Oswald's lesson, we got a call from one of the other companionships of sisters. One of them was having asthma attacks and she needed an inhaler asap. So we, as the ones with the car, went to go help them. We went and picked them up from their area way on the other side of town and began searching all over everywhere for a pharmacy that was open. At this point it was about 17:15. Most of the pharmacies closed at 17:00. So we desperately tried 3 different locations. Nothing was open. We called all the senior couples thinking maybe one of them knew of a 24hr place but still nothing. Until the Lord helped us with a tender mercy. We ran into a member at one of the shopping centres we were checking. We asked her if she knew of any 24hr pharmacies. She did! But we had no idea where it was. But it was in our Zone leader's area so we called them. And another miracle, they knew where it was! And they were free so they were able to take us there! (good thing too-it was in a super sketchy area). We found the place, it was open, they had the right kind of inhaler the sister needed, and we were all able to return home safely. It was quite the adventure.
 

Sunday was great. Like I said, Oswald came to church again! And even better, he is beginning to actively participate in lessons! He will be a powerful member someday. After church we had Branch Council. This is the first one they have had in over 6 months so there was a lot to talk about. It took like 2 hours. It was good and much needed, but my stomach decided to serenade everyone with beautiful grumbling noises the whole time. Next time I'm bringing snacks.

Then Sunday night we went over to one of the other sister's flat for dinner. It was Sister Scott and Sister Makunye. They are the ones that used to live with us but they moved to a new flat a couple weeks ago. It was good to  see them again. Lots of laughs and yummy food.

Well, thats about it for this week! Lots of adventures. Life is good!

I love you!

Love, Sister Gehring