Long Week

October 28, 2013

Dear Family,

Well nothing that happened this week is as exciting as what's been going on at home but it was still a good week. It felt super long for some reason but it wasn't bad. Just pretty uneventful.

 We did a lot of finding at the beginning of the week and found some pretty promising people to teach. 2 of them even came to church! Which is pretty awesome. We have a hard time getting the people we have been teaching for months to come to church and these two women came after just meeting us! So we are excited to keep teaching them. Their names are Sephiwe and Nyaladzi. Both of them are really eager and willing to learn and both have already started to love the gospel. Their progress will be exciting to watch.

 We also had a zone meeting this week that was really good. We talked about a lot of different ways we can improve and become better missionaries and help the work specifically here in Francistown move along. One of the things I really liked was that we talked about the difference between bearing testimony from our head and our heart. We had kind of a testimony meeting where both ways were demonstrated and it was incredible how much stronger the spirit is manifested when the testimony comes from the heart. From the head testimonies usually go something like this... " I know that if you read the Book of Mormon you and your family will be blessed..." But when you bear testimony from your heart you take it a step farther. It would be something more like this... " I know that as I have read the Book of Mormon with my family we have been blessed with...... I know that if you and your family read together also these and even many other blessings will come..." I don't know if the difference makes sense. But it was so clear as we demonstrated it. I really thought it was cool.

 Something kind of crazy happened this week, too. There was a thunder storm! I think its rained like 3 times in the almost 7 months I have been here. And on Saturday it stormed! It was nuts! I didn't realize how much I missed rain! This whole being in a desert thing is quite different from good ol' Houston. Too bad it only lasted like an hour. But it was still nice.

 There was a quote from a recent convert that I really liked this week. Gaseitsitwe, who was baptized in June and is now the YW president in Monarch, came teaching with us this week. I can't remember now what the context was but she said

 "Other churches teach you how to make good choices. But this church teaches you how to make right choices."

I really liked that. A lot actually. Its so true too. I had never thought about it in that way before.

 An 11 year old boy named Tshenolo that we are teaching asked a pretty interesting question this week too that I had never really thought of. He asked if Heavenly Father has a mother. I had never thought of that. I'm sure he does! I mean he has to! He had to get his body the same way any of us do. It just makes sense that he does. Its pretty deep though. If I think about it too much I get a headache...

 Well my favorite scripture this week was actually a whole story. its 1 Kings 18. For some reason it just made me giggle. Plus there its just a good message about God only having 1 true prophet at a time.

 Well I love you all so much. Thanks for keeping me updated on everything. Congrats again to mom and Zach! I'm so excited!!

 Lots of love, Sister Chelsea Gehring

I can't think of a good subject

The Zone Leaders thought it would be funny to feed us chicken feet and intestine. I wasn't so amused...

In case you were wondering, this is where Botswana is!

From Texas to Botswana. I'm pretty far from home. Good thing it feels like home here now!

October 21, 2013

Dear Family!

 

Well it sure has been a week. It felt super long and some weird things happened but looking back it wasn't bad at all. To start off the week though, a major water line in Francistown burst. I was right under a main road and it was so bad the road just crumbled and fell into the gaping hole left by the burst pipe. As a result traffic has been horrible but most significantly, we were out of water for the first 2 days this week. So that was fun. It all worked out but it was definitely an adventure I don't really have a desire to repeat...

 

Also I got suuuuper sick this week. The worst one yet on mission. I think it was some sort of food poisoning but we aren't really sure. I woke up at 1:30 am Thursday night (between Thursday and Friday) and threw up every about every 30 minutes till 7:30 the next morning. Then I got a super high fever till the next day. It was all delightful. I got a blessing that helped a ton and Elder and Sister Davis let me and Sister Scott stay at their house till I felt better. Everyone was really caring and I feel 110% better now. It made it so we missed a few meetings and a lot of teaching lessons but it will all be ok. That's just life!

 

Something really awesome that happened this week was that we finally got to watch General Conference! I honestly felt like every single talk was just for me. I really enjoyed it. It made me a little homesick to see Utah. I don't even live there! But its a lot closer to home than here. Luckily it was not too bad and mostly I just really really loved it.

 

Pretty much all of our appointments canceled this week which was to be expected because pretty much all of our appointments were with new people. New people tend to cancel a lot. But the few lessons we did have were excellent. With Adam especially. As you know (or maybe you don't. I can't remember how much I have told you) he has been having a really hard time. He has jut been burdened down with a divorce, trouble with his business, he relapsed on smoking, just a lot of hard stuff in his life. It has all been keeping him from being baptized. Well this week he was finally able to turn it all over to the Savior and let it go. I don't know what happened but whatever it was, it changed him. He has been changing little by little ever since I met him back in July but something this week kind of made him take that last final leap of faith he needed to be freed from his burdens. He even said that over and over this week. "I feel free! I am free! I can start my new life now. There are so many changes! I'm free forever because of this gospel!" You know how if you have been carrying  really heavy backpack for a long time, when you take it off you have to kind of stretch and shake things out? Well he was literally doing that. He was just... lighter... I can't even really describe it. The relief he felt because of the Atonement lifting his burden was so significant, he felt physically lighter as well. I can't even describe how incredible it is to see someone come that far and be that freed.

 

My favorite scripture this week is 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. When I was sick, the word somehow got around to a ton of people. A lot of people were checking on me to see how I was doing. I got this text from Gosego that almost made me cry. It was so sweet. I'll type it out word for word exactly as she sent it.

"Hie sisters! I wonderd where u wer 2dai but after i had that sister G is not feelin wel i find it better for you to read this verse 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 and bear in mind what Elder Jeffrey R Holland said 'that God's love is alwys there no matter what' "

 

Well I love you all and I hope you have a great week!!

 

Love, Sister Gehring

 

Heat, Heat, and more Heat!

Dear family,

 

Mom you asked me last week how hot it is. Well, here's how hot it is: It was about 105- 110 every single day this week. It was so hot that the fluids in our car literally boiled. It is so hot that people have been wearing progressively fewer clothes... Its hot. And its the beginning of summer...

 

Well this week was pretty uneventful in terms of the actual work. We dropped even more people and we did a ton of finding. We did find some really promising people though! A few families and a few single women and some young adults. Its too early to tell if they will progress but I have high hopes. Especially for one girl names Isabella. She is 19 and she is just hungry for the gospel. She even came to church a day after we met her which is a definite sign of great potential.

 

The hardest thing we are dealing with recently is people who are strong in their own church. We have a few people we are teaching that love the gospel and love the Book of Mormon, but won't do anything about it because they have been going to their church their whole lives. I completely understand! I think it would be so hard to change from something that's been such a huge part of your life for so long. But I just wish I knew how to help them realize how much better their lives would be in this church. But we will keep working on it. The spirit can do incredible things.

 

A few funny/ not so funny things happened this week too.

1. When they were about to start church yesterday the 1st counselor in the group presidency came up to me and sister Scott and said " You are both speaking in sacrament meeting today. Sorry we forgot to tell you" Yea. It was nice. Luckily we were both able to whip out some decent talks. I spoke about receiving answers to prayers Not the best one I've ever given but I honestly don't know if anyone knew any different.

 

2. Our power has been out so its been an oven in our flat. We opened the windows to let in a breeze on Saturday night. But too bad it also let in like a million bugs. I woke up with over 70 bites all over my arms and legs. We slept at the other sister's flat last night so as to save my life... I love missionary work!

 

Well my favorite scripture of the week was Alma 37: 11. It shows me that even if I don't know everything, its ok. I just need to forebear and things will work out.

 

I love you all so much. Take care and keep me updated on exciting events for the week!!

 

LOOOOOVE,

Sister Gehring 

 

Matatas, ruts, and happy dances...

Dumela!!

This week I'd like to start off by sharing a poem.

 

THE MATATA

a poem by Sister Scott and Sister Gehring

written for our Zone Leaders- Elder Fleming and Elder Mabuza

 

Once upon a time

In a land far away

There lived two young Sisters

Who sure loved to pray

 

One Saturday night

After a long day of teaching

Their nice little flat

They soon would be reaching

 

But they noticed their gas tank

Was getting quite low

So they thought to themselves

"To Engen we'll go!"

 

It was not their intentions

To make a big scene

They just wanted to keep

The Lord's Sabbath day clean

 

So they filled up their car

But to their dismay

Their card wouldn't work

When they tried to pay

 

Despite many attempts

To talk their way out of it

Their honest, sweet natures

Just wouldn't allow it

 

They knew they were stuck

With nothing to do

So their Zone Leaders they called

The Dynamic Two!

 

The valiant young Elders

They came to their aid

And though it was raining

The ransom was paid

 

So in order to thank you

For all that you've done

Here's some cookies to eat

While you're out in the sun

 

THE END

(Based on a true story)

 

 

Well I hope you enjoyed that fine piece of literature.

 

This week was pretty good. I cant say its the best week we've ever had but it wasn't bad. The main news for the week is that we dropped like 75% of our investigators. We just feel like we are in a bit of a rut. The great thing about Botswana is that pretty much anyone will let us teach them. The bad thing about Botswana is that pretty much anyone will let us teach them. I'll explain. Our purpose is to do more than just teach people. Our purpose it to help people understand and live the restored gospel. It requires them to act on the message we share. Not just listen. That was the problem with most of the people we have been teaching. They all just like the company and the word of God. Which in and of itself isn't bad! But we need to be teaching and focusing our time on people who will act. So we prayed about it and realized we need to find some new people. Unfortunately we are out of ideas of how exactly to go about doing that. Other than tracting, not much really works. So this next week will be full of knocking doors.

 

The investigators we do have are doing well though. We started teaching 2 new people this week who seem very prepared to accept the gospel. Mma Musi and her boyfriend Mr. Parks. They are both in their upper 50's/ lower 60's. I'm not sure how they ended up dating at their age but its pretty cute. They sit and read the scriptures together every day and they are just so accepting of everything we say. "It just makes sense!" That's what they said when we were talking about the restoration. I wish everyone would just get it like that! They have a lot of potential so I'm excited to see where it goes. Their conversion to the gospel will come pretty easily I think. It will be pulling them away from their current church that might be a bit more difficult. But we will do our best!

 

One of the other matatas this week was getting a purple ear. I got a purple ear like this: Once upon a time it was very windy. Very Very windy. In case you didn't know, skirts and wind do not make a nice combination. So I was getting out of my car when all of a sudden the wind blew my skirt all the way up over my head.  I wish I was exaggerating... So in a desperate attempt to get it to go back down (the wind wasn't making it easy) I wasn't paying attention to anything else. Therefore I didn't see the wind also blowing the car door towards my head. It bruised my entire left ear, thus turning it purple. It was definitely the most graceful 30 seconds of my life. The end.

 

Then the other matata this week was that out front door is broken! Whatever mechanism makes the handle work, is broken. So when you turn the handle, nothing happens. Luckily we have a back door so we aren't stuck inside but its still pretty annoying. And we aren't sure when it will be fixed.

 

We had a couple of great times with Gosego this week. She is one of the girls who was baptized last month. We gave her the new member kit this week which includes a bible and a triple combination. When she saw it she literally squealed for joy and did a happy dance. It was probably the cutest thing I've ever seen. She just loves the gospel so much! Also she came teaching with us this week. She said something and Sister Scott and I reacted in the exact same way(that's what being within sight and sound of each other 24/7 will do to you). She just started laughing and said "Its like someone pressed play!" maybe you would have had to be there but it was just really funny.

 

Well my favorite scripture of the week is Alma 36:3. The scripture itself is good but its the story that happened with it that made it my favorite. So we were teaching Adam about how he needed to trust in God to overcome the challenges he is going through. Sister Scott had her scriptures open to a scripture to share but right as she was about to share it, the wind blew her scriptures open to this one. We took that to mean we needed to share this one instead. And we definitely did. After reading this scripture you could tell he just got it. It was pretty incredible. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

 

Well I love you all lots and lots! Give yourselves a nice firm handshake from me!

 

Love, Sister Gehring

Happy Birthday Botswana!

Dear Family,

 

 

First of all, Happy Birthday to Botswana! Its Botswana independence day today. A.K.A. Everybodyleavetownandgototheirhomevillageandcloseeverystoreinthewholecityandleavethemissionarieswithnothingtodo day!!! Its pretty wonderful. Luckily Sparks, the guy who owns the email shop we go to, makes a pretty huge profit from the missionaries emailing in his shop every Monday so he opened just for us today. It was very nice of him.
 

Other than the fact that by the end of the week pretty much everyone was gone, this was a great week. To start it off, all the missionaries got to go to Tatebane last p-day. Its a private game reserve about 45 minutes outside of Francistown. It was way fun to be able to just have a break. We got to do some hiking and just hanging out in the outdoors. It was really fun. We didn't see too many animals but we saw enough to make it really cool. we saw a few zebras, a huge lizard. some impala, an ostrich, a gemsbok, and... A GIRAFFE!!! That was my favorite part. It just walked right past our car!
 

The missionary work this week was good too. We did a lot of teaching again. We are definitely getting better at teaching as a unified companionship. Its amazing how much better things flow and how much better our investigators progress when we teach well together. It is even helping us in other things. Its helping us receive more inspiration on what to teach and how to teach it. An example of that happened yesterday at church. It was our turn to teach gospel principles and the topic was prayer. We prayed to know how we should teach it and what we should talk about. We had the idea to use the suggestion in the gospel principles book and divide the class into small groups and have them teach the different topics. It was a huge success. It was so cool to see the recently baptized members and the investigators work together to teach one of the best lessons about prayer I have ever heard. We didn't even teach! But because we were unified and we prayed together, we were able to help those people so much more than we would have if we just taught the lesson. In fact, Brother Emmanuel, a recent convert, came up to me at the end of the lesson and was so excited. He and Adam (the one we are teaching) were partners and they taught about when we can pray. He said that he had always been confused about what it meant to pray always. But after he did this activity, it finally made sense. It was so cool to see the understanding in him.
 

We also had a couple great lessons with Adam. He is still progressing really well and every time we see him we can tell his testimony is growing. At first we thought it was a huge bummer that we had to move his baptism but the more we teach him, the more we are understanding that everything happens for a reason. Hidden underneath his main concern about his baptism were a lot of other little concerns that he has been having. As we have talked with him we have gotten to the bottom of a lot of them and helped him see how much God loves him. In particular he was wondering why things have gotten so much harder for him now that he is trying his hardest to keep the commandments. We compared him to a star soccer player (he played soccer when he was younger). We asked him who the opposing team focuses most on. They always focus efforts on trying to stop the star player. But does the star player give up at that point? No. He tries harder. He does everything he can to score a goal. Sometimes they do block him. But that doesn't mean he quits the game. He tries again. He gets back up. And when he scores, he doesn't stop there either. He works to score another one after that... After we shared that analogy with him you could tell things just clicked for him. "Me I think I'll score a goal very soon" is what he said. I am really proud of him for keeping strong when his life is so hard right now.
 

My favorite scripture for the week is actually something in all 4 gospels. In Matthew 27:50, Mark 15:37, Luke 23:46, and John 19:30. These are the verses that describe the death of Christ. Why would I pick these for my favorite verses of the week? Well here's why. Because in each of them it distinctly says that he either yielded up the ghost or he gave up the ghost. Christ's life wasn't taken. He gave it up of his own free will. He absolutely had the power to stop all of it from happening. But he didn't. He gave up his life. It just makes his death so much more meaningful to me to realize that it wasn't taken. But instead, it was given. Its something that I never realized before but now I really appreciate a lot more.

 

 

Well I love you so much. I hope you all have a great week!

Lots of love,

Sister Gehring

Dikeledi, Gasitsiwe (The YW President and cousin of Gosego), Gosego, and me.

The awesome view at Tatebane, the game reserve we went to last P-day.

We didn't see many animals, but we did see a few!

Dikeledi and Me at her baptism on 14 September 2013.

Gosego and Me at her baptism on 14 September 2013.

Sister Graves and me climbing this huge tree inTatebane.

As we were driving out we saw a giraffe. This is the best picture I could gt of it. I could see it really well, but it was too dark to get a good picture. It was probably the coolest thing ever though. I saw a giraffe in the wild!!!!!

We made prayer rocks with Dikeledi and her sister Chezda (who is investigating the church). It was lots of fun.

The whole gang.

Teaching til we can't teach no more!

Dumelang!

Hello hello hello!

 

Well this was another incredible week in good ol' Botswana. Not a whole lot happened other than an incredible amount of teaching. Its such a testimony builder to me that if we push through the hard weeks, Heavenly Father will bless us. After the really hard time we had a few weeks ago things have definitely picked up. Only a couple appointments every day fell through and we had a couple days where not a single person canceled. If you have ever been a missionary you'll know how miraculous that is.

 

Really not much else happened. I have been racking my brain to try to think about funny or interesting things that happened this week and I just cant think of any. We just taught all day every day. I'm exhausted from it but its the best tired I've ever been! I am just really happy about it.

 

We did have a bit of a scary experience this week though. We found out that a family we just started teaching are all actually convicted criminals who have targeted LDS missionaries in the past. They act interested and let the missionaries come. Then during a lesson they'll steal everything they have. And in some cases they assault them. Luckily before a anything happened to us, a member saw us at their house and warned us. They wait to do it till all the previous missionaries have gone so the new ones are clueless again. But they they target other people also. I'm just so grateful that nothing happened. Once again it just makes me realize how much Heavenly Father is watching out for me.

 

A kind of hard thing this week was that we had to cancel Adam's baptism. He was scheduled to be baptized this coming Saturday but now we aren't sure when he'll be baptized. Its not that he did anything wrong. He is still doing great. He told us that he loves the church, knows its true and he never wants to leave it. But he doesn't feel like he is ready to be baptized. We found out that he and his wife are getting a divorce. I won't get into all the details but basically to put it like they did... "There is no peace in the home" . Adam understands that baptism is a huge commitment and that it is a serious covenant so he told us that he wants to wait till the divorce is cleared before he enters that covenant. So that was hard. We want to see him baptized because we know how much of a blessing it would be but we need to respect his agency. Luckily he is still completely committed to the church and he will still be able to progress.

 

Well that is about all for this week. Just a great week full great things. Sister Scott and I have been really working on improving our companionship unity and teaching according to the spirit. Not teaching routine memorized lessons but really teaching according to the promptings of the spirit. It has helped so much. Not only have we been teaching more, but the quality of our teaching has improved so much. And we have been able to see how many blessings are coming from that. My testimony has grown too. As I have testified of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and other gospel principles, I can feel the spirit testifying of what I am saying. It then helps me know that what I am teaching really is true. This really is the true church. There is just no way it couldn't be. I don't say any of this to try and say I am this amazing missionary. I have a whole lot I need to improve on. But I just say it to show how much Heavenly Father truly does take care of His missionaries.

 

My favorite scripture of the week is Abraham 2:16. It made me want to make eternity my covering, my rock, and my salvation as well. It just really hit me how having an eternal perspective really will make a difference.

 

Well I love you so much. Take care and have a wonderful week!!

 

Love, Sister Gehring 

 

The Story of the Rats...

Dumela family!

 I just want to start off by saying that this was a MUCH better week so thank you so much for the prayers. They surely did help.

 This week was not super eventful but it was very good. We were finally able to teach a lot of lessons again and Gosego and Dikeledi got baptized!!!!! (the computer I'm on is pretty slow so I'll try to send the pictures next week) The baptism was so great. 4 people were baptized and they were all so excited. I never really know what to say about baptisms other than that they are great. Its just so cool to see people you love so much receive those saving ordinances. It really does bring joy.

 Other than that there really weren't too many other notable things. I did have few interesting lessons this week though. One in particular I think you'd get a kick out of.

So here it is.

The story of the rats: Once upon a time we were teaching a less active guy named Bryson. He lives in an area where we actually technically aren't supposed to go cause its completely surrounded by super sketchy bars. Plus its just super run down anyways. But its for the cause of the gospel so we went anyways. So we were in his front room. I was on one chair with my back to the fireplace and my companion was on a chair across from me and he was on the couch between us  (don't worry. there was a woman in the house). I was going along with the lesson and it was all fine and dandy when all of a sudden Sister Scott got this look of terror on her face. Seriously I thought someone was standing behind me with an ax or something. But I just continued on. The whole rest of the lesson my companion just sat there in silence with a look of death on her face and I had to teach by myself. So we ended things and my companion booked it out of there. We got back in the car and I asked her what the heck happened. Well turns out the whole time I was teaching, rats were pouring out of the fireplace behind me. She said she counted like 30 or more of them. They were running around behind me and between the legs of my chair. And I was completely oblivious. But that's probably for the better. I don't know how well I would have handled that.

 That really is about all the noteworthy things that happened this week. We just taught a lot. It was great actually. Our investigators are still doing great and Sister Scott is still doing great. One thing that we have been doing this week and I plan on continuing for the rest of mission is something that President Wilson suggested we do. Every day we look back on what happened and write down at least one way the spirit guided us. It really puts things into perspective. It makes us realize how much the Lord truly is in charge of the work. At first it was kind of hard to pin-point specific things but the more we do it the more easy it is to recognize the help we receive.

 One miracle that happened this week is that I was able to use the Bible to answer a woman's questions. I know that might not sound miraculous but it was. I don't know the Bible very well. At all. But somehow this week in a lesson we were teaching, I kept being able to pull out these scriptures that answered her questions exactly. I had no idea where they were coming from! And even crazier, I can't find them again. It was amazing to see how I could be helped so much in a situation where I really needed it.

My favorite scripture from the week is Matthew 10:34. I liked it because it showed me that while Christ was and is the prince of peace, he also came to shake things up. I hope that makes sense...

Well  love you all so much. Botswana is treating me well and I come to love it more and more every day. (even if its starting to get so hot its hard to breathe)

 Have a great week!

Love, Sister Gehring