Preparing the Member Volunteers

This is Moses Williams, the chairman of the Church public affairs committee for Botswana. He is an outstanding young man and has been very helpful. Last Sunday we had four meetings with the members of the Church to explain what we want them to do (pass out literature, put up posters, assist the medical personnel in the local clinics). Moses went to Lobatse, Elder Tolley spoke to the members in Gaborone (3 wards), and another committee member went to Molelopoli. After the meetings, we asked members to sign up to volunteer. Moses was excited to get 28 volunteers from the Lobatse branch.

The Botswana Ministry of Health

This is Ms Bakanuki Nfila, the child health manager for the ministry of health. She was very helpful and kind to us. She introduced us to several key people, including Mr. Setshwano Mokgweetzinyana (try to say that one--if you say it real fast it sounds like "Louisiana") who is the acting director of public health and disease control, and several others. We were introduced to so many officials, it was hard to keep track of them all. Elder Tolley keeps their names on little cards in his shirt pocket. That doesn't mean we can say the names correctly.

Before we left home, we wrote letters to the director of public health and the child health manager in the Botswana Ministry of Health. We explained who we were and told them we were coming. Last time we were in Botswana in 2005, we started at the bottom of the protocol chain and worked our way up. This time we started at the top and worked our way down. It was unbelievably slow either way. All we wanted to do is offer our help with social mobilization for their measles campaign. We had donations to make (flyers, radio advertisement, volunteers, etc.) and support to give. But they were suspicious of our motives. Elder Tolley assured them we were only here to serve. They all really warmed up to him, but it still took 13 days to get the letter of introduction to the districts and permission for the members of the church to volunteer and serve in the campaign. Sometimes the protocol drives us nuts.

Getting Settled

These are our roommates. They think they own the place and keep popping up everywhere. At first we were killing about 15 a day. Now it's down to about 3-4. We have spray, traps and bait everywhere, but they still refuse to move out.

The apartment is very comfortable and even has a TV. The landlord provides furniture, linens and dishes. It's very expensive so we're glad we're only staying for six weeks.

We found a place to stay fairly quickly in a secure gated community. It's the same place we stayed last time we were here.

Brother Million, a Church member here, loaned us his vehicle. What a great guy!

Arrival in Gaborone

We finally arrived in Botswana on Wednesday morning, October 14. It was so beautiful, warm and sunny we didn't care if we were dog tired. It was good to be back on Gaborone again after 4 years.

Nelson Mandela Welcome

30 hours later (two nights and one day) here we are in Johannesburg, South Africa. We saw this really great statue of Nelson Mandela outside of one of the gift shops and we couldn't resist taking our picture with him. He looked so friendly and welcoming.

Off to Botswana

Here we are off on another adventure! On October 12 we left Salt Lake for Botswana, Africa to help with the measles immunization campaign.

Draper Temple Open House

Valentines day was the perfect day for our family to go to the Draper Temple Open House. The temple was very beautiful.