This week has been good. We had two baptisms yesterday. I conducted Sacrament Meeting yesterday. On Thursday we did a service project. we went and helped a member slaughter and clean chickens. We got there late so we didn't get to slaughter many; I got to slaughter a couple. Later they cooked lunch for us. They had chicken feet, chicken livers, and chicken intestine. They cooked them over a fire, I was impressed; the intestine was actually very good. On Friday there was a ceremony for the new chief in Kanye, he was being crowned or something. We went for a few hours, got to see Botswana's President. He was there with a bunch of ambassadors from Brazil. We were wearing our suits and the ushers kept asking us if we were VIP. It was pretty cool. Went to Labatse for district, while we were there we went and bought a cake and took it home. When we got back from the area we discovered that someone had broken into our flat and stolen my chocolate cake and our bicycle pump. Probably not the smartest person. Anyways we changed our locks and security code so everything is fine now. We eat horribly; I don't really know how we stay alive. Durbin, South Africa is where the temple is going. DRC stands for Democratic Republic f the Congo.
Kanye= Con-yay. We get to watch conference this week-end and we should be having a couple of baptisms. I hope everything is going good for you. I will talk to you later.

Hello,
This week has been sweet. We have been doing a lot of finding, we found a couple sweet families and one of them came to church yesterday. Church was good but weird sitting on the stand and having to organize everything. We should be having baptisms this Sunday, hopefully three. Today
we came to gabs and hiked Kgale Hill , took some cool photos of gabs. This week-end was Botswana's Independence Day so it was kind of crazy. It sounds like conference was pretty intense;I heard that South Africa is getting another temple as well as DRC. We get to watch conference on the 15th and 16th so we are all looking forward to it. I see Darbin all the time, we are in the same zone, they live about an hour from us. I will be in the presidency as long as I am here. They will call a President but we will still be the counselors. Things are going good here it rained pretty hard the other day but the ground soaked it up before it had time to puddle. Kanye is the best. I'll talk to you later.

Hello, I tried to send some pictures last week but I guess it was too big and didn't send. Right now I am emailing in Gaborone, Botswana. My new area is in Kanye, Botswana. I got residency so I will probably be up here for a while. I really hope so I have been here for five days but it is already my favorite area. Yesterday was stake conference so I had to in row(Centurion and Roodeport) Kanye finally became a branch yesterday instead of just a unit. My companion is Elder Larson from Arizona. I stay in a flat with the Zone leaders; Elder Williams and Elder Gauti . I stayed with ElderWilliams in Lobatse, he has residency also. Elder Larson is the branch president, I'm the first counselor, Elder Williams is the second counselor and Elder Gauti is the Elders Quorum President. We had a meeting with the stake president yesterday; they are hoping to call a local member as the branch president within the next month. Our area is sweet, it is hardcore village. It is the most rural area in the mission; it's about an hour and a half drive from Gaborone. We are in the car every other day We stay in a huge house right in the middle of the village. I got to go to Lobatse yesterday, it hasn't changed any since I was there. This week should be pretty good. We have a lot of appointments and we have to do a bunch of branch stuff. We have to deal with all the tithing , welfare interviews and callings. It's sweet though, it makes us work hard. You can start sending stuff back to the botswana address that I gave you a while ago. Unfortunately I won't be able to see Kohl at the MTC. Everything is great here; I hope you have a great week. Talk to you later.

Hello,
I tried to send some pictures last week but I guess it was too big and didn't send. Right now I am emailing in Gaborone, Botswana. My new area is in Kanye, Botswana. I got residency so I will probably be up here for a while. I really hope so. I have only been here for five days but it is already my favorite area. Yesterday was stake conference so I had two in a row(Centurion and Roodeport). Kanye finally became a branch yesterday instead of just a unit. My companion is Elder Larson from Arizona; I stayed in a flat with the Zone leaders; Elder Williams and  Elder Gauti. I stayed with Elder Williams in Lobaste, he has residency also. Elder Larson is the branch president, and I 'm the first counselor, Elder Williams is the second counselor and Elder Gauti is the Elders Quorum President. We had a meeting with the stake president yesterday; they are hoping to call a local member as the Branch President within the next month. Our area is sweet, it is hardcore village. It is the most rural area in the mission; it's about an hour and a half drive from Gabarone. We are in the car every other day. We stay in a huge house right in the middle of the village. I got to go to Labatse yesterday, it hasn't changed any since I was there. This week should be pretty good. We have a lot of appointments and we have to so a bunch of branch stuff. We have to deal with all the tithing, welfare, interviews and callings. It's sweet though, it makes us work hard. You can start sending stuff back to the Botswana address that I gave you a while ago. Unfortunately I won't be able to see Kohl at the MTC. Everything is great here; I hope you have a great week, Talk to you later.

Hello,
How is everything going? the temple was great on Friday; I wish I could go more often. We got lost on our way back and ended up in Pretoria. We have Zone conference on Thursday, it will be different than the other one's I've been to. Before, it was all the zones in Gauteng meeting together, so there was over a hundred missionaries there. This time it will be just a few zones at a time. so for us its just Centurion and Pretoria zones. On Friday there was a strike in our area. It was done by the time we got back from the temple but when we got to Tembisa it was a mess. There were cinder blocks, bricks, trash, chunks of concrete, big concrete pipes out in the road. It was pretty crazy. But from what we heard they are striking again today so it will be interesting to see what they do this time. On Saturday, we went to the Hospital View to Mormon Helping Hands. We went to a school and cleaned the place up repainted and stuff. It was cool; the whole stake was there, a lot of white people. We don't really don't have anything planned for today, just hanging around the flat. Thanks for the package; I hope you have a great week.

August 19th was the one year mark for Thomas. Keep up the good work!!!
August 15th
How is everything? We had two baptisms yesterday, they went good. I had the opportunity to perform the baptisms, it was very cold. We had a lot of people come to church yesterday. Some really sweet people too. We met a guy named Boy a few weeks ago and took down his number. He just seemed like any other guy, didn't seem that promising Then about a week later we were looking for someone else s house and mistook Boy's house for the house we were looking for.Boy was there and wasn't busy so we shared a message with him and invited him to church. Yesterday to our surprise he came to church. We got our Elder's Quorum Pres. to fellowship him and the guy loved church, he said he will be back next week with his friends and family. It was sweet. On Thursday I was on exchanges with Elder Sherwood's new comp. Elder Dauphin who is from Tahiti. We were contacting people and contacted this sweet family from Zimbabwe. The guy said he knew the church from when he was working in Harare, he worked right next to it. So we gave him a pamphlet, asked him to read and pray about it. gave him a baptism date, invited him to church and charmed them with the only Shona phrase I know, ndokuvara mbama, which means I'm gonna clap you in the face, they thought it was pretty funny. Unfortunately he had to work yesterday but his family came to church and they loved it. We are seeing them tonight so hopefully everything goes good. We have started inviting people to be baptized as soon as we meet them. It helps to weed out fong kong people. It is actually very effective, usually we give them something to read and pray about then ask them when God answer their prayers will they follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by the priesthood authority. On Thursday we ate pap and liver again, probably the best of both I have ever had. Its getting hot now and it is raining outside right now. Last Monday Elder Sherwood and I baked 200 chocolate chip cookies to give out to our investigators and members , they were pretty good. It took us five hours and we were pretty sick of cookies and cookie dough by the end.We don't really have anything planned for today, just going to the office. We are going to the temple on Friday. I guess that is all I have to say this week, I hope everything is going good for you. I'll talk to you later.

Hello,
We had our bikes stolen yesterday while we were in an appointment. Our investigator is a security guard so we ran around the streets in a ghetto part of our area trying to find them but couldn't. After we left, our investigator went around and found the bikes hidden in someone's yard. I would dare say it was a miracle. We figure when we were running around the tsotsies saw us and ditched the bikes. It was sweet.
July 18th

Hello Things are good. It has been really warm this week, I 'm even a little bit sunburned.I've been a little bit sick these past few days but nothing serious. I think I'm on the rebound. The tracting has been slow but we have found a few families to teach. We had a lot of investigators come to church yesterday, the most since I've been in this area. We should be having a baptism on Sunday and more in the next couple of weeks.
On Friday I went on exchanges with the Zone leaders to Centurion.

HELLO,
This week has been good. I'm feeling a lot better than last week. My new companion is Elder Marowa from Zimbabwe. He has been on mission for 4and 1/2 months now. The family I made cookies for said they got up early and got ready to come to church but at the last minute decided to go to their church which they haven't been to in three years. They thanked us for reactivating them in their church and said maybe they will come and visit the church some day. So ya ... I actually just found out about Heber today so it's news to me. I heard about Mrs. Obama.
Pres. Poulsen goes home in a few days as well as two of the senior couples who work at the mission office. It is going to be a new mission in the next couple of weeks. It's going to be weird. We got to go to the temple on Friday, it's the first time I've been in six months. It was really nice. It's been really cold here this last week. All the house here are made of brick and have zero insulation,
it's miserable; I'm going to freeze to death.
I had to talk in sacrament meeting yesterday. There were two speakers before me and together they took up five minutes and I got left with thirty minutes to fill. They told me to prepare a twenty minute talk so that's what I gave; I let the stake president have the last fifteen. Today we went to the mission office and talked with the senior couples and Sis. Poulsen since its probably the last time we will see them. Afterwards we ate at McDonald's , it was the first time I've eaten there in over a year. It tasted just like it does on that side. I hope everything goes good for you this week, I will talk to you later.

Ola,
This week was sweet. On Wednesday night the Zone leaders called and said we were going on exchanges that night so I needed to be back from the area early, which is weird because exchanges usually start in the morning after studies. So I went with Elder Johnson and we spent the night at the medical flat in Roodeport, which is just across the street from the office, in the morning we woke up at five and went over to the office. We met up with one of the senior couples, the AP's and a bunch of Zone leaders ; we loaded up in two cans and headed for Botswana. I guess they bought new cars for all the areas in Botswana so we had to go up and get the old ones and drive them back to the mission office.So in the way up we saw a bunch of monkeys, some baboons and some crazy African deer things. We got to the Broadhurst chapel at about noon, Sis. Morgan had lunch for us. After that we went out side and each picked a car, there were twelve of them all lined up in a row so we all stood in front of our car and they took a sweet picture of it. Then we headed for the border.Unfortunately the battery in my car was dead so we had to jump start it. We went to the border and did all that stuff. So ya, then I drove for five hours by myself back to the mission office. It was really strange to be alone but it was nice. We dropped the cars off at the office then after that Elder Johnson and I went to Centurion and spent the night there. There is a ton of white people there. We went to a store there that had a bunch of American food; I got some pop-tarts and some Pringles. Then on Friday morning we exchanged back. Other than that it has been a ususal week. We had a lot of investigators at church and there are a lot of people progressing.
It has cooled down a lot these last few weeks and in May it should start to get cold. Today we have a Zone meeting. We should be having baptisms in May, maybe on the 8th but probably on the 22nd.
Everything is going good here, township life is sweet. Talk to you next week.
love Elder Finlinson

Hello,
How is everything going? I am now in a township called Tembisa. My companion is Elder Sithole, who is from East London, South Africa. This is my third South African companion in a row. He has been out for three months, he is still in his greeny area. We stay in a four man flat in Kempton Park with Elder Petersen who cam out in the same group as me. He is training Elder Stewart who just came from the MTC. Elder Petersen and Elder Stewart serve in Hospital View which is right next to Tembisa. Tempisa is sweet; itis very similar to Pimville, the people live the same way and do the same things. The best part is that the ward actually functions like a ward! It was so nice to go to church and just sit and listen without having to teach a class or give a talk. We have a lot of sweet people in our teaching pool. There isn't a KFC in our area but there is one right next to where we live. We 've had three DA's since I've been here and I haven't had to eat pap yet so things are looking good. I heard about Justin,(oak city) I was talking to Elder Hare(Delta) at transfers and he told me about it. I also saw Elder Nielsen (Leamington) and talked to him for a few minutes Botswana had a completely different vibe, everything just slows down in Bots, it is hard to explain but it has a different feel than SA. We get to watch conference this week-end. I hope all is going well; I will talk to you next week.
Love Elder Finlinson

Hello,
I hadn't heard about the earthquake in Japan . Our car broke down on Thursday so we have been walking everywhere since then. We had to walk to church yesterday ; it took us just over an hour to get there. the car probably won't get fixed til Wednesday. The power went out again yesterday but came back on late last night. I only have a few weeks left in Botswana. I have been sick the last few days but I think I'm getting over it. Hope you all have a good week
March 14th 2011

Hello,
How is life? Everything is going ok here. Our car got fixed on Tuesday. This week went better,
the exchanges were really cool, I went to Kanye which is huge village, all dirt roads with donkeys everywhere. I was able to get the package. Thank you so much! The A-1 sauce made it okay and I bought some steak today so ya. I think my favorite part of the package was the pistachios. Unfortunately our water is out again its been off all day and I'm not sure when it will come back on. At least this time we are more prepared. This week we had some fong kong pastor putting on a show at the stadium every night so after about five in the afternoon Lobatse looked like a ghost town, so it has been kind of a slow week. Stake conference was good; we had to go to Broadhurst which is right to Gaborone. Today we were going to go to a game reserve but on the way we hit a huge pot hole and popped a tire. Then after we got there it was pretty expensive and they told us our chances of seeing anything was slim. We went to try another place but on the way we got lost out in the bush and saw a bunch of wild warthogs, so it was pretty sweet. Afterward we went to Gabs to get some KFC, and then went souvenir shopping. I got a sweet set of hand carved wooden coasters, a carved elephant and few other things. We spent two hours trying to track down contact solution. While we were shopping for souvenirs there was a guy selling shambocks(whips) so I had to put on a show for everyone. It was pretty sweet. As far as our teaching pool goes we are teaching a few sweet families that will probably be baptized in April. We 've done a lot of contacting this week and we've met some pretty promising
people. I'm probably going back to SA in two weeks though and I probably won't get to see any of them baptized. We don't have any baptisms planned until the 24th of April. This week has been busy though , but it has been enjoyable. Hope everything is going good, talk to you next week.
Elder Finlinson

Hello,
I am doing fine. It is still really hot here. The most exciting thing that happened to me this week
On Saturday we came back for lunch and we have a gate that you have to stick your arm through and then unlock a padlock so I stuck my arm through and was unlocking it and something fell out of the tree and landed on my arm, I just thought it was a leaf or something so I moved my arm to shake it off and the leaf started moving, so ya it turned out to be a snake, possibly a green mamba, it was small only about a foot long but that was the most exciting thing that happened to me this week. On Friday the electricity was off so we had to use candles for light all night and our A/C was off so it kind of sucked. Also on Friday a water pipe between here and Gabs burst so we didn't have running water for three days. We finally had water this morning. So we weren't able to shower or shave or wash dishes so our house is pretty rank at the moment. I was growing a sweet mountain man beard though. So it has been quite interesting week. Everything is going good here now that our water is back. There is a guy in our branch who is a tailor so I am having him make me a sweet African shirt, it should be done this week. And one of the other missionaries' investigators works for the Botswana Meat Commission so I told them to try and get me a BMC shirt so they talked to the guy and he gave us these sweet BMC planners, he is going to get us shirts and he is going to take us on a tour of their slaughtering and packaging facilities one of these Mondays so it is going to be pretty sweet. Also said he can get us into a game park for free, so these next few Mondays are going to be busy. I think the KFC in Africa is better than America, or maybe it's just because I am cooking for myself but KFC here is quite desirable. This week has been busy but it has been really good. I hope you all have a good week.
Elder Finlinson

Hello,
Everything is going good here. The baboons are scared of people and usually run away when they see you. The teaching is a little difficult we aren't teaching that many people but its getting better day by day. We went on exchanges with the zone leaders on Friday and so I got a few ideas that should help. We should have four baptisms this week though. Setswana is the official language of Botswana. I still haven't taken any sweet pictures to send but I will try to take some this week. Thanks for everything, Elder Finlinson.

Hello,
Everything is going good here. I haven't seen any baboons yet but the other elder saw a group of them yesterday. I haven't heard anything about my suitcase yet, I doubt I will ever see it again. We live in a huge house, we have a guest house in our backyard and the only thing that is in it is our washing machine. There are rooms in our house that we don't even use so it's really nice, and fortunately we A/C in two of the rooms. It is really creepy though it looks like something out of a horror movie. When I first got here the trees and grass and everything were overgrown but now it's all been taken care of and it's not so creepy now. We live kind of by the stadium up next to some hills. Lobatse is a working town. Most people who live here have jobs so the houses are pretty nice, but it also depends on what area of Lobatse you look at. We stay in a nice area but the other side of town is not so nice. My companion got residency in Botswana which means he can stay here for two years, the rest of us are here on temporary 90 day visas. We e-mail in a shop a couple of blocks from our house. Elder Albertson left but he came back though and they gave them three day extensions and they are in Gabs right now applying for a thirty day extension, otherwise they will have to go back to SA tomorrow. We know the area pretty good now so it will be ok. Botswana is the best, its hot here but its quiet and peaceful compared to SA and everyone here speaks Setswana. The church is growing really fast here and they hope to have a stake here sometime this year. We drove to Kanye on Friday which is about an hour away and there were goats and donkeys and cows on the side of the road the whole way there. Some people still live in little round huts with thatch roofs. It's what you think of when you think of Africa. A member fed us goat meat the other day it was odd, and apparently they eat donkeys here too. But everything is going good here I can't complain, it rained all night so its cooled down quite a bit. I hope everything is going good for you guys I'll try and take some pictures this week so I have something to send you next week. Good luck with everything I'll talk to you next week.

Hello!
It was really nice to talk to you. I wish I could have talked longer but I was using Sis. Morgan's cell phone and other people needed to call their parents. Don't worry about the birth certificate we got the second one you sent and I was able to apply for residency so everything worked out. That's strange that Jolynn was there the day before and really fortunate. My new companion is Elder Chidzawo from SA, he is one of four Elders who got residency in Botswana. He has been here for six months and will likely stay here until his mission is over in a year. As far as the South Africa Johannesburg Mission goes, I am living the dream. Opening an area in Botswana, I know people who would kill to be me. But at the same time it kind of sucks. I am in Lobatse and there are four missionaries here three of us came here at the same time, Elder Albertson has been here for three months so he is the only one that knows the members and town and stuff and his visa expires on Wednesday so he has to go to the border and probably won't come back. They are going to try and get an extension but its not likely.So we will probably be in a threesome until some one else gets emergency transfer from SA. So we barely know our areas, the members, the investigators and everything else so its going to be a lot of work. If I do get residency I will probably spend the rest of my mission here in Bots, just because of the hassles with visas and all the emergency transfers they have had to do. Here in Lobatse we have a branch of about 80-100 people. It rained hard yesterday so only about thirty people showed up for church. I don't know if you have googled Lobatse or not but it's about a 45 minute drive form Gaborone. It 's just a small town out in the middle of nowhere. We are really close to SA border though. I wish I had some pictures to send but I haven't taken any yet. Which reminds me, one of my suitcases disappeared on the drive up here. We had two cars and a truck and trailer and all of our suitcases were in the trailer. It's asbout a five hour drive form Joburg to Gabs and when we got here I couldn't find my small suitcase. I don't know where it would have gone maybe one of the other elders took it by accident or else someone stole it out of the trailer, I really don't know. It had my big camera and a bunch of ties my shoe shine kit and sewing kit all the letters that I've recieved on my mission and my patriarchal blessing . And a bunch of US money and I can't remember what else. So ya it makes me sick when I think about it but hopefully it will turn-up. I had my name and the address of the mission office written on it so maybe it will find its way back to me. So ya that has kind of ruined my week but other than that Botswana is really cool, I guess there are monkeys and baboons everywhere but I haven't seen any yet, I guess there are also snakes up here like black mambas and stuff so that's a little bit scary. Unfortunately I am riding a bike again. It actually reminds me quite a bit of Utah here, there are mountains and trees. In Soweto there were no trees at all. I will only be able to get packages and letters every six weeks while I am up here because everything gets sent to Joburg and has to wait until transfers for the other missionaries to bring up here. I'm glad to hear Darbin is coming back hopefully I will get to see him some time. I hope everything is going good and I wish you the best.
Love, Elder Finlinson

Hello,
Yesterday was my birthday and my last Sunday in Pimville, Pres. Poulsen came to church, and we had four baptisms. I got to baptize two of the people so it was pretty cool. I am getting transferred tomorrow, and there is a good chance that I am going to Botswana, I'm not sure yet but I know that there is 11 missionaries going up there tomorrow. They have been having problems with the visa's up there. A bunch of missionaries got emergency transfers because their visa's expired and the government will only issue us 90 day visas. Si if I do go up there I will only be staying for two or three transfers unless they can work something out with the government. So I kind of hope I go up later after they fix the visa problems so I can stay up there for longer. My birthday was boring; I didn't tell anyone it was my birthday so it was good. We got to go to the temple on Friday, it was very nice. Yesterday and today we have just been visiting people in the area so they can write in my journal and take a picture with them so it has been busy trying to find time for everyone.I'm going to miss it here, its one of the best areas in the mission. I hope everything is going good for you guys . I'll talk to you next week. Bye
Elder Finlinson

Hello,
New years Eve was good; we got back to the flat at six and then played card games till 11. On new years day we went to a members home for lunch then we went and explored our area a bit. We went to freedom square in kliptown. It has some historical significance to apartheid and stuff. I sent some pictures that I took while we were there. I'm sending some pictures of the baptisms from the 19th of December. We get transfer news on Saturday, I don't know if I will get transferred or not. My companion might be a zone leader this transfer so if he does I will stay in the area for one or maybe even two more transfers but I really don't know what is going to happen so I am kind of nervous. We should be having four more baptisms this Sunday if everything goes like it should.
I hope you all had a wonderful week and I hope this week goes good for you. good luck with everything.

Elder Finlinson