Botswana Country Fair and Helping Hands

The Country Fair in Botswana housed Hundreds of Booths advertising everything imaginable.  The
missionaries decided to run a booth with the help of the Public Affairs Council.  It was open for
6 days and they got multiple lists of people signing up for a free Book of Mormon or a free
video on Family.  They then followed up with visits and have had great success.  What a great
idea and it was generated by a Sister Missionary at that!

Elder Taylor, 1st counselor in the Mission Presidency and some of the local missionaries.
Caiphus, 3rd from the front, is on the National Public Affairs Council.  They are holding the
award that they won.  The best religion booth at the fair.

The Helping Hands Project in Mochudi, Botswana, was to plant a garden for a School for Blind
and Disabled Children.  They dug the area with shovels and then planted.  The plan is for
them to have food for the school and to sell the surplus for supplies at the school.

Some of the children.  Some are blind and others are disabled in various ways.

They sang so beautifully for us--in harmony.  And then Elder Roberts dedicated the garden plot
for them.  It was a very touching moment to experience.

In Gaberone, the capital of Botswana there are two wards.  The single adult ward cleaned, weeded,
and painted the equipment for a playground by the church.  They are also going to add additional
equipment for them to play with.  Parks are very limited so the neighborhood was thrilled with
their service.

The other ward had planned to paint the local jail house and clean it up.  The day before, they
were notified that the project had been canceled.  Apparently, a faction from Nigeria came
to town and want to do work in the jail.  However, their idea was to get into the jail and
sabotage in some way in order to help the inmates escape.  They were apparently
linked to an Al Qaida type of group.  So the ward decided to clean the area around the
church instead.  They collected over 50 large bags of garbage from the neighborhood and 
people came out of the houses and wanted to help.  They also wanted to know who they 
were and what that church on the corner was all about.  As it turned out, their project was 
highly successful.

An added bonus for us.  At the fair was a booth of women from Lesotho (an independent country
in the middle of South Africa.)  They had made many different articles to sell.  We bought a
beautiful, woven wall hanging that looks very African.  I loved the traditional hats of the
people of Lesotho.