May 4, 2012

 Today we met with President Wood to receive our official assignment for our mission.  He didn’t give it to us yesterday when we met with him the first time because he wanted to pray about it after meeting with us.  Well, he did just that and told us he was assigning us to go to Port Alfred which is a 897 km, 11 hours 25 minute drive along the South African coast east of Cape Town and on the Indian Ocean.  Elder Stumm would become President Stumm and serve as the branch president.  The branch is young and for now does not have enough priesthood or experience to function on its own.  So off we go on our next great adventure.

As one of the sight-seeing experiences here, we were taken by the Oldhams to Signal Hill here in Cape Town.  That’s the mountain you see in the preceding blog taken  from the Mission Office. 

Behind us under the clouds is table mountain, a famous landmark

When we arrived, there was a tour bus with, of course, lots of people enjoying the sight.  A couple came up to us very excited, as we were wearing our name tags, and told us their son (now Elder Taylor) was at the Johannesburg MTC preparing to come to the Cape Town Mission. 

 As it turned out, she had spoken to Sister Oldham on the phone sometime previous to their arrival into Cape Town.   Sister Taylor was the organizer of the tour and had planned this tour way before her son’s mission call.  Needless to say, everyone was amazed at the “tender mercy” this couple was given on this chance meeting on that day.  Who knows, maybe Elder Taylor will end up in Port Alfred and we can retell the story of meeting his parents to him.  

Here we are standing where the continent of Africa was dedicated for missionary work. I don't remember all the facts of who dedicated it or when but I will find out and post it later. President Wood brings all of the new missionaries up here. I'll get more information on that and post it, so check back for more information.