August 30, 2012

 We spent the night in a flat near the Fowers that can be rented out a night at a time.  They live in a nice area with a wonderful view overlooking a small valley and a lot of trees where monkeys play sometimes in the morning. 

 Unfortunately, not this morning.  We ate breakfast with them, and then headed to the stake center where the conference was to take place at the Amalinda chapel in East London. 

We were inspired listening to the Woods and the Cooks present great information on how paying tithing helps people grow in the gospel.  The members in our branch really struggle with paying tithing.  They just don’t understand how important it is and how much they will be blessed by just doing it. Hopefully, we can pass this information on to them in a different way that will inspire them to do better. 

We had pizza and salad for lunch and took a couple of pictures with the Cooks.  (Unfortunately, they got wiped off of our camera a while later.) As they say here in South Africa… shame. Now this is a really big “SHAME”. (Okay, it was a trial, but I did get over it). We do have a picture of our Elders together with us and one of Elder Dale with the Cooks.

We then all gathered together where Sister Wood recorded our Zone singing the SACTM song.  It was pretty cool. It was a great conference, we left feeling inspired and ready to do better.

August 29, 2012

 We checked on Sister Dell, as she had some surgery to remove a needle from her heel.  She had a sore foot for a while and it didn’t get better so she had an x-ray that showed a needle stuck straight into her heal and touching the bone.  A doctor here in Port Alfred tried but couldn’t get it out, so she had to go to Port Elizabeth.  She spent all day and night sitting in a chair in the waiting room in casualty (emergency) care waiting to be admitted or to see a doctor. Finally one of the doctors took pity on her, took her into a room and got it out in five minutes. She is 69 and not in really good health but was given a blessing before she left and was told she had more people to help and would be OK. She is just a neat lady, and we love her to death.  She is back home now and doing fine, just recovering from her long ordeal.

At 3 pm today we left to go to East London for a zone conference tomorrow.  All of the senior couples in the East London Zone (Elder and Sister Fowers, Elder and Sister Nye and us)are having dinner with President and Sister Wood and the Second Councilor in the Area Presidency and his wife, Elder Carl B. Cook of the First Quorum of the Seventy.   We ate at Grazia’s in East London.  It was a very nice evening and the food was great.  President Cook and his wife are both very gracious, humble, knowledgeable, it was a pleasure listening and talking to them.

August 27, 2012

 We had a good p-day today.  We picked up one of the primary children at school and took him to an occupational therapist appointment, since his mom had to work and no one else could do it.  After that, we picked up one of the new members, Sister VanRensburg.  We wanted to do something nice for her so we took her to Guido’s for 2 for 1 pizza and met the elders there.  Sister Van Rensburgs husband died a couple of years ago and she has had a hard time making ends meet.  She is a very strong new member and is doing very well reading the scriptures and learning the Gospel. She is quite knowledgeable and always ready to help anyone.  After lunch, we took her home as she needed to go visit her uncle who is quite ill.  The Elders and us then went to Mansfield Game Park where Gambit the Giraffe lives.  

Gambit was orphaned when young and raised by a veterinarian so is used to humans.  We found him and he was quite friendly, especially to Rick.  They got along quite well. 

 After our visit with him, one of the Elders saw a really large locust on the ground.  Of course, he needed to be checked out.  Both Rick and Elder Dale got yellow “stuff” on their hands from our locust friend.  ICK!!  

Before we found Gambit, Elder Scicluna took us on one of his excellent adventures again.  He seems to be famous for doing that when we go to a game park.  He said that he knew his way around the park as he had been there before but somehow he got us on a road that only 4X4 driving vehicles are allowed on.  Since we have a 2012 Chevrolet Sonic, with front wheel drive only, our adventure was a little tense at one point.  We realized we maybe shouldn’t be where we were and turned around to get out.  We had, however, gone down a rather rocky steep hill and now had to go back up it.   

After three runs, and the Elders clearing rocks out of the way, we made it up…with a little prayer help as well!! 

We made it home again, however, the Elders missed their usual sport time because of our adventure and I had to reschedule my Visiting Teachers, who were coming, to another day. 

This evening we went to the Nteyi’s home to wish Mihle a happy birthday (she turned 10)…I made some peanut butter popcorn to give to her. Hope she likes it!!

August 26, 2012

Sunday brings another crazy day!!  It seems that one of the speakers wasn’t ready and phoned Rick last night to let him know he wouldn’t come because of that.  The Elders Quorum President and family were in a car accident, nobody was hurt just crunched their car a bit, and he was to teach EQ. So with the Elders in Primary and me in YW. The YM president gone, he was called into work (he is a policeman (detective), so Rick was going to take over for him. That left us one short on instructors. This just wouldn’t do, so during Sunday School, Rick and I went to get the EQ president who was still at the police station so he could teach EQ.  We made it back just in time and all of the substitutions worked.

August 25, 2012

 Being that it is Saturday, Rick is again doing service. This time it is at the church working in the garden.  While in the process, he managed to break a water pipe that was buried where he was digging and couldn’t find the shut off.  We had to get a hold of the landlord for help finding it.  It was buried out by the street under about 6” of dirt and gravel. They sure do things different over here. You would think that it would be better to have your emergency shut off valve a little more accessible and definitely better marked then they do here. I stayed at home and took care of a lot of stuff that needed catching up on.  I will be teaching the YW tomorrow as the Relief Society is having their visiting teaching seminar during that time.  The Elders will take over the primary for those in primary can also attend the meeting. I am going to show “The Touch of the Masters Hand” video to them.  Then we will discuss how it likens to us. 

August 24, 2012

 Had the missionaries over for lunch at our place today and saw whales from our balcony for the first time.  We do wish we had binoculars and now have an excuse to get some.

August 20, 2012

We (Elder and Sister Fowers from East London and us) left the house today at about 7am to head to our zip line adventure.  We arrived there in a little over 3 hours and it was thought it would take about 4 hours, but President Stumm was driving, after all!! We didn’t need to be there until 11 am and since we were a bit early we went a short ways further down the road and stopped at a place called Storm River Bridge.  It is over a very deep gorge and it is quite beautiful.  We took a few pictures and the two “boys” (Elder Stumm and Elder Fowers) had fun dropping rocks over the edge and then timing them to see how long it took for them to hit bottom. 

We then went back to the activity spot and met up with the Van Sickles and Stokoe’s, both from Port Elizabeth.  The Richins who are in George, got a little lost, so they were a bit late and we waited until they found us before we started the adventure.  The Taylors, also in Port Elizabeth didn’t come, nor did the Nye’s who are in Grahamstown.  We missed them both. 

 As for the zip lines, there are 8 of them the longest being 211 meters.  After the first one, I wondered what I had gotten myself into.  However, I realized, once you start, you are committed.  Oh boy, this was certainly out of my comfort zone.  After the first one my heart was pounding…not with excitement, but with great anxiety…and fearful that I might accidently put on the brakes before I got to where they let you know to put on the brake.  If you do it too soon, you are stuck way high and have to hand over hand yourself to the other side.  I really didn’t want to do that. 

Amazingly, I made it through all of the lines, not without feeling I might faint during the second to last one, which was the longest one.  I said a prayer that I wouldn’t and went for it.  I felt like a big marshmallow when we were finished.  I can say I did it and probably won’t do it again.  

 We have lots of pictures to prove we were there and some video as well.  Rick thought it was OK.  We all had lunch together and went our separate ways to our boardings.  It was a day to remember. 

August 18, 2012

 Today is the big Helping Hands church service project in Africa.  President Stumm decided on helping the Child Welfare Orphans Home here in Port Alfred.  We had a great crew of about 40 people, including children attend and do a great job of cutting down a bunch of thorny brush like stuff, (pretty but not wanted)

 cleaning a spot to plant a couple of banana trees, painting a wall, weeding flower beds, 

taking out weeds in the grass, cutting low hanging branches off a tree, hauling away all of the cut out brush and tree limbs,

 putting up a couple of swings for the children at the home, and numerous other odd job things that were done.  

 We also had a braii (BBQ) at lunch time. 

 The people in charge were pleased with the work we were able to accomplish on this project. 

Everyone was tired when all was finished. 

August 13, 2012  

 Another great P-day.  This time we went with the Elders to Mpongo Private Game Reserve.  As we started the day, we couldn’t decide if we really even wanted to go.  It is outside East London, which is a 2 hour drive. That plus leaving at 11am and time in the park and another 2 hour drive home, we weren’t sure we wanted to do that today.  But, we made the right choice.

 It was a lot of fun.  The first things we saw were a lot of different species of grazing animals. 
 

Some of them were just grazing and lying down so close to the road that Elder Dale and Elder Scicluna decided it would be fun to chase them and see what would happen.  They got out of the car and ran after them. Elder Dale was making sounds like a clucking chicken, of all things.  It must mean something in African jungle language because they sure took off. We now call him “super chicken”.  It was very funny to watch as they all ran like crazy to escape the crazy person chasing them. 

 I wanted to see giraffe, which I saw, up close and almost personal. 

 The best part was the encounter, sort of with a rhino.   A very large mamma and her baby actually came onto the road and of course Elder Scicluna was VERY excited, as that was what he wanted to see quite badly.

The rhino was going one way and we were pointed the other way, so Elder Scicluna backed the car up chasing the rhino as President Stumm was videoing the event.  We got some great video. 
When that was over, we were driving down the road and came around a corner and there in the middle of the road was an ostrich!

Well, with Elder Scicluna driving, we chased the poor thing.  It was really quite funny and it would run in front of us with its feathers all puffed out and looking back at us now and then.  It finally ran onto the side of the road and we went by.  President got some great video of that adventure, as well.  We decided to turn around and go back to a road we hadn’t driven on yet and, yes, we saw the ostrich again.  This time it was off the road, so Elder Dale, otherwise now known as “super chicken”, decided to chase the ostrich with his chicken sound.  Again it was very funny…the whole thing. 

Elder Dale had the eagles eyes today and spotted a lizard at the side of the road.  We stopped and got some pictures.  It was a water monitor lizard, about 6 feet long.  There were actually two of them, but one of them quickly ran down a hole.

Elder Dale got to touch the end of this lizards tail, before it ran off into the bush.  That made him happy.  We saw a lot of animals today, including a water buffalo from far away.  We also saw a lynx outside the park grounds as we were leaving.  We ended up being the last ones to leave the park at 6 pm when it closed.  The Elders were staying in East London for a small zone conference and since we didn’t have to go to this one we headed home.  We arrived back in Port Alfred around 8 pm. It was a great day.