September 17, 2012

 We spent the night at the Fowers and had a nice breakfast before we were off to visit Silverdale Elementary outside of East London. 

 Elder Mc Donald who was a former AP in the mission was headed home with his parents.  They brought several suitcases of school supplies for the children in this farm elementary school.  His parents ward put together the supplies for the children as a service project.

 The children absolutely loved everything.  The school has mostly nothing and they were so excited.  They also brought a suitcase full of deflated soccer balls with a couple of air pumps.  It was fun to watch the excitement and they sang songs and danced for us.  It was so neat!!  One girl kept looking at me and we smiled at each other.  When I got a chance after they went to their classrooms, I found her and had my picture taken with her.

  She told me her name, of course I can’t even say it let alone remember it.  She was very sweet!  We got lots of pictures…it was a great experience.
 


 They serve one meal at the school which is Mielie-meal, one of the African staple foods, predominantly cooked into pap, (maize meal very similar to American grits)or phutu, a traditional Bantu porridge and they then pour Amasi or sour milk over it. This is what they feed the children every day and they seem to like it.

Here is their kitchen, man was it ever hot in there.

We then went with the Fowers and Stokoes to the East London Museum and spent around 2 hours.  The museum was good learned more about the Xhosa people and their customs, learned about the early settlers and history of the area, and the may ship wrecks that are around this area of Africa. 

 After that we headed back to Port Alfred. 

We also met our new elder, Elder Alexander from Pretoria. 

 He is from Pretoria in South African.  He can play the piano well which will be a great blessing for the branch.  I don’t mind getting  new elders, just don’t like letting the old ones leave!!