November 17, 2012

 Today was the branch Christmas party.  We are having it this early because after school lets out for holiday break a lot of children go away to visit family and we wanted to include them. Primary was put in charge of the game which we would have first, followed by a braai and finishing up with a Christmas pageant, of sorts.  As always here, things start slow which means late.  We were ready with our part to begin at the announced starting time of 12:30, but the only ones there were the new members, Relief Society Presidency and us and one uninvited guest.

If it was Sacrament meeting I would have started on time even if we were the only ones there, but seeing this was a branch party I felt it best to wait till more of the branch showed up. People started slowly showing up and at 1:30 one of the Primary presidency finally showed up, but she had no idea what games the Primary President planned to play. We knew what was planned, so with a little bit of our help, games finally started around 2:00 followed by the braai and potluck salads which all the families brought.  

Sister Dell wrote a program about the birth of Christ, which included a lot of the people in the branch and a lot of hymns.

 It went fairly well considering five players didn’t show up. I invited the owners of the building we meet in, and they seemed to enjoy their time.  Since Sister Tunye, the primary president, didn’t make it to the party, we took a bunch of leftover food to her.  When we got to her home, there was a group of people walking past. As we got out of the car two of the young children came running to the car, converging on my side of the car grabbing at things in the door storage. While I was fending them off, one of the mammas who happened to be drunk came over and gave Janet a big hug, slobbering on her neck, I wish I had a picture of it to include.  It seems like when any of these people get drunk they have some things in common. They love everyone and they all say that they are coming to church this Sunday…joy… more drunks at church!!!