December 29, 2012

 Today we visited a museum of sorts which had a number of great old cars…including a 55 Thunderbird, a 65 Mustang and a Corvette.  The man who owns all of this and many more cars.

55 T-Bird

55 T-Bird

 

Early 65 Mustang

Early 65 Mustang

60 Dodge Polara

60 Dodge Polara

1946 v12 Lincoln

1946 v12 Lincoln

1946 v12 Lincoln

 He also collects old medical equipment, including an old iron lung.   

  When we finished there, we headed back to Port Alfred. It was a nice mini vacation and now it’s back to work. 

December 28, 2012

 Well, today is our 44^th wedding anniversary.   We are in East London, actually Gonubie, staying with Elder and Sister Fowers.  They invited us to come spend a couple of days around Christmas time so, here we are.  Our day started with reading scriptures on the deck overlooking a valley and hoping to see animals but no luck this time.  After breakfast, we met up with Elder and Sister Stokoe for a competitive game of miniature golf. The course has 27 holes, but we only played 9 of them.  It was fun and as competitive as old people can get. We all scored within two points of each other and Rick and I tied for second. After lunch at the Fowers it was off to “The Lion Park”.  It is a small park where there are numerous animals…rabbits, llamas, a leopard, several full size lions, tortoises, one very tame deer type animal, crocodile and baby lion cubs, which we were able to pet and play with a bit. 

 
  There is a keeper in with the lion cubs, but we are able to interact with them by ourselves.  Rick was first to play with them…they liked to lick him and one seemed to enjoy his shoe. 

 One jumped on his back, but I didn’t get a picture because the keeper moved in front of the camera to remove the cub as I was pushing the button to take the picture.  When it was my turn, one of them bit at the pocket of my pants and then on my arm.

 I thought he drew blood but when I looked there was only a bruise.  They are 5 ½ months old and very playful.  There was another cub which was only about 2 months old in another pen that had deformed front paws. 

 He was a little more fearful and you couldn’t be around him for very long before he took off.  

December 27, 2012

 Ahhh…today is the day we are going to East London to spend a couple of days with Elder and Sister Fowers before they leave South Africa and go home.  We will miss them.  We are taking dinner for tonight and decided to make great chicken, but cook cubed chicken breast, then make the sauce for the dish and put the chicken in and then put it over cooked rice.  It is an easier, quicker version and still really good.  Alas, the original is the best, but this works great just the same.  Elder and Sister Stokoe  also came for dinner. They are a new missionaries serving a PEF mission out of Port Elizabeth but have been loaned to the Cape Town Mission to serve in Grahamstown  until a new mission couple can be assigned to serve there.   Everyone loved the dinner dish and wanted  the recipe.  I love it when the dinner choice works!!

Our journey to East London was very uneventful, except for one cow that really didn’t care that the roadway was for cars and not for a cow.  We were able to divert around it, but it was close!! That is South Africa for you…next time it could very well be a goat.

We also did a flat inspection at the Elders boarding this morning.  They have a few things to work on…I think they hate seeing us coming for this event…I know I would!!

December 26, 2012

 We did a few odds and ends today, but we also made a HT/VT visit to Sister Kenney who lives in Kenton on Sea.  She is moving to Johannesburg at the end of January and will be serving in the temple there.  She is a delightful person…tells it like it is kind of person.  We will miss her.  

December 25, 2012

 We had arranged with Elizabeth that we would Skype with her on our Christmas morning which was her Christmas Eve.  She was going to give us her Christmas present then.  Well…what a great gift she gave…she told us she would be receiving her endowments at the temple and….she was putting in her papers to serve a mission!!!!!  WOW…what a great gift….yeah…I cried.  We are so proud of her and the decision she made.  She knew when she heard President Monson talk about missions in the last general conference that that was what she was to do.  The rest of the day was like being on cloud 9.  

We had to go to the grocery store because there were a few more people coming to dinner than originally planned and we needed to get more meat…so we got a couple of already cooked chickens and a couple of other things.  We then started the preparations for dinner…cheesy potatoes, stuffing, a pasta salad…etc.  We took a little nap, finished dinner prep and went to the township to pick a couple of members who have no family here in Port Alfred to spend Christmas with.   Our Elders also picked up a couple of people, however, not everyone we planned on could come.  We had a nice meal, talked, took pictures, had dessert, put together food for our guest to take with them and then took everyone home. 

 

 The Elders were able to Skype with their families and we also were able to Skype with all of the kids at one time, except Eric because they don’t have an internet connection.  It was interesting to listen to and watch as they were all trying to get connected.  Rick and I had fun just listening to everyone else kibbitz back and forth.  Josh was on for their family, as Sarah, unfortunately, was sick with the flu…not nice on Christmas day!  We were on for a couple of hours and then signed off since it was about 10 pm our time.  We were, however, able to talk to Eric and Heather for a while when he called after they were done opening gifts.  It was nice to hear from everyone.

December 24, 2012

 We promised ourselves that we were not going to go out on Christmas Eve, but around noon we ventured out to our local Super Spar grocery store to pick up a few needed things for dinner tomorrow.  Whoa….the parking lot was FULL.  You had to wait in line just to get a shopping cart, the check-out lines were all around 1/3 of the way down the aisle and to put it mildly the place was PACKED.  Rick spoke to one of the managers he knows and was told it has never been this crowded before. They had already broken a couple of records for number of shoppers and total purchases and it was only 2pm.  What an experience.  Christmas Eve was spent with the Elders. We had our traditional Christmas Eve pizza dinner.  We watched a 2010 Tabernacle Choir/Orchestra event.   After pizza and the video, we played some games with the Elders.  They liked Rummikub and the Monopoly card game the best. 

December 23, 2012

 We had a great sacrament meeting today…President and Sister Armstrong, the Johannesburg Temple president and his wife spoke. It was nice to get some great perspective on the Celestial Kingdom.

December 3, 2012

  We awoke to the power on, thank goodness.  We don’t want all our stuff in the freezer unthawing!!  Rick headed out early to go woodcutting with the Elders Quorum President.  He got home around noon after having helped get a full load of wood for him to sell during the holidays and saved him trailer rental to boot.  After grocery shopping was done, we took a journey to the licensing place to find out what all is needed to change ownership of the trailer.  Everyone in government places seem to be real testy!!  Not to us, but other people.  We are always treated with courtesy and respect. We waited for the agent to get back from an extended lunch break (2:15) when the station supervisor came out, told us that he knew we had been waiting for her awhile but he was going to talk with her first. We don’t understand Afrikaans but by the sounds of the conversation, the supervisor was encouraging her to return earlier from lunch next time. Just another adventure in the life of a South Africa Missionary!! 

December 2, 2012

 The power is off today. We don’t follow any local news or otherwise, so we were appreciative when Sister Cockbain told us there was a notice in the paper saying that there will be a power outage from  Grahamstown to Alexandria  weather permitting. I made a stew yesterday for today’s dinner so all I have to do is heat it up when the power comes back on.  They say it is to be off between 5 am and 7 pm so it looks like a late dinner for us today.  Church was conducted today with no power which didn’t create any problems, we managed just fine.  The Elders came by for dinner shortly after 7 but the power was still out, so no stew tonight. It looks like it will be a candlelight dinner of gourmet peanut butter and jam sandwiches.  Since we are rather hungry, all will be fine!!  We went to bed with the power still off. (about 9:30)

December 1, 2012

 We were hoping to make calls to home and see how everyone is doing, but our phone line and internet are out.  Rick went to a service project to clean up tree limbs and brush already cut down. 

 The brush and limbs were a pain to load because they were “The African Thorn Bushes From HECK” and seemed to have a grudge against white skinned people. Think of a wild blackberry bush on steroids and then double it and you will come close to knowing what they are like.

The young bulletproof Elders compacted the loads as much as they could and five trips to the dump were made in all.

 Unloading was a breeze. When they got close to the dump young men would run alongside of the trailer, jump on and ride to the dump site. They then unload it for you as quickly as you can reach into your pocket and get some money for them.

They never squabbled over what was given them and seemed too divided up equally whatever it was whether food or money. At the end of the day they were given a pretty good bonus. Rick was excited to be able to use his new trailer for the project and for Brother Holas pig food run!!!