March 31, 2013

 Today is Easter; however, we are not expecting many people at church.  We understand a lot of members have left town to visit family.  As was the expectation, only 24 people were in attendance.  That includes Rick and I and the missionaries.  I taught in primary as neither of the presidencies were there and the Sunday school (adult) classes were combined as was Relief Society and Priesthood.  Since it is also transfer week in the mission we found out Elder Davuke was flying to Cape Town tonight for training to be a trainer of a new missionary.  Elder vanZyl will stay with missionaries in East London until he gets his new assignment.  We assume Elder Davuke will remain in Port Alfred.  Time will tell.   As always, we will miss the missionary who is leaving.  They become part of our family and it is hard to let them go.  But, the work must move on and we all participate.  

March 30, 2013

 Our branch had our first baptism since last November today.  It has been pretty slow here.  However, Sune’ Van Rensburg, Sister Van Rensburgs daughter, decided it was time for her to join the church.  She is 15 and is very educated in the gospel and has a great testimony. 

  Elder Van Zyl baptized her and Elder Davuke will confirm her tomorrow.  She had asked Sister Vulindlu to speak about baptism so the elders called her last night and she declined.  However, this morning she called Rick and told him she felt she should speak since Sune’ was in her class (Sister Vulindlu is the 1^st councilor in the YW presidency).  She has been a member since last July; this was a big step for her deciding she should do it.  She did a fantastic job!  This was Elder Van Zyls’ first baptism on mission or ever…and he only had to dunk her once! Since it is Easter holiday weekend, a lot of the members and investigators are out of town. Neither the Elders nor us had appointments to go to this weekend.  Yes, another slow week.  Thank goodness holidays don’t happen too often…we like being busy.

March 29, 2013

 Today we had a combined district meeting with the Grahamstown district, in Grahamstown.  It is always nice to get away.  As always, we took a group picture to remember the event and who was in attendance. 

 The front row is us and Sister and Elder Chase.  The back row is Elders Khumalo, Davuke, Cobabe, Myenda, Van Zyl, and Von Brughan. After the meeting, we went to lunch with the Chases.  We stopped at the Grahamstown spring to fill our many empty jugs with their great water.  They filled our boot!! (ok, trunk). Since Port Alfred water is undrinkable we always take the occasion to fill up when we go to Grahamstown.

 I was hoping to purchase some more chocolate chips there at this great “sweet” store, but being a public holiday today, they were not open.  That is ok because we will certainly have opportunity to go there again.  On our way home, we happened to find a couple of donkeys wandering the streets of Grahamstown...only in South Africa!!

 

As we left the town limits towards Port Alfred, we saw our first fall fog in the hills here.  We experienced a moment of remembrance of fall back home.

March 28, 2013

 Rick spent most of the day at the Moore’s home finishing the pad for their water tank.  He has wanted to get that finished before it really starts to rain a lot here…so they can get the tank filled sooner than later. Rick got Sinalo Nteyi to help him with the concrete part and hauling buckets of rocks.

 We decided to take him either to all you can eat breakfast or lunch on Wednesday.  He is going to decide which one.  Since our appointments cancelled because of everyone seemingly leaving town for the Easter weekend, we rented a movie and watched it tonight.  It was “The Magic of Belle Isle” with Morgan Freeman in it.  It is a feel good movie and we enjoyed it.

March 27, 2013

 The last couple of days have been very ordinary and not much to report on…so I will try to pick up the pace and talk about a great loaf of bread I baked a few days ago, and another I baked today.  Our local Super Spar grocery store sells already made up bread dough.  I baked a lot of it shortly after discovering it after we arrived in South Africa.  Then I became tired of it…too much of a good thing, I guess.  Well, Rick wanted some again so I baked a loaf of the white bread.   I think they changed the recipe, because it was amazing!!!  We shared the loaf with the elder for lunch yesterday so today on our way back from Alexandria after home teaching the Barris’, we stopped at the Spar and picked up some more dough.  YUM.

March 24, 2013

 Today being branch conference, we were hoping to have a good turnout.  We did.  I was just hoping the young women would all come, and most of them did as they were singing “Where Love Is” in sacrament meeting.  They did a fine job even though they were a bit nervous.  All of the “Presidents” spoke…Stumm, Boyce and Wood.  Their topic was Omni 1:26 and all of the talks were great.  I always help in Primary and toward the end of the meeting Sister Moore, the 1^st Counselor, told me she had prayed for a sign for something she was troubled about and she got her answer from Ricks talk.  That was nice.  Sister Wood spent time in YW and said that Sister Van Rensburg did a great job.  She was pleased with our YW.  After church we took a few people home and the couples came back to our boarding for lunch.  The Boyce’s left shortly after and then President Wood and Rick left to do a couple of home visits, which went well.  Sister Wood and I talked a bit about primary and seminary and videos that could be used in each of them that could help them visualize some of the accounts in the scriptures. The Woods left shortly after 4 pm.  We then prepared to have our elders over for dinner around 7 pm.  It has been a really great day.
We also got our first big rain in Port Alfred in quite a while.  It was much needed and gratefully accepted.

March 23, 2013

 The Boyce’s spent the night and President and Sister Wood arrived a little after noon.  We had a braai hamburger lunch ready for them.  I made Ricks favorite potato salad to go with it.  It all turned out well and they appreciated the food on their arrival from Port Elizabeth.  At 2 pm we had the branch leadership training and we were very pleased that ALL of the leadership showed up.  It was great.   The auxiliary training was done by Sister Wood and Sister Boyce.  Sister Boyce’s lesson on Jesus Christ was very spiritual and I think everyone there felt it and all participated.  Sister Wood spoke on “Come Unto Christ” and the Book of Mormon.  She gave a Book of Mormon to each of the leadership and asked that they give it away.  She had Sister Boyce and I do a role play to show how to do it.  (I truly hate role plays, but I made it through).  If by any chance the sisters weren’t spiritually fed, I was.  President Wood did priesthood leadership training with that leadership at the same time.  It was just so great that everyone who should be there was actually there!!!  After the meeting the priesthood did some interviews and then the Woods, Boyce’s, and us went to dinner at The Ocean Basket.  Both couples spent the night at our boarding.  We do love having space for visitors.

March 22, 2013

 We would normally be going to District Meeting today, however, the zone leaders are here and giving our elders and the elders from Grahamstown some training, so that cancels our regular meeting.  So, with that, Rick decided to go to Moore's to work more on the water tank base.  He actually had help from the kids, who were home, because it was a no school day. Today he got it filled with rubble and ready to cape with concrete.

Elder and Sister Boyce will be spending tonight and Saturday night with us.He is the first counselor in the mission presidency. They are in East London and watch over 38 Elders, seeing to all the medical, housing, vehicle needs and anything else that comes up which happen rather regularly.

 We have branch training tomorrow and branch conference on Sunday.  President and Sister Wood (the mission president) are coming tomorrow about noon and will stay tomorrow night.  We enjoy their visits.  It’s nice we have the rooms for guests.

March 17, 2013

 The last few days have been pretty typical, with nothing overly exciting to write about.  Mostly the usual things we do…visits and meetings, etc.

Being Sunday, it went quite well.  Brother Mgadi, who has been inactive, has come to church the last two Sundays.  We hope he will continue…we know his family is happy about it.

Today, we had Tim and Ruth Cockbain over for dinner.  We had a great visit and the guys told stories and we laughed a bit.  

 Ruth is the branch Relief Society President and Tim is a nonmember…so far.  Tim is helping Rick with some of the financial matters of one of our sisters whose husband died a couple of years ago.  Things seem to work so differently here.  Everything is very slow or simply forgotten about. 

March 16, 2013

 Service over at the Moore home working on the base for his water tank.

The first few rows of brick went slow while we all learned how to do it right. Elders Davuke and Van Zyl helped.

Because these were used bricks they had to be cleaned and the old concrete knocked out of the center holes.

I found it easier to mix with my hand at the beginning.

Done, now we wait till it sets up so we can fill it with rubble before pouring a concrete cap on it.

After work the "Boys" will play.

March 13, 2013

 We received a call this morning telling us that Sister Van Rensburg’s home had been broken into…again.  This would be now 4 times in the last year and ½ or so.  Her husband passed away a couple of years ago.  He was a contractor and had built their home, but hadn’t gotten electricity in the house yet.  She has been living in it since he died.  It is a nice home, but hard to protect. This time, they took food, jewelry, a propane bottle and some money.  We had Sister Dell go with her to get food and will have someone give a bid for burglar bars.

March 11, 2013

 I thought I should do an update on our progress of handing out the treasures the Hale Family sent us for the children here in Port Alfred, South Africa.  Several Sundays ago, I gave each of the young women present that day a notebook with Jesus Christ’s picture on the front.  The girls were asked to use them as journals, since none of them had one.  They were excited and happy to receive the book and also a pen to write with. 

 
We have also been able to give out a number of the small cars to happy little boys, and on the same night were able to give a group of little girls some of the necklaces. Delaney, you were right, the girls loved them.  We found when we start giving things out, we have a lot of new friends.  We still have more items to give away, so there will be more happy children yet to be found. 

 
 Oh, and also, our new missionary here in Port Alfred, Elder Davuke from Fiji, had some great experiences so far on mission.  We told him those would be great to put in a journal.  He said he didn’t have one so he didn’t need to do it.  We then gave him one of the notebooks with Christ on the front.  Now he can do it.  We shall check back with him on his progress!

Today on p-day, we picked up some pig food for Brother Hola from a crèche in the township…not much, though.  Rick picked up some more concrete mix for the Moores.  We did some grocery shopping and spent a couple of hours at the Cockbains discussing people and some SA politics, or how corrupt the place really is.  South Africa has a lot of potential, but they really are in trouble.  We actually watched a movie tonight…Mission Impossible.  It’s been a while since we have done that.  Well, it’s back to work tomorrow.

March 10, 2013

 Last night, after 9pm, Rick found out that one of the speakers wouldn’t be there.  Sooo…Brother Canny, who is conducting this month, wanted either Rick or I to speak in his place.  Rick told him if he is conducting, he has to fill in (I think).  But, Rick pulled something from his talk file and I found something I could use in Gospel Principles (Chapter 27, on work and responsibility).  This morning I was given the official assignment from Brother Canny to cover it…so I did.  Amazingly I did it and it turned out fine…both Sister Dell and Sister Cockbain complimented me on the talk.  I know I had help and inspiration on what to choose.  Just hope the people who needed it, heard it.

I then helped Sister Moore with her class in primary.  She teaches in English to the older children.  She has been very afraid and shy about doing it, but I went over things in the lesson with her and she did well for being nervous.  We will just keep working on it…she wants to do it.  

I then went to YW where we rehearsed the music for our branch conference to be held in two weeks.  They are singing “Where Love Is” from the children’s songbook.  

After we returned home, we had some nice quiet time and listened to music for a while.  The needed time out was great.   Then we had the missionaries for dinner…the standing time on Sunday.

March 9, 2013

 It is always nice to visit with the AP’s. We have had 3 different sets spend the night since we have been here.  They headed for PE around 8 am.  We enjoyed our time with Elder Zarbock, who is from Utah and Elder Tuckett who is from southern Idaho.  

 We also had a branch activity today, put on by our Elders…Davuke and Van Zyl.  It was supposed to start at noon, but as we all know, South African time starts maybe an hour later.  When things started going,(around 1pm.)games were the starters.  They had eating apples hung from a string, sack races, three legged race, water balloon toss, and a tug of war. 

 Everyone seemed to have fun.  That was followed by a showing the “The Restoration”. 

 Then the food…the braai…hot dogs today, and potluck salads.  I think everyone got their fill.

March 8, 2013

 This was zone conference day in East London.  Since there was something else happening at the usual chapel we meet at (Amalinda Chapel), we met at one kind of in the middle of town.  Traffic in downtown East London is interesting at best. 

There are a lot of cars, all with horns that work really well and the drivers are not afraid to use them, plus people cross the street anywhere, anytime they want. Makes for some interesting times. 

 Now, we are used to going to the other one, so we actually had to pay attention to street names and go through the middle of town to get to this one.  Luckily for us, it was quite easy to get to.  During the reports from all of the zones and the AP’s, we learned that Namibia which is in the SACTM will, as of July, be put into the Botswana Mission.  SACTM has had a very hard time getting the visas needed for missionaries to serve there.  Not sure of all the problems, but hope it is better for Botswana.  We have one couple missionaries there right now.  There were two, but I think one was leaving for home this month.

When we first arrived in Cape Town, we went up to Signal Hill with Elder and Sister Oldham.  While we were there, a tour bus came up and it turned out to be a group from America…Utah mostly. The tour organizer, Sister Taylor and her husband, saw our missionary tags and introduced themselves to us.  As it turned out, their son was called to the SACTM mission and she had spoken to Sister Oldham earlier on the phone about missionary stuff.  

Well today at zone conference, we met their son Elder Taylor.  He is a very nice young man…his parents can be proud of him. 

 We told him about meeting his parents, and of course he was going to tell his parents about meeting us.  We wondered back in May if we would get to meet him sometime on mission. 

On the way home from East London, Rick was going a little too fast in an area posted with signs saying there can be mobile speed cameras.  There never have been before, but today there was.  Rick said the thought came to mind about choosing right and slowing down but he didn’t listen.  We were pulled over and informed we were going to fast. The officer asked for Rick's license. He looked it over a couple of times and then asked "where are you from". Rick told him Spokane Washington. He was so excited to see an American license and Washington on it.  He started asking if we had been here and there, places around Washington DC. As it turned out, he had lived in Washington DC area for around 10 years and had gone to school back east. We didn't have the heart to tell him we were from the other side of the country. He was very nice, and said he just couldn’t give Rick a citation.  We talked for a while and we all had a great experience.  We sure do love tender mercies…especially Rick!!  The only thing I wished I had done was get a picture of him.

Just a few minutes ago, we got a call from the AP’s.  They asked if they could spend the night here…of course.  They know about the AP room and love the idea of staying here, I am sure.