May 11, 2012

 It is now Friday. Yesterday Janet went with Sister Robinson to see the shopping areas of Port Alfred.  Downtown is really easy to get around in, very centrally located and not very large.  They have some really cute shops and seem to squeeze everything you really need in a small area.

Today President Wood, the mission president, arrived.  The Wood's, the Robinson's and us went to dinner at the Ocean Basket and had an enjoyable evening together talking about our families and learning a lot more about each other.  We are still trying to get used to all of the socializing we will be doing on mission.  Guess it is good for us!!

There is an alarm system in our temporarily boarding and yesterday while Rick was gone working at the church it went off. Promptly a security person shows up. It was hard for me to understand what he was saying, but I think he wanted me to open the door. That would have been a good idea except being the good husband that Rick is, before he left he set the alarm, locked the door and the cage over the front entry and then took what I thought was the only key. I am by myself, no keys, no phone and no idea how to shut the darn alarm off with an armed guard outside talking to me. Not only couldn’t I understand him even if I could have understood him, there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t open any doors, it was just plain crazy.  Anyway, somehow it all got sorted out and settled down. It turned out OK, I didn’t get hauled off to jail, but I wouldn’t describe it as real fun.

Today was our first district meeting.  We met the two elders we will be working with.  Elder Scicluna is from Perth, Australia (do love the accent) and Elder Moangare is from one of the islands in the Tarawa group in the Pacific Ocean, but I’m not sure which one.  Both are very strong missionaries.

In Port Alfred you don’t drink the water, not even in a restaurant.  The city is on a very old system and I guess it is not very healthy. Everybody tries to drink bottled water or rain water which runs off of their roofs and is collected in large concrete covered barrels.

We will be going with the Robinsons to the “township” this afternoon to meet some of the members.  The townships in South Africa are large “shanty” living communities the poorer people live in.  There are a lot of them in South Africa and most of our members live there.

May 9, 2012

 Left George at around 8 am, filled the gas tank and found our way out of town. It will take a while getting used to their signs and traffic and roundabouts and stuff!!  They don’t really have much fast food, certainly not like in Spokane with fast food places on every corners and in between.  Not here!!  Not many take away places, which is probably a good thing.  Now we will have to sit down, take time and eat healthier foods, always a good idea.

We arrived in Port Alfred around 1:20pm and stopped at Andy’s CalTex gas station for fuel and to wait for President Robinson to show us the way to our temporary boarding.  It seems that here in Port Alfred; they are not that keen on putting up street signs. When they do I think people take them down to patch holes in their roofs or sell them for scrap. So, it would be easier to follow him than understand his instructions to get where we would be spending the night with few street signs marking the way. We called him, but with no luck getting through. We left a message and around 2pm he discovered that he had accidentally turned his phone off.  It turned out OK though. It gave us time to talk and wind down from the drive here. The roads here are striped somewhat like ours in the states with dotted lines to mark the lanes and solid lines to warn when not to pass. I think that is what they mean, but from my observations I’m not sure. They may mean something quite different.  It seems here in South Africa it’s no big deal to pass three and even four abreast on a two lane road. Quite invigorating I thought but Janet has other words to describe it and being on mission I’m not at liberty to write them.

President Robinson had us follow him to the church building (it is a rented building) to see his wife, meet the primary president, get familiar with the building, where it is located and then off to unload our stuff in our temporary boarding until we take over the Robinson's flat on Sunday. 

It is a pretty nice place that overlooks the bay but we are anxious to move into our “permanent” living area so we can unpack and get on with life, buy food and just putting everything in order.  We have been living out of a suitcase since April 15 when we left home to go visit Nate and Cheri before entering the MTC and we’re ready to settle in somewhere.

May 8, 2012

 We started our trip to our assigned area of Port Alfred. It’s a drive of about a 11½ hours so we only drove halfway the first day. We stayed at a bed and breakfast in George SA. 

Front View

Entry

Breakfast Area

Reading Room

Reading Room

Sunning Area

Our Room

Our Room

The owner is British and it was delightful to listen to her speak. I think she said this place was built in the early 1910's  The room was beautiful and very comfortable and everything was so very grand.  We even got a “cheerio” when we left!!   

We met up with Elder and Sister Richins who are the senior missionaries in that area.  

They showed us around George, drove us up into the mountains and then took us to the Rose Restaurant for dinner at 7:00 PM.  We were going to be seated in the front of the restaurant when Sister Richins said, “How about the back dining room”.  As we were being seated, I noticed, sitting at a table by himself, talking on a cell phone, the familiar face of Patch Bonkemeyer. We were both shocked.  

 

 We both served on the High Council together in Spokane Washington.  Patch accepted a job with a lumber company in South Africa as their new CEO in December.  So on a Tuesday night, at 7:00 PM, at a little restaurant in the town of George, in South Africa, half way around the world we meet.  What are the chances? 

Mitchells Plain Branch

May 6, 2012

 We went to the Mitchells Plain branch with Elder and Sister Henderson.

It’s the branch they are assigned to work in and they have an actual church building, not a rented one.  It’s interesting to note the brick parking lot. 

It was fast Sunday and powerful testimonies were borne by the members.  It’s interesting that we have not heard a travelogue born as a testimony since we’ve been here in South Africa. The testimonies are personal witnesses of the truthfulness of the gospel and the effects of it in their lives. 

After church services, and before we went to the Oldham’s for dinner, we were able to visit with the Henderson’s at their flat. It was great to get better acquainted with them. We both have had similar life experiences and it was good to hear from another’s perspective on life’s challenges and the Lords tender mercies in our behalf.  Mother Oldham (and I call her this out of respect) put on another great dinner. We are going to miss all of the attention and good food we have been getting here. We feel like young missionaries that have been taken under the wing of Brother & Sister Oldham and Brother & Sister Henderson.

 May 5, 2012

 It is Saturday and we are going to go down to the Cape of Good Hope with Elder & Sister Oldham. The Cape of Good Hope is the most southwestern  point of the African continent.  The journey was quite interesting with some breath taking scenery, tight winding roads, and baboons.

The most exciting event on our journey was watching baboons. At one stop a lady in front of us got out of her car which really is a no, no because the baboon can be aggressive. Where there were groups of baboons there were, I guess rangers, watching them. They would tell people to stay in their cars and lock your doors. One lady either didn’t hear them or didn’t believe them. Either way she got out of her car and walked around the front of the vehicle. She hadn’t got passed the fender when a large baboon walked up, opened the car door and got in. He started by going through the ladies bags and didn’t stop until he found a package of tomatoes and proceeded to open it and eat away.  Happy as can be!!

We also stopped at a penguin habitat and saw quite a few small penguins.  Very interesting.

On most of our stops there were people selling their wares, jewelry, pictures, blankets, masks, ostrich eggs and all sorts of stuff.  Of course, they want a lot of money for them so you offer less going back and forth till we settle on something that both parties could live with.  It is part of the process.  I did buy a necklace.

Our destination point was Cape of Good Hope. There was a light tower which we took a trolley part way up and then hiked the rest.  I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

May 4, 2012

 Today we met with President Wood to receive our official assignment for our mission.  He didn’t give it to us yesterday when we met with him the first time because he wanted to pray about it after meeting with us.  Well, he did just that and told us he was assigning us to go to Port Alfred which is a 897 km, 11 hours 25 minute drive along the South African coast east of Cape Town and on the Indian Ocean.  Elder Stumm would become President Stumm and serve as the branch president.  The branch is young and for now does not have enough priesthood or experience to function on its own.  So off we go on our next great adventure.

As one of the sight-seeing experiences here, we were taken by the Oldhams to Signal Hill here in Cape Town.  That’s the mountain you see in the preceding blog taken  from the Mission Office. 

Behind us under the clouds is table mountain, a famous landmark

When we arrived, there was a tour bus with, of course, lots of people enjoying the sight.  A couple came up to us very excited, as we were wearing our name tags, and told us their son (now Elder Taylor) was at the Johannesburg MTC preparing to come to the Cape Town Mission. 

 As it turned out, she had spoken to Sister Oldham on the phone sometime previous to their arrival into Cape Town.   Sister Taylor was the organizer of the tour and had planned this tour way before her son’s mission call.  Needless to say, everyone was amazed at the “tender mercy” this couple was given on this chance meeting on that day.  Who knows, maybe Elder Taylor will end up in Port Alfred and we can retell the story of meeting his parents to him.  

Here we are standing where the continent of Africa was dedicated for missionary work. I don't remember all the facts of who dedicated it or when but I will find out and post it later. President Wood brings all of the new missionaries up here. I'll get more information on that and post it, so check back for more information.