Along with the normal things I do most mornings I have decided to try to add doing some indexing. If the writing is legible I can do 50 names in about 45 minutes. I think it fits into our call as missionaries because we are helping to do missionary service for the dead. Isn’t it wonderful that through the web anyone can do indexing from anywhere in the world. I am doing 1920 Pennsylvania and Mary is arbitrating 1920 Utah.

I also try to read any new stories on the Church website. They are all uplifting and some give me ideas on things we can do here in South Africa. I especially enjoyed a story in Mormon Times called “He Healed the Hurt” about Brigham Young as a father. Once we got out and around, we spent most of the morning doing some errands that just seem to build up. They included buying more electricity. As I think I have mentioned before, you buy blocks of electricity and on the receipt is a pin number that you have to put in the meter in your boarding. If you let it run down to 0 – everything shuts off. I also needed to buy air time for our cell phone – it is amazing how quickly we use up airtime and of course if we run out we can not call anyone but they can call us. We both also had our hair cut. I was rather worried because it was Friday morning and I thought it might be busy. It was – it turned out that there were some major school graduations later in the day and moms and daughters wanted to make sure they looked their best at the ceremonies – but since we only wanted hair cuts they were able to take us right in. Total cost for the two of us $10 – that is less than we paid in Indonesia. Our afternoon was busy. President Machaka called and asked me to stop by before we went to youth in Esikhawini. Of course I said yes and we talked for a while about some welfare needs. We then went to Esikhawini where we were happily surprised when a good number of young people came on time. So did the new YW president and her counselor – now we just need to get an active YM president.

Since something was scheduled for 4:00 we were only had time for a short meeting and so Mary spent it all on the road show. They decided on a theme – The Title of Liberty – and a group to write it. There was also so discussion of those who could help with the scenery and costumes. We only have 5 weeks to get it all together and that is a little tight so everyone will have to work together.

Once that was settle we gave those who thought they knew the first 6 Articles of Faith. One young man almost got them 100% right and Mary convinced me to give him his reward. Sister Khamalo then said them all perfectly so she got the bonus for being the first. A couple of others passed off the first two and now only need to work on the next 4 to qualify.

After our meeting, we got to hear from brother Mthalane who just returned from serving a full mission in Ghana. He is the first full-time missionary to serve from Esikhawini. He answered questions about his mission for about 30 minutes. He told a couple of conversion stories. It seems in Ghana that the people put a lot of faith in dreams and so a number of times the missionaries were told that the person had dreamed they were coming or something they dreamed happened as they were investigating. He mentioned that one of the most difficult changes that an investigator must accept is that we are not in any way Pentecostal – even in the Catholic Churches they play drums and may speak in tongues. He also said that there was no way for him to truly explain all the blessings of a mission to anyone who has not been on one. He is a very strong young man and should be a great help to the branch.

After Mutual and the missionary discussion, Mary gave her music student a short lesson. She has two others who want to learn – one even has a keyboard. So as soon as Mary can get some more course materials she will start teaching them. When she was done with the lesson we once again got to drive home in the dark but there were no burning fields to awe us tonight.

After dinner as I read the April 1998 talk of Elder Maxwell and came across this: Our Heavenly Father has described His vast plan for His children by saying, “Behold, this is my work and my glory–to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39; emphasis added). Consider the significance of the Lord’s use of the word work. What He is doing so lovingly and redemptively is, nevertheless, work–even for Him! We, likewise, speak of “working out our salvation,” of the “law of the harvest,” and of the “sweat of the brow” (see Moses 5:1; see also Inspired Version, Gen. 4:1). These are not idle phrases. Instead, they underscore the importance of work. In fact, brethren, work is always a spiritual necessity even if, for some, work is not an economic necessity.

Thus I speak to you as good young men, including seven fine grandsons listening tonight, among them two missionaries and three recently ordained deacons. I remind you that the gospel of work is part of “the fulness of the gospel.” Though joyful, missionary work is work. Though joyful, temple work is work. Alas, a few of our underwhelmed youth work all right, but mostly at trying to please themselves.

The reason I put this quote in my journal is that I have been trying to get away from saying I work in the temple and instead say I serve in the temple. Elder Maxwell’s excellent talk reminds me that while work is a four letter word, it is a good four letter word. So I guess I will go back to working in the temple, doing missionary work, and work at indexing.

Naartjie Season: Has come to the Eastern Cape and so we can buy rather freshly picked naartjies for very little. Today we picked up 3 big bags of this delicious close cousin to the tangerine for just R50 and took them to Mutual – everyone loved them.

Today is our 49^th wedding anniversary and while I did not forget the date, I did manage to forget to buy a present for my beautiful bride. My only excuse is that we are together almost 24/7 but there are times – last night at the mall was a perfect example- when we are not together. Mary surprised me with a beautiful tie from Swaziland that has the big five on it. She had sister Wilson buy it and the Bs brought it back with them when they visited Swazi about a month ago. I can not even take her out to dinner because there is no time.

I have been reading and re-reading Elder Maxwell’s talk from the Oct 2000 conference and have tried to remember some of his great one-liners:

God’s plan is not a plan of pleasure; it is the “plan of happiness.”

Brothers and sisters, there are so many personalized prisons!

Granted, some sincerely wish for more power in order to do good, but only a few individuals are good enough to be powerful.

The rouge of recognition is so easily smeared away.

How ironical that some go “into a far country,” leaving the nourishing family garden –in which there may be some weeds – and go into a desert with its tumbling sagebrush.

The distance to “a far country” is not measured by miles but how far our hearts and minds are from Jesus! Fidelity, not geography, really determines the distance!

Love, patience and meekness can be just as contagious as rudeness and crudeness.

Yet some proudly live “without God in the world,” with gates and doors locked from the inside!

Moments are the molecules that make up eternity!

Spirit sons and daughters of God need not be permanently put down when lifted up by Jesus’ Atonement.

By paying more attention to what we are rather than exclusively to what we do, our public and private persons will be the same – the man or the woman of Christ.

Isn’t it marvelous, brothers and sisters, that God, who knows everything, still spends time listening to our prayers?

Each of those are worth pondering. My favorite – probably because it strikes close to me is :”The distance to “a far country” is not measured by miles but how far our hearts and minds are from Jesus! Fidelity, not geography, really determines the distance!”

The lost electric razor cord episode: Yesterday I realized that my electric razors – I brought two – were probably running low on charge. So I went into the kitchen and looked in the bowl where I knew the recharge cord was and found that it was not there. Over the course of the morning I spent about an hour looking everywhere I thought it could possibly be but to no avail. I decided that I would either have to try and buy a replacement cord or get some regular razors.

This morning I could tell one of the razors was about to stop so I once again started looking. After much frustration, I went back to the bowl where it should have been – and where I had looked a number of times – and lo and behold there it was. Now I am sure I could not have missed it all the previous times I looked so some gremlin must have moved it and then put it back early this morning.

Vincent – our excellent Telekom man – came by at about 9:30 to find out why we did not have any internet. As he was working and not getting any closer to figuring out what was wrong, I asked if it could be because we had used up our 3 gigs of download space. It turned out that was exactly what the problem was. We – but mainly me – had used our month allotment of data in two weeks. In fact we had used 4.5 gigs. So I had to get on the phone and agree to buy another 3 gigs of data to keep having access to the internet. I am going to have to be more selective in the size of files I download

Once that was fixed we headed off to the bank so I could cash a check from the district. Unfortunately someone had marked it for deposit only and they could not cash it. Since we were to have District Council Meeting tonight, we decided we would have a nice lunch at the mall instead of dinner. Mary chose ‘Mug and Bean’ and so there we went. When we tried to drive into the parking structure the lady in front of us could not get in because the automatic parking machine was out of tickets. So line of  cars waiting to get in had to back out and find somewhere else to park. I decided about then it might be just one of those days.

After lunch we were too early to go to Port Durnford so I suggested we go to the fabric store and buy some print fabric to make into wall hangings. We ended up blowing almost $18 on three large pieces that should just about cover all the large areas that are still blank. My contribution is bright orange with wildlife scenes.

We then were off to our English class. As usual we had our three stalwards – including brother Thebe who just started taking the lessons. We were joined by a friend of Thandi Mzama who is also starting to take the lessons. So our class has become a missionary tool.  

Since we could give her a ride and her mother could take care of the children, Thandi came with us to mutal – the first time she has been there since we arrived. Her non-LDS friend also came along. It turned out Quinton was not in town so we still have never had both of them there at once but he promised to be there next week.

By 3:45 – it is supposed to start at 3:30 – we ended up with something over a dozen youth there. I stood outside and made sure they went in as they arrived. Mary appointed Siya to conduct the meeting and he did a pretty good job. The first thing was the opportunity to recite the first 6 Articles of Faith and Gabi did it! Since she was the first – and it turned out only – one to do it, I gave her a bonus of an extra R20 and she was thrilled.

The rest of the meeting was used to start working on the Roadshow and I contributed an outline using Nephi being tied to the mast on the way to the promised land. I think it can be a good one and they put together a committee to write and oversee the program. All in all it turned out to be a very good meeting.

Earlier we found out that the District meeting was cancelled for tonight and so we could just head home. On the way we saw another couple of cane fields being burned. I am sure we will see lots of those before we head back home. Of course the sugar folks have this down to a science. The field we saw burning last night was fully cut by the end of today and they will start loading tomorrow. In one or two days the field will be emptied of cane and probably within a week it will be ready to start growing the next batch. I need to get a picture of a loaded cane truck – they are huge and obviously there are no litter laws about how much can fall out or fly off when they are moving.

I spent most of the evening reading and writing. I need to come up with another scenario for the Esikhawini youth. I have a couple of ideas but neither of them really seem to work. So I will need to think and pray some more so I can hopefully have something by the time we meet tomorrow.