20 June 2009 – Saturday

What goes around, comes around – so the saying goes. The other day I called Tom and Shauna without thinking about the time difference and so it was about 2 am there. Luckily they did not answer so perhaps they slept right through it. Well this morning at 1 am the Vonage phone rang and of course it woke me up. It was a wrong number. It took me about 30 minutes to go back to sleep.

My thought to ponder today from President Uchtdorf’s recent conference talk:“The more we are filled with the Spirit of God, the more we extend ourselves to others. We become peacemakers in our homes and families, we help our fellowmen everywhere, and we reach out in merciful acts of kindness, forgiveness, grace, and long-suffering patience…This is the peaceful way of the follower of Jesus Christ.” (pg 76)

A headline in Mormon News- ‘Global hunger reaches 1 billion.”

This strikes close to home because today we will be delivering two food orders to members in Port Durnford. One of them includes a young woman who is dying of AIDS and has not been able to walk for a number of months. She really wants to live but knows that her life expectancy is very short.  A woman born in South Africa in 2008 is expected to live 41 plus years. In Swaziland it is just over 31 years.

We bought the food we needed and then stopped by the Richards Bay chapel where there was to be a special CES – no one can get use to S&I – meeting for the youth. I was the first one there with keys so I got things opened up and then dashed to Port Durnsford. We now know our way around well enough to get to most member’s home. I even managed not to get stuck in visiting one of the homesteads that is out on the plains. After we were through there we headed back to Esikhawini where they were to hold a presidency meeting. Even though one of the counselors could not come because of work, it went well and a lot got talked about. I made arrangements to have a training meeting with the new 2^nd counselor.

After that meeting it was back to the Richards Bay chapel where we arrived just in time to help the Barts give out the pizza and help clean up. The meeting was well attended and thanks to a self-less sister from Esikhawini who has a car, most of the youth were able to be there. 

During the evening I continued to work on indexing. Between the Pennsylvania and Utah 1920 census, I found that the one from Utah was much easier to read.