01 July 2009 – Wednesday

I fell asleep in the chair last night at about 8:00, woke about 9:30 and transferred my sleeping to the bed. Of course that meant I woke up sometime just after 1:00 and spent the next two hours reading. I was back to sleep about 3:30 and did not wake again until after 7:00.

The internet was still out so I called Vincent and he came over to see what he could do. It turned out that he could not fix it here so he went to the office where he found that our internet had been cut off because we had not paid our bill. It did not matter that we had not received a bill or that it had not even been 30 days since they installed the DSL line, the bill needed to be paid. Of course by the time we found this out it was time to leave for DDM so we could not stop and pay our bill at the mall.  

DDM was excellent as usual, it is one of the best parts of our week. The spirit that is usually there is very special for us.Most of the companionships had found a father led family to teach. We had found two new families for the elders to visit. One was a man who we had met on the road and the other was the mother and two older children that we are helping try to get back on their feet. The lesson for the day was on prayer and it brought home the idea that we really needed to pray for individuals and how to help them.

After DDM we hurried down to Port Durnford where we quickly ate the lunch Mary had packed before the youth arrived to help with the road show. Mary is doing almost all of the work on this. I find that I am a little too controlling to do much more than help with things that need to be thought about at home.

After Youth meeting, we took Gabi and Fufu home – we are starting to know their names and where they live. This is a big step for us and hopefully by the time we have our youth activity we will know all their names. To get to Gabi’s house we must go on a large sandy road, to a smaller sandy road, to a even smaller and longer sandy track before we arrive at the cluster of houses that make up the family homestead. The trip is an adventure in itself. This is the homestead where the 97 year old gogo danced for us.

Our last stop in Port Durnford was at Ntshangase – pronounced  Jan -gah-sa – homestead where Mary got some dates she needed to finish her CV and I asked Bongumusa – the son – to help out with the scenery for the road show. He will be happy to do this. The elders are going to visit with them but they appear to belong to the Zionist church which meets just down the road from them.

When we got to President Machka’s tuck shop for PEC, the elders were there but he was not. After a while they called him and went to pick him up at the KFC in town. While they were gone, Mary taught some of the children who were around some Primary songs.

After the meeting we hurried over to President Malinga’s home where we spent the best part of an hour giving him some training and telling him about up coming events. We also talked about the trip to the temple they just got back from and other things. We asked how his wife was and he said he is a bachelor for the rest of the week because his wife is away until Saturday.

By the time we left there is was getting dark but we stopped at the mall where I bought a heater and took care of the Telkom bill – I did not realize they were open until 6:00 so I did not bring the account information but luckily we had my passport with us and the woman could access the account with that ID. It turned out the reason we had been cut off was because we were over our credit limit. The reason we were over our credit limit was because they billed us for the June and July as well as for the installation costs. So I paid the bill and hopefully we will be back on line tomorrow morning. While I was doing these chores, Mary did our shopping. I was surprised that she was not done before I finished but the lines were very long. Going to the store just after 5 is a big mistake.

It was warm this evening so the heater did not make it out of the box! Mary and I both chuckled when we realized that.