16 July 2009 – Thursday

Slept well but again woke too early. We got busy and packed our bags and I took most things out to the car before we ate breakfast.  Since we needed to be at the Pinetown chapel by 8:00 we asked to have breakfast earlier then yesterday. The owner – Bronwyn – was more than accommodating and we all enjoyed another nice breakfast together. We had our picture taken with the Wells – they were leaving for Swaziland today – and then hurried off to the conference.

As usual the teaching highlight of the conference was President Mann’s talk. However one of the missionaries serving in Durban North took ten minutes to talk about his companionship success story. It seems that Durban North was considered an area that no one wanted to be sent to because no successful missionary work had been done there in a long time.

He said that the first day that the companionship were together in the area, they covenanted that they would follow the mission rules exactly. They then started fasting and praying each Sunday for success and as they started to get some investigators the fasted and prayed for them by name. Their dedication and keeping their covenant paid off and recently they had 15 investigators at church, some of them with baptism commitment dates. It shows that the mission equation – Faith, exact obedience and hard work does equal miracles.

The conference then broke for a couple of hours so the missionaries could go play soccer. This is something they really look forward to. Unfortunately while they were in the parking lot of the school where they were going to play, two of the vehicles ran into each other so Elder Sessions – he is in charge of the cars and bakkies –  did not have a good morning at all. Luckily none of the elders were injured but a good amount of damage was done.

While the elders were out playing we sat up for lunch and then sat around talking. When they were done, I once again found myself on the food line. Actually elder Bartholomew and I had the opportunity to make sure that the elders did not take more than their allowed portions and with the help others keep the line stocked with sandwich makings. Things went well and amazingly enough there was even a good tray of meat and cheese left over. Something we did not think was possible.

After lunch everyone kind of pitched in and cleaned things up. Sister Mann was back by then –she actually got back while we were still feeding the gang.  She is very organized and is super about getting things done.  You can see the love she has for the missionaries and visa versa.

Once lunch was over the missionaries started moving elders and their luggage around so everyone would get to the right area. It is amazing to see what appears chaos in the parking lot work itself out until everyone is in the right vehicle and heading out.

We said goodbye to all our fellow couples and headed to the mission office so we could pick up a keyboard and lesson book for Mary’s piano classes. Hopefully we will get two more before too long and then those who are really interested in practicing will have one.

By the time we were done with that it was late enough that I cancelled the idea of taking the back roads home to Richards Bay so we could do some sight seeing. I think Mary was somewhat bummed but understood that I was tired so she did not complain.

As we drove home I realized it would be too late to do any visiting so I thought we might see if we could go and see the new Harry Potter movie. Mary thought this was a good idea – but I am not sure it made up for not doing some sight seeing on the way home. We were really lucky and only had to wait 15 minutes for the show to start. We both thought it was well done – the 143 minutes flashed by – but left a lot out that was in the book. I think they should have made two movies of each of the last three books and not just the last one. They could have included more of the books, there would not have been so long between movies, and they could have made a lot more money. 

One thing I noticed is that although the movie has been out only 2 days, the theater was less than 5% full. Even at $3.50 a ticket not many African families can afford to go to the movies. Someone who works in a store might make $6 for a days work and have to pay 25% of that to get transported to and from the job.

After the show we came home, unloaded the car, fixed some dinner – at least I did – and then caught up this journal.  It has been a wonderful 3 days that were rather physically tiring but spiritually invigorating. It is great to be on a mission in South Africa.

I spent most of the night catching up this journal and captioning a batch of pictures so I could put some on the blog. I got some good pictures at the aquarium and at the restaurant.