20 July 2009 – Monday

The saga of the broken garage door opener continued this morning. The men arrived right at 8:00 and re-installed the opener and of course it did not work right. So they took it out again and promised to be back at 8:00 tomorrow. Rob, the man who has handled a number of projects for us, came over to try to solve his part of the problem – that is why the remote control he set up only works every other time – but with the opener once more off the premises he also left.

Once everyone was gone we went out to run some errands. The first thing up was to cash 2 checks that I had accumulated over the last couple of weeks. I was able to walk right up to a teller and then waited for 30 minutes while she checked everything out. It turned out she was new to the branch and so she was crossing every t and dotting every I – twice. South African banks are a good place to learn patience and suffer with a smile.

But there was an off setting blessing for going to the bank. As I was walking in I said hello to the outside guard and when he smiled and said hello back I stopped and talked to him. I found that he had a family and lived just outside Esikhawini. He even knew where the church was. I ended up giving him a ‘Who are the Mormons” and he found a piece a paper and gave me his phone number.  This experience made it easier for me to wait for my checks to get cashed.

The next stop was the Municipality office where I paid the water bill and bought some electricity. The last time I was there I had to wait in a long line. When I saw that there was no waiting I got a little anxious – I was thinking about the bank experience – but the lady was very efficient and I was in and out in less than 3 minutes. I will mention that to gain entrance to the office you go through a security room and the inside door does not open until the outside one is closed and only one person can enter at a time. From the looks of it the glass is very thick and probably bulletproof.

I decided I wanted to get some keys to the Esikhawini chapel for the YM and YW presidents so they can get in when we are not around. One of the interesting things about South Africa is most door keys are what we would call skeleton keys – only padlocks use the more familiar flat keys that we use almost everywhere in the US. I wish I had taken a picture of the wall of keys at the locksmiths – maybe I will do that before we go home. 6 keys cost me about $7 US.

We then went to get some lunch at Maxis where I read President Uchtdorf’s conference talk on “The Way of the Disciple.” Actually I only read a couple of pages of it because it got me to thinking about a number of things. One was what Christ looked like – I know that is a strange subject to get from the talk but it came from his opening paragraph about how Christ entered Jerusalem for the last time.

The next thought that I pondered was “This (filling our heart and mind with the message of the risen Christ) in turn, causes our faith to grow and allows the light of Christ to illuminate our hearts.” He then goes on about what happens after this.

Other points: “We don’t acquire eternal life in a sprint –this is a race of endurance.” “Discipleship is a journey. We need the refining lessons of the journey to craft our character and purify our hearts.”

So I was well fed both physically and spiritually.

Mary than went to shop at Pick and Pay while I went to do some other shopping. She likes it when I just let her shop – at least that is what she told me when I had finished everything I needed to do and she was still not finished. OK so I still have a good distance to go in learning patience.

We went looking for an AC/DC adapter so that we could get the keyboard to work. One shop was out of them but was very helpful in telling us just what we needed and where we should be able to get them.  The first suggestion came up short but once more back at Pick and Pay I found what we needed.

As we headed home from all these stops, I told Mary instead of being P-day it should be E-day – that is Errand Day.

Other than a trip to check our mailbox and to visit with the Barts to deliver some tomatoes the Richards Bay elders had been given for them. We had a short but nice visit and then headed home before it got too dark.

A quick note about traffic. When we left to go to the Barts, it was just about 5:00 p.m. and there was a long line of cars coming up the hill to the residential areas around where we live. This happens each evening at about the same time. When we came home at 6:15 there were only a few cars on the road. When we come home at 8:00 or 9:00 at night there we are sometimes the only car going our way.

We hosted First Night – that is the first Sunday dinner of a transfer cycle. I did not take a lot of pictures but on the left is Elder Mholo in the white shirt who is his second cycle here and Elder Musemare who just joined us on Friday. The middle picture is of Elder Richey and Elder Muthoka. Elder Muthoka is the other recent addition to the zone. The right hand picture is of Elder Mbithi – you will have to figure out which he is.

Mary played for the first choir practice that has been held since we have been going to Esikhawini. The branch did sing in District Conference but as far as I know they never practiced. Esikhawini meets in a complex of four mobile trailers that are on foundations. While I was taking a picture to show on this blog, the brother with the rich red and blue sweater walked up and I asked if I could include him in my shot. The last picture is from First Night and is of the end game that was going on between Elder Hoosier and Elder Torgerson. They had to leave before they had finished so I took the picture in case they wanted to resume the contest at a later date.