Car wash from inside. Mukie Nzama’s daughter. Laundry on the fence and cow in the background – typical homestead shot

Mary, Gogo Nzama, Thandi Nzama at hospital. I was playing with filters. The nurse in the back soon came over and said taking pictures were not allowed. An interesting tree on the hospital grounds…no one knew its name. This is the Zondi’s house with the roof finished. It still needs to be plastered inside and out.

The Khiphikhono Baking Club out in the middle of no where on the Port Durnford road. We have never seen any activity at the club and someday we need to check it out.

25 August 2009 – Tuesday

Woke up at 4:00 and never got back to sleep. I gave up at a little after 5:00 and got my day started. Last night I decided that if it was not raining that I would get the car washed early today. It was not raining – but there were clouds – so I got ready and was the first one in line. It still took most of an hour but at least I did not have to wait in a line. As they were soaping the car I took some pictures through the windows. They did not come out great but they are rather interesting.

As I waited – you wait in the car until you get to the finishing station, I re-read two conference talks that have become very important to me. The first is by Elder Kevin Pearson and is “Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.” He mentions that faith is a gift of God that comes through obedience – a consistent pattern of obedient behavior and attitudes. He ends his talk by talking about what he calls “Six Destructive D’s.” The one that struck me is the third one – “Distraction.” It is the one area I really need to work on both while on our mission and at home. I tend to be distracted from doing what I should do for what I want to do. Not that I want to do what most people would consider ‘bad’ things, but many times I find that I am doing comfortable or things that I am interested in rather than giving service or fulfilling my calling the best I can. I put in way too many 1 mite days and not enough 2 mite days. By doing this I limit the blessings – including the blessing of faith – that God can give me. I am limiting my own spiritual growth by not being ‘exactly obedient.”

It is rather like a vegetable garden where the soil is good, the weather is good, but the gardener does not do the work needed to keep out the weeds, water regularly or spray for pest. If he does not do the work, he can not expect to get the bountiful harvest he could have had. I am afraid that at times there are too many weeds in my garden.

The other talk that I studied this morning was by Elder Allan F. Packer: “Finding Strength in Challenging Times.” He told a good story about hearing his coach in the middle of a game and related it to being able to hear the spirit in a busy world – we must become familiar with the promptings of the Holy Ghost so we will understand what we should be doing. He quoted Elder Oaks”Testimony is to know and to feel, conversion is to do and to become.”

He said; “This is a great time to be alive! The Lord needs each of us. This is our day; it is our time!” I think it is a good way to look beyond the trials of the times and understand that all of us are here on earth at this time because it is when we need to be and when we are needed. While it may seem that we are suffering trials that we do not have control over, if we are righteous and trust Christ we should have peace and comfort that will get us through the hard times.

We went out to Port Durnford to help one of the Zondi brothers update his CV so we could make copies for him to give out. When we got there I could not remember which one needed our help but they finally found the right one. It turned out that he did not need to change his CV, he only needed copies. So we told him we would make copies and return them on Thursday.

While we were there, we looked in his house that we watched being roofed a few weeks ago. It is large and roomy – all one room really – but he will not move in until he has plastered the walls. He has electricity but there is no plumbing of any kind.

As we were about to leave, I noticed a large pile of what I thought was dirt. I of course wondered where it came from and how much it cost to get it delivered. It turned out that it was dirt mixed with cow manure and they got it from a local dairy. It should have cost R50 but he got his for R25 by bargaining. I asked him to see if he could get a load that was 10 times as big delivered to Esikhawini for R250. If we can get it for that price, we will be able to use it as a basis for our gardens and it should really increase the production. He said he would see what he could do.

Since we were still early for picking up Thandi Nzama to go up to the hospital to see her mother, we took a quick trip out to see where the road went. It turned out that it went through down town Port Durnford – which contains about 6 buildings and a school – and then continued up to R102. This was the road we ended up on the day we got completely lost!

When we got to the Nzamas we found that Thandi was already at the hospital but her aunt – that is sister Nzama’s youngest sister – wanted to come with us. We said sure and Mary convinced me that it would be shorter and quicker to go the new way than to wind our way back through Esikhawini. It turned out to be a nice trip with new scenery and it might be quicker.

Sister Nzama has not been eating much so she is still not very strong. Thandi was at the hospital to take some lessons on how to take care of her mother when she is released. I got in trouble for taking pictures in the hospital – it is not allowed. I apologized and told them I would not do it again. After a short visit, we all left for home and hope that sister Nzama will be home by Thursday.

After dropping off the Nzama women, we went to see Bungumuse as arranged on last Thursday. It turned out that he thought he should get some money for painting the backdrop to our roadshow. I do not know where he got the idea – it was never mentioned before – but they obviously need money so I should not have been surprised. Now we have to figure out how to not pay him for the painting but to get them some money.

We did learn one interesting thing while at his homestead. When we were out driving on the main road, we came across a very nicely dressed woman carrying a beautiful umbrella walking down the road. I commented to Mary about how nice she looked to be walking. Later we saw her again, still walking along. I mentioned that if they could not afford transportation it was just natural for them to walk.

It turned out that it was Bungumuse’s mother who had walked to and from Port Durnford to drop off a CV to someone who might be able to help her get a job. We all had a pretty good laugh about this but I wish that we had recognized her and we would have given her a ride.

We talked to Thandi and her aunt about what it was like growing up in Port Durnford. It turns out that their family has lived here for generations. They talked about walking to Esikhawini every day to go to school – without having any shoes. They said that life was much simpler then – electricity did not get out to Port Durnford until the 1990’s – but life was good and they really did not feel that they were poor.