02 September 2009 – Wednesday

Slept well and had one of those mornings when time just flew by. Part of this was because I spent over an hour working on putting pictures into my blog/journal. I should get a week worth of pictures behind because it gets boring catching up. If I do it every day or at least every other day it is not bad at all.

(It is just a little after 9 pm and I sat down to write in this journal but my mind went blank, I yawned and decided that it will just have to wait until tomorrow to be written.)

Although I could not reach him by phone to make sure he was home, we headed for Esikhawini to have a short meeting with President Malinga. We were lucky and he was in so we talked for just 15 minutes or less and then left. I am hoping that my encouragement to have Presidency Meetings and do his home teaching will bear fruit so that the branch will move forward and become united.

We went to KFC for some lunch – amazingly the elders were not there – before going to the chapel to make plans for visiting some of the members. We got out our maps and directories and tried to find each member that was in H section. After spending some time on this, we decided to go see sister Mathe and ask her to help us identify where members lived. We had a nice visit with her and found that at least one of the members on the directory had moved to Petoria.

I felt that I should call sister Happy and find out how she was doing. She had not returned a prior call and when she did not answer my call I thought she might be ignoring me but almost as soon as I hung up she called back and we made arrangements to meet her at the crèche where she works.

We had some problems with our GPS and ended up wandering around the settlement on dirt and sand roads for quite awhile. After giving up and starting back to the main road, I saw that we were driving past her old house and knew that the crèche was nearby and it was. I count it as a tender mercy that after being lost, we were found.

We got a tour of the crèche – it needs work – and then took her home. That was an adventure as she lives deeper in the settlement on a sand road that at times caused the car to slow way down. I would not want to go that way after a rain. I went in to say hello to Patrick and then we left to meet with President Machaka for his version of a PEC meeting. We left from there to go Port Durnford for Youth. We ended up with just two youth, Quinton, and later the missionaries. We held a shortened version playing Book of Mormon Bingo.

We had to stop at the mall so Mary could go to the pharmacy and get her prescription. We had gone earlier in the day but the line was out the door. This time she was through in less than a half hour. I would really like to own that pharmacy – it must be a cash cow.

Me evening was spent reading, indexing more of the 1920 Chicago census, and checking things out on the computer. The news came that there had been a strong quake on Java that killed a number of people. They said it was near Jakarta but it turned out to be the other side of Bandung. As far as I could find out only one or two members live in the area, but I am sure by now Elder Subandriyo has received the OK to do some humanitarian work there.

As mentioned above I was very tired – maybe because of the hot, humid weather? – and so went off to bed early. I had no problem going right to sleep at the end of a 1 ¾ mite day.

01 September 2009 – Tuesday

September started with a rather gray overcast morning but as the sun took control, the mist was burned off. I was up earlier than I liked, but at least it gave me time to accomplish a number of things that needed doing. One thing that did not get accomplished was getting the car washed – it was closed when I got there at 7:00. So the car washing got moved to tomorrow.

This gave me an extra hour to work on some ideas and charts that will hopefully help President Malinga accomplish some things he would like to see done in the branch. Since a couple of families got Home Teaching visits last month, it has at least started and perhaps this month they can get up to 50 – 60%. That will be a great improvement for the branch.

I also spent some time reading Conference talks. I re-read President Monson’s talk at the Priesthood session and this time it made a greater impression on me. Here a prophet of God gave clear instructions on how to improve my physical and spiritual life. I just need to do them to receive the promised blessings.

We attended Zone Development Meeting where the elders had a good discussion about how to improve their planning, finding, converting and retention skills. They shared many thoughts and experiences. There is vast amount of knowledge in any zone and it is good when they have an opportunity to talk together. We stopped and had lunch and cashed a check at the bank before going out to Port Durnford. The line at the bank was very long but they did what they could to speed things along. However when it comes to cashing a check it takes at least 10-15 minutes after you get to the teller. I think 2 or 3 people have to approve each check before the teller can finally give out the money.

At Port Durnford we visited the Nzama family and was happy to see gogo Nzama up and looking good. However she still is not eating properly and so she had to go the hospital to get pumped up. As we were driving out we stopped at the other Nzama boarding and met the Nzama matriarch who was sitting under the tree weaving mats to sell. She has been doing this for many years. It use to take her 3 weeks to make a mat, but a number of years ago she got a simple frame that cut the time to 3 days. She is working towards getting enough block to build a traditional round house. She must be at least 85 and possibly older – I will ask the next time we are there.

 Our next stop was the Malondo homestead to tell them we would not be at the funeral on Saturday due to being in Durban. We did give them a card with a donation toward the cost of the funeral. The men – including Siya – were out cleaning up the front yard so there would be places for people to park. They will get a large tent to hold the funeral. I think President Machaka will conduct but I am not sure. We gave Ayanda a letter from the Hafens and a card from us. She seems to be holding up well, as does Doreen’s mother.

Before heading home, we stopped by the Zondi homestead to see if David had found a price for a large load of manure, but he was at work. I do not think we will ever come to know one brother from the next. They all look almost exactly the same. It is embarrassing to both of us but I think Mary more so than me because she can usually remember people’s names.

By the time we wove our way home, for some reason I was very tired. I think the lack of exercise and my increasing age is starting to catch up with me. I can not do much about the latter, but I certainly can about the former.

I spent part of the night Indexing the 1920 Ohio census. The handwriting is quite good and it is nice to go through a batch and only have one or two names I am not sure are correct. I feel that if I make a mistake, some family member might have to wait for the millennium before getting their temple work done.

***As I am typing this Mary is in making copies for her English class. She seems to be having problems because she is talking to the copy machine as if it was alive and could understand her complaints.