Daily Archives: October 1, 2009

29 September 2009

29 September 2009 – Tuesday

We spent part of the day visiting members of Esikhawini branch who were having birthdays or who had birthdays not to long ago. We wished them happy birthday, gave them a card and a small present. This came about because we got a list of all the birthdays from the church records. The B’s have been doing this is their branches for a long time.

Sister Caroline Mkhwanazi is now 78 and her mind is as sharp as a tack. She is constantly going around her neighborhood introducing the gospel. While we visited with her she told us about a mixed couple she helped to get married who lives in the Richards Bay area and has no friends. She has invited them to conference so they can see that we have Africans, whites, and Indians in our congregation so they will not stand out and of course how they will be welcomed.

Sister Mdlovu is a fairly recent convert and we found the four Esikhawini elders there having lunch. They mentioned that she feeds the elders every Tuesday. From the amount of food that was on their plates I doubt if they have to eat again for a couple of days.

Sister Buthelezi was not home so we will try again on Friday. But we did get to talk to her grandson who said that his sister Nkule who is on a mission is doing well.

As we become more familiar with the streets in Esikhawini – or perhaps it would be better to say as Mary becomes more familiar – we find that we can make it to a good number of the homes without needing to refer to the maps. However we do get a little lost from time to time.



28 September 2009

28 September 2009 – Monday

Rain, wind, cold – that was what the weather was for this P-day. It was just as well because we did not plan to do anything other then spend it catching up on journals, blog, pictures, and sleep. We ended up doing pretty well on the first three but I did not get nearly as long a nap as I would have liked.

Just this morning I realized that there were two big events that I completely forgot to mention: One Friday the Bs went to Durban to pick up their son and daughter-in-law who flew in to spend a week with them. They have really been looking forward to this visit because they want to introduce all their new friends to their family. They will just be here for a week and so they will be very busy.

The second event has to do with the first. The visitors were willing to bring a couple of care packages from the Cindy for us. So Saturday night we went over to the Bs to print the baptism programs and got two lovely packages.

When we got home it was like opening Christmas presents. We got MMs, chocolate syrup, seasonings, beef stroganoff mix, the cheese packages out of Kraft’s Macaroni and Cheese, some books Mary ordered for our English class, and my best present – Red Vines.

We then called Cindy and thanked her for everything and caught up on what was going on in the family. Mainly they are sick – which is something we are glad they did not send us.

Since there is much not more to say about Monday, I will mention something that Sister B and I talked about on Sunday night. I had asked her how she was doing and found that she is getting much better. I suggested to her something Elder B and I had discussed a few weeks ago when she was quite sick. We had considered that Sister B’s illness meant that she was not able to do all the things for their branches that she had in the past so for a couple of months they had, had to be more independent. What was great was that they had done just that. Both branches put on their Primary Programs with basically no help from the Bs, the Youth in Enselini have risen to the challenge, and so forth. So the Bs can go home knowing that the young birds that they saw hatched and have nourished with love for the past 20 some months have learned to feed themselves and fly.