This morning I took these pictures of the huge pink bottle bush and the unusual tree that sits right off the patio at Crystal Stream Manor. It was a beautiful morning until about 8 a.m. and then a coastal layer of fog seemed to roll in.

A last picture of the Richards Bay District. Tomorrow evening Elder Petersen and Elder Muthoka, who are in the front, will be gone  and Elder Otieno and Elder Weaver will have new companions, who have only been out 6 weeks, to finish training. I will miss both of these elders but know they will serve well in their new areas.

07 October 2009 – Wednesday

Slept well and had an enjoyable morning. I sat out on the patio and read the first few chapters of Alma and the start of the Nephite nation under the judges. It is not a pleasant period with lots of death but also where there are many who live righteous lives – even when they are well off – something that does not happen often in the Book of Mormon.

We enjoyed having breakfast with the Knudsens and we were able to learn more about their area. Since they are in the same district and zone, they often work closely together. The branches in the townships seem to be solid and the district is functioning well.

The Barts picked us up at 9:00 and we headed home to Richards Bay. As we traveled along the Bs realized this would be the last time they would travel that way as missionaries. There will be a lot of ‘last times’ for them in the next 10 days. We stopped at the Super Spar in Ballito where we were able to get real Campbell’s tomato soup, egg noodles and lasagna pasta. We did not find any of the Dr. Pepper that sister Mann said she saw there a week or so ago.

When we arrived home we expected to have some lunch, a quick nap, and then head to Esikhawini. Unfortunately we had a rather large and wet surprise waiting for us in one of the bathrooms. It seems that the valve on the toilet that I opened wider so it would fill faster leaked and there was water in the bathroom, hall and two of the bedrooms. Luckily it had only been dripping for about 26 hours and so it was not very deep. However it took quite a while to clean up the water but I needed to wash the floors anyways so it was not a complete waste of time.

The only real problem – and we will not know for a while how big it will be – is that I had put Mary’s computer under the bed in one of the rooms that got wet. Thankfully the water was not deep where it was, but it was wet on the bottom. Mary used the air only setting on her hair dryer to dry up any moisture we could see and we are going to let it set for a couple of days before we turn it on. Hopefully it will be fine but if not we hope the hard drive is OK because there are pictures that we have not backed up. Everything else can probably be found on one of the external drives we back up on.

I should mention that today we got a small feel for what it will be like in Richards Bay in a couple of months – that is hot and humid. By the time I was done getting up the water and drying the floor, I was exhausted. So once I put all the wet towels in the washer I just went to bed and we will do what we were going to do this afternoon tomorrow.

After I woke up I drove down to the mall to pick up the repaired speaker system for Esikhawini. While I was waiting for them to bring the unit to me, I talked to the young lady who was at the counter and mentioned that it was warm today. She didn’t think so – she said it was still winter weather. But she did warn that December and January are terrible. 

I went to the bookstore to see what they had on sale. As I was browsing the books, I heard a voice call out ‘There is Elder Pier.’ I turned to find two elders coming towards me. They eagerly shook my hand and asked how I was. I found out they were elders Tembo and Nkosi who are now serving in Swazi and they were on the way to Durban for transfers tomorrow.  I must confess I did not recognize either of them and am not sure how they recognized me. I am pretty sure that we have not served with them and the only place where we could have met was at  All Zone a few months ago. But we were all wearing Swazi ties and I was able to ask about the Manzini branch and talk about the way the work is blazing in Swaziland. When we said goodbye I said that we would see them next week in Richards Bay for Zone Conference.

Good news! We looked at Mary’s computer and it seemed dry so we decided to see if it would open without catching on fire and thankfully it did fine. I count this as a tender mercy of the Lord.

While eating dinner and afterwards we watched and recorded the audio of Elder Holland’s talk on the Book of Mormon and then I recorded Elder Renlund talk on the way to keep our spiritual heart strong Elder Sitai’s talk that includes a comment on labola (the African version of a dowery) and Elder Choi’s talk on the 9 rowdy boys. I am going to try to use all of them in either Priesthood or Youth meetings over the next few weeks.

Yesterday I forgot to write about transfers. Elder Richey called to tell us that Elders Mokopotsa, Petersen, Mholo, Muthoka, and of course himself are leaving the zone. That means all the companionships will change tomorrow. We always dislike to see the elders we have come to know and love leave but it is also exciting to meet the new ones that come in. Two of them will be from the new group of 15 who are coming in today – which we will not know until after they get here.

At a little after 9:00 we went over to the Richards Bay district boarding to say goodbye to Elders Petersen and Muthoka. We let them know we would miss them and wished them well in their new areas. Elder Petersen will once again be in a white area – he is becoming a specialist in white areas. I told Elder Muthoka that if he did not get his drivers license he would find himself walking  the rest of his mission. We left them some Magnum bars to snack on while they packed. They head for Durban and their new areas tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. so I am sure they will be up most of the night.