14 October 2009 – Wednesday

Morning kind of the slid by with time spent on journal, putting pictures in the blog, talking to President Mann and Sister B on the phone, going to the mall to get air-time, and not getting the ATM to give me more cash. It is strange how quickly 4 hours disappeared without much in the way of value to account for it. I did give the young lady at Checkers a card with the time and location of the Esikhawini branch while she processed my air-time request. I am going to try to improve talking to everyone as the President requested.

We went to the RB chapel to make lots of copies for English and for the elders. While we were there I got some more sacrament cups so I can send them to Kosi Bay. Our next stop was our post office box where the only thing we found was a letter that was not ours. I got a call from the B’s and they had just driven by so they turned around so they could give me some WD-40 like spray to try on the elder’s bikes. The Bs are still busy getting last things done before they leave on Sunday. I then took some pants into the cleaners.

After a quick lunch at Wimpy’s – it will never be my favorite place to eat – we went to Esikhawini to wait for the Elders to come with their bikes that need work done. It turned out they had been out to Port Durnford putting in a garden for one of the members – I think Elder Wengert will have them busy all the time.

 

This is the garden the elders put in for the Molondo family. I have been experimenting with different ISO settings on the camera to get better pictures of the African elders. This one of elders Dishon and Musemare came out better than most. I was trying to take a picture of this bird at rest and instead got one of it in flight. It shows the white underwing that is not visible when not flying. So I ended up with a better picture than I planned. Notice the barbed wire that surrounds the grounds.

The Esikhawini Elders brought their bikes and it was obvious that they needed full tune-ups so I called Elder Johnson and he said to have it done. So thanks to Elder Maremala’s experience on loading bikes into cars, we were able to get both bikes in and take them to the cycle shop in Richards Bay for service. It will be a week before they get them back but they should be in top shape.

We then headed back to Esikhawini where we met with President Malinga for 30 minutes. Our main purpose was to pick up the quarterly report but we ended up talking about a number of subjects including home teaching and presidency meetings. I explained that his family needed the blessings that would come when he did his home teaching and of course the families he visited would also be blessed.

From there we went to Sister Manemela’s and found she was not home yet. So we chatted with her son and daughter for a few minutes and dropped off a birthday card and present. I think this is an excellent idea and I hope we can do this for most members of the branches.

We had a quick dinner at McDonalds – we are becoming fast-food junkies – and then went over to the Bartholomews where we spent a couple of hours talking about the branches they have been working with and what they thought we needed to do. We decided we would come back on Saturday and finish going through things while they finish packing up for the trip home.

By the time we got home it was rather late and so we were soon wending our way to bed. I would rate this a good 2 mite day.