20 October 2009

20 October 2009 – Tuesday

Of course this morning the sky is clear and the bright sunlight woke me before 5:30.

I spent much of the morning going through the things Elder B left me about the two branches and other things. Thank goodness he is so thorough about his paper work – we have about everything we need to know about their two branches to do our work.

We spent the day with President Vilane. First sat and talked about the branch and then went through about one half the branch list name by name so he could tell us a little about the members. Then we took him with us as we went around and visited – or tried to visit – a number of homes. We got to meet mama Zulu, sister Rose (who is not a member but should be), and others. During our visiting we managed to make two contacts – at least one is a family and the other one may be. We got their names and phone numbers and gave them a picture of Christ with our names and phone number. We enjoyed meeting the members, introducing ourselves and leaving a prayer in each home. They are wonderful people and we are already in love with them. Enselini is tiny compared to Esikhawini and compact compared to Port Durnford. The missionaries should be able to visit almost every home in the township in one or two cycles. Just three or four families would make a great difference to the strength of the branch.

One of our biggest challenges will be communicating with President Vilane is that his English is as weak as his spirit is strong. He and she are used interchangeably so until I am sure of the member’s names and gender I am going to have to check the branch list to affirm if it is a male or female we are talking about. But in the end, the spirit will help us understand him and him understand us. I can only imagine how hard it is for those members who really do not have a good grasp of English to really understand the gospel. That is why it is so important for the young men to go on missions. Not only do they really learn the gospel so they can teach it to their own family and to others in the branches.  Also they are often with US, English or white SA elders who can help them with their English.

As we were dropping President Vilane off at his house, he noticed that we had a nail in our front passenger side tire. He checked and it showed a very slow leak. I decided that I needed to get it fixed but that it could wait until after we had our rather late lunch. McDonalds is always our first choice for a quick lunch – we can be in and out in 20 minutes or less. After lunch we went get the tire fixed before the place closed – the service is excellent and the price reasonable.

A busy but only a 1 ½ mite day…



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