22 October 2009

22 October 2009 – Thursday

Another busy day in Paradise – here is the real short version. We got the Mickelsens settled into their new house and then went back to the Richards Bay chapel for what President Mann called a mini-Zone Conference. He took an hour to tell us what he had learned at the leadership conference he and Sister Mann attended in Joburg this weekend. Elder Andersen of the 12 and other leaders taught them for three days.

We had lunch with the Mickelsens and then headed out to Port Durnford for English lessons and Youth. We arrived early so we decided to take a quick look at the Port Durnford beach that we have heard so much about. We of course did not find it – later we found out we were close but not quite there.

English and Youth went very well – we really love the Port Durnford Youth. Since none of them come from families with both parents we wish they had some strong leadership in the branch to watch over them.

In the evening there was supposed to be leadership training for the branch presidents. I had been in contact with each of them a number of times and assumed that they would all come. It turned out that none of them came. They had a wide variety of reasons but the root of course was that they did not feel that it was important enough to make the effort. I was of course disappointed but came to realize that I could not have done much more to get them there except pick each of them up myself and that is not going to help them learn to be reliable Priesthood holders.

My disappointment with the lack of branch presidents was kind of off-set by the youth leaders from Enseleni and Engwalazane coming to the go to the planning meeting for the Youth Conference to be held on November 27. Mary sat in on that meeting while I caught up the ordination and other paperwork with Calwyn Baldwin the district clerk.

After the meeting we drove the three young people from Enselini home. Enseleni lacks the streetlights that Esikhawini has so the back streets are much darker so careful driving is called for. Other than the pot hole I hit that felt like it might have broken the suspension and even with the GPS getting slightly lost while trying to get out of the township, there was no problems.

I forgot to mention that after the meeting the Mickelsens drove President Mann to our boarding so he was here when we got home.

It was a 2 mite day with 1 ½ mite result.



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