23 October 2009 –  Friday

We had a very good day today. We got to spend the morning talking and studying with President Mann. He told us that a frustrated whale was obviously trying to mate with our house – See October 2 for why.

We left the house at about 9:00 and dropped the President off at the Richards Bay chapel for his meeting with the elders before picking up the Mickelsens for a morning of sight-seeing and orientation. They had never been to Esikhawini or Port Durnford so we gave them the grand tour – well at least a tour.

We took them out to see the beach – after a rather long detour we found it this time-which was quite beautiful and had absolutely no one on it – just miles of dunes, sandy beach and beautiful waves. We will go back some time when we can spend more time.

We introduced them to the Nzamas and the Chirwas – we wanted to let them get an idea of what the area was like and how the members lived. It turned out that the country was much like they experienced on their mission in rural Florida but of course the construction of the housing was different.

While we were at the Chriwas, Sister Mickelsen asked Elder Mickelsen to take a picture of some cattle that were grazing behind the homestead. He did not want to – he said they had enough cattle pictures – until he found that it was a herd that was going to be used for labola – that is the brides price – and then they became interesting. In fact he spent quite a bit of time talking to the young man who owned the cattle. He invited him to church and got his name for the elders. As we left, sister Chirwa started talking to him and perhaps he will actually come. At least we know he will be legally married and has enough income to be able to have a nice herd of cattle. Our last stop in Port Durnford was the chapel which they found interesting. I noticed the door was again falling off the toilet – I think it is a lost cause.

After a nice lunch at Spurs in the mall, we dropped them off at their boarding and came back to ours to get ready for youth. I hate to admit it but I fell asleep in a chair and if Mary had not woke me up I would have slept right through Enselini’s youth meeting.

When we got to the library there were a couple of young ladies waiting for us but most of the youth did not arrive until about 4:00. The Mickelsens came to meet with a couple of their PEF students – or perhaps hopeful PEF students. Much to our embarrassment we found that we had bunked President Vilane’s English lesson. I am not sure we had said we would be there but in any case he was and we were not. I promised him we would be there next week.

We had come prepared to share Elder Holland’s conference talk on the Book of Mormon but nothing else. Elder Tsugula taught a short lesson on Lehi’s dream and then I played the talk. I had forgotten that Elder Holland had started his talk with some comments about Lehi’s dream which made the transition from Elder Tsugula’s lesson perfect. During the talk I went out and got our bag that had the Book of Mormon Bingo – just in case they did not have any games planned. It turned out that they did but preferred to play Bingo. I think they had a lot of fun and we made sure everyone won something.

I was not surprised to find out that they did not know what most of the items on the Bingo card referred to. I asked if anyone knew what the “Urim and Thummim” was and no one had any idea. I told them it would good if they looked it up and came prepared to share next week.

There were 18 to 20 youth there and we only knew the name of two of them. It is going to take us quite a while to get to know them but hopefully the Lord will bless our memories and the youth will be understanding about our not remembering their names.

We got home just as the sun was setting. I tried to catch up this journal but my heart and mind was just not in it.

2 mite day!