Daily Archives: November 26, 2009

25 November 2009

25 November 2009 – Wednesday

Funny Story – Part 2 – I forgot to tell about the other funny thing we found out about yesterday. Since we drive by or come to their house about 4 times a week, the children associates us with our car. The youth told Mary yesterday that every time they see a blue car drive by they say “There is ‘How are you.’

As usual our day had successes and disappointments. I went out early to get the car washed and was happy to see only 3 cars in the line. While I waited, I read from D&C 50 and made some notes. This section has become my favorite and I just wish I could remember everything it says. I think one of the reasons I like it so much is that it so personal – that is the Lord talks to the gathering of elders ‘face to face’ and reasons with them to answer a question that is causing great friction in the young church.

Of course the meat of the section is about the role of the Spirit in teaching and hearing the Gospel message. Something that will never change and I am afraid not really understood by many of the missionaries for much of their mission. They have a hard time distinguishing between a convert and a person willing to be baptized. A convert is not just willing to be baptized they feel they must be baptized. Anyway it is a great section for missionaries and all teachers of the Gospel to study.

We went to the B’s boarding and told Hans that we would not be keeping the boarding after the end of the year. We then started moving things to our boarding or took them to the RB Chapel so they could be used there. We only took a very small bite out of what is going to be a lot sorting and moving. Our PO Box got us 4 advertisements and the maps to be used to plan for a branch up in Kosi Bay. This will not happen any time soon but perhaps by the time we leave it can at least be considered.

As we just reviewed the rest of the day I realized we mainly bounced around between the Richards Bay Chapel, the mall, Esikhawini, Enseleni, the mall, the harbor and home. We did get the yarn to Mama Zulu where we found that her grandson has been ill. We got the sign for Enseleni, had a meeting with President Machaka, made a couple of dozen phone calls and got more permission slips for the Youth Convention to Sne. We were bunked on our English lesson, we missed President Vilane, and the restaurant where we wanted reservations will be closed all day for a wedding. Oh and after waiting for 30 minutes, I did not get a check cashed because they could not verify the signatures. For the last one I managed to keep my cool – maybe I am learning a little patience.

High on the positive side is how well the District YM and YW leaders are handling the Youth Convention that will be held on this coming Saturday. We have been calling the leaders regularly to see what help we could be and they keep telling us that they have things in hand. When I ask them about different aspects of the activity they have already addressed them. I am not sure how the Convention will turn out but much like the YSA activity that was held just before the Bs went home, it success will be the result of the District and Branches efforts and not ours.

I should mention some excitement or lack there of in our driving experiences of the last couple of days. Yesterday as we drove between Enseleni and Esikhawini on the N2, we came upon a very recent accident where a log truck dropped one of his trailers’ load of logs across about 2/3rds of the lanes. Luckily the cab and one of the trailers stayed upright but the rest of the load looked like a very large stack of Lincoln Logs.

Today as we attempted to drive between Richards Bay and Enseleni, we managed to get behind a huge truck that was transporting what looked like a 50 foot long, 10 foot in diameter tower. It was escorted by a number of police cars that blocked traffic so that it never had to stop. It was moving at about 10-15K an hour and we could not get by it, so we decided that we would be better off going to Esikhawini and then to Enseleni and hope that we did not run across any other obstructions.

We did have one more experience when in Esikhawini we found that there a new way to get from one side of J section to the other. All the maps we have show the streets dead-end but they are wrong. This is important because it means we do not have to go out to the ring-road every time we have appointments on opposite sides of the section.