14 December 2009 – Monday
We thought we were going to drive to Durban to give the things the Knudsens left in our car to President Mann to take to them tomorrow. However when I called the President to make sure he was going to be able to do that, he told me that some elders in Swaziland was brining down a bakkie to be repaired – I imagine this the bakkie that recently ran into a cow – and they were going to met half way with a replacement. The President said that these simple plans became complicated when the elders first had to go back and get a police report so they could clear customs and then took a wrong turn and ended up going through Piet Retief which adds anywhere from an hour to two hours to their trip depending on if they have completed the road repairs that we ran into in April. But that did not matter much because the bakkie they are supposed to get was still being worked on – this one got side-swiped by a drunk driver – and it looks like the Swazi elders will be spending the night in Durban. In any case we will meet them out at the N-2 exit and give them the things for the Knudsens. This will save us 4 hours of driving but we can not do anything interesting until they actually get here. So we are spending the morning working on the latest puzzle, doing our laundry, etc.
We met the Swazi Elders – Binks and Nganda – at McDonalds and treated them to lunch. There is none in their area and Elder Binks does not like KFC so he said that they usually went home for lunch and dinner. Elder Nganda is from Kenya and is rather quiet but very friendly. He was driving when they hit the car. They must have been traveling pretty fast because the front passenger side of the bakkie was quite torn up. The cow did not do well either – it died.
We thought about going to a show but ended up staying at home and doing the puzzle, reading, house work, watched two episodes of Numb3rs and of course napping. So it was a nice quiet day for us. Just as we were going to bed we got a call from Sister Hafen and we chatted about what was going on in the mission. They are trying to recruit couples to come to South Africa and I imagine they will go on another one in a couple of years. They are young – at least compared to us – and have a business to run but I think missionary work is in their veins.