14 January 2010 – Thursday

I had an interesting morning with a variety of experiences – some good and some not as well.  As usual as I reading in Alma I came across thoughts that hit home. As he spoke to the church in Zarahemla he asked the same question that I asked on Sunday – that is would I be able to stand before Christ and hear Him say – “Come unto me ye blessed, for behold, your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth.” (Alma 5:16) All of Alma 5 and 6 is worth re-reading often. I especially found Alma 6:6 about the people “fasting and praying often in behalf of the welfare of the souls who knew not God.” I certainly should include those who do not have the gospel in my prayers more often.

When I went to get some meat out of the freezer for a party at Port Durnford this afternoon, I found that all the trays were frozen in place. It seems our self-defrosting frig is not self-defrosting. I then had to spend a good deal of time getting the drawers out and then getting rid of the accumulated ice. This was not on my planning sheet for the day.

I had another bit of excitement when Mary’s AOL Mail account went into a loop. When I tried re-starting the computer to see if it would fix itself, a note came up that it could not find the system to boot. That did not sound good but when I unplugged the power, took out the battery and then re-started; everything started working fine – including the AOL Mail. I did find some comfort in the fact that when I went to AOL Help I found that many people were having the same trouble and they had put up a special Help section to try and solve it.

I finally got around to downloading Mary’s camera and started editing the pictures. Every time I wait too long to take off the pictures I swear that I will not do it again – but of course I do and so instead of being a pleasant experience it is a drag to name, edit and re-size 50 to 100 pictures all at once. I also managed to catch up posting my journal to our blog – another case of procrastination on my part.

We called and found that there will be no DDM today so we are taking that time to get ready for English class and Youth. We had promised the PD Youth for the last three weeks that we would have a party. Unfortunately between the holidays, our being sick and then an unexpected (at least for us) Zone Conference, we have had to postpone it a number of times. But today we will have it and Mary is using the extra time to bake a cake.

As we headed out to teach English and then have Youth at Port Durnford, we stopped along the way to pick up a few things we would need. Ken’s Trade is basically a party supply shop where we get the plates, cups, utensils, napkins, and delicious chocolate that we use for everything from games to dinners for the elders. It is run by a very nice Afrikaans couple who have had it for years. Like many older couples their only daughter and her family have moved to the US because they could not get work in South Africa. So when they finally decide to stop working they will either sell their business or just close it down.

When we arrived in Port Durnford I noticed that my beautiful clean car of yesterday morning is now dusty and dirty on the outside but the inside still looks good. Mary taught English to her group of gogos while I tried to get the ham to defrost enough that we could use it for sandwiches later.

We had our usual group of six youth – missing only Gabi who has not returned since she disappeared for a few days over a month ago. I keep trying to get in contact with her but she does not answer her phone and when we visit they say she is away. We will just have to keep trying to reach her.

We showed the introduction to the 2010 Youth theme on my computer and then played a game of BoM Match game. I used the game to try and teach them some things from the BoM but I am not sure how well it worked. We then fed them ham sandwiches, chips, pop, chocolate cake and bananas. They loved the ham sandwiches. Fufu devoured her first one – they got two each with ham heaped high on hamburger buns – but slowed down for her second. Thobani was thrilled that we did not bring KFC because he really does not like chicken. I cut the cake Mary made this morning into huge pieces and they all ate them.

We left them sitting around the table finishing off their cake, bananas and the last of the soda pop with Siya and Lindani in charge of seeing that the mess got cleaned up. I think we will run back there tomorrow to see how well they did.

I talked to Siya again about going on a mission and he seems really interested. I am going to suggest to President Machaka that he gives him a searching interview and if he thinks Siya is ready he should recommend him for the MP. It is great working with the young people – there is such hope for their future if we can just keep them active and living the gospel.