Elder Reeves and Elder Kitili were first in line for food – Elder Reeves was a runner before his mission and can put away more food than anyone we have had here since Elder Maremela. Elders Moremong, Dishon, and Mutraiswa filling their plates. Elder Mutraiswa does not seem to smile for pictures but loves to laugh and smile any other time. It is great to have the elders come over for dinner a couple of times a month.

07 March 2010 – Sunday

The missionary white handbook says that the missionaries are to be out of bed by 6:30 – for the third day in a row I was up and taking a shower by a little after 5:30. I think couples are on a slightly different schedule than the young missionaries.

We decided that I would go to Esikhawini and Port Durnford and then she would join me for Enseleni. It was a good plan and pretty much worked out but there were some additional blessings.

The Esikhawini PEC was short a number of members but they did get a number of things done. Elder Larios and Knosi are good about getting the missionaries there on time – something that has not been true since Elder Mbithi left the zone. They also came with prepared missionary correlation reports so the President Nyawo knows what is going on in the branch. He had gone out with the elders to meet the new converts in their home and I suggested they are given a good home teacher right away.

I then went to Port Durnford for sacrament meeting and was surprised to find that none of the Chirwa family was there. 20 minutes after the meeting was supposed to start Sandy and Thobani came and I found out that one of their older brothers had been put in jail because some product was missing at work. Although still recovering from having the flu sister Chirwa was going up to see him.

As I was taking the sacrament, I felt the need to go and see sister Chirwa and I found her walking from her house to the road to catch transportation. I decided I would drive her to Empangeni so we could talk, she would get there without walking a long ways, and she would save money.

She is sure he is innocent and she found no cosmetics in his room. Hopefully he will be released soon. He had been giving the family a good portion of his pay each month and it has been what has kept them in electricity and other necessities.

After dropping her off I thought about the need to call President Mann, President Baldwin, and President Nyawo. The first two I called just to inform them of the problem and the last to see if he had any advice on how we might help the Chirwas get him out of jail.

I picked up Mary and we went to Enseleni for their services. President Vilane was not able to start the meeting until almost 10 after because there was not enough PH there to pass sacrament. Once it got started it was an excellent meeting with lots of people bearing testimonies. You realize how many YSA women in the branch when six or seven in a row share their testimonies.

Before the meeting I asked Khulekani if he had his police clearance yet and he said no. This was very disappointing because that is all that he needed to send in his papers or so we thought. After sacrament was over I went out and made a number of calls to let leaders know about the problem in Port Durnford. One call was to President Mann and after telling him about the arrest, I happened to mention the problem with Khulekani’s clearance. He informed me that as long as he had the receipt showing he applied for one he could send in his papers. I had never heard that before and when I told Khulekani we both rejoiced. He will get the receipt tomorrow, get interviewed by President Vilane and then on the 18^th he can be interviewed by President Mann.

During PH, President Vilane took my advice and separated the Aaronic Priesthood from the older group. I went with the AP and we had a wonderful class with everyone getting to take a part. It is much better than when they are all together and most of the Youth do not participate much.

Along the way I got a call from Calwyn Baldwin asking if we could postpone the audit that we were going to have at 3:00 until Wednesday evening. I was happy to do this because we were going to have the elders over for dinner and this would give me a chance to help Mary get prepared. Also I thought I might get in a nap. I did not get the nap – the afternoon just slid by – but I did my part in preparing the house and the food for the missionaries.

10 of them arrived before 7:45 which is very unusual. It turned out that some of them came fasting so they were eager to end their fast and eat. We had ham sandwiches, baked beans, and a huge fruit salad. I am not sure all the African elders were thrilled by the selection but I think they got their fill. Dessert was big moist brownies and custard. Elder Tsegula and Elder Dimene came a little late but quickly caught up.

This particular group of elders seems to really enjoy each other’s company. All zones that we have had do to some extent but these come in laughing, laugh while they are eating, laugh when they are through and are still laughing as they left.

After cleaning up and washing the dishes, we collapsed. A good day in Richards Bay for the most part – hopefully the Chirwa young man will be able to soon re-join his family.

I finally remembered to take a picture of Mary and her newest companion – her pump. I do not imagine that most women are going to want to have a hernia operation just so they can get one of these beauties. We are always happy to take people to have their patriarchal blessing. Some day I will remember to take a picture of Partriach and Sister Jaba who are very warm and kind people.

While waiting for the Patriarch to give the blessings we went to the Pottery Shop outside of Ballito that Sister Mann found. They have lots of things to see besides the pottery they sell. We thought the striped cat on the shelf with the zebra patterned pottery was a nice touch. The big pig did not even open it’s eyes when we walked around it and took pictures. Wish I could nap like that. The cat and the artist share the same water cup – hopefully the artist does not drink from it.

The shop includes a playground for children and has a gorgeous view of the ocean. It had a better view before they started building homes down at the sea shore. We bought a bowl and vase decorated with a guinea fowl feather pattern.

06 March 2010 – Saturday

We were up by 5:30 and got ready so we could take three members of the Esikhawini branch to get their patriarchal blessings.  We picked up sister Tanya Mathe and then the Mavundlas and headed off to Ballito. The weather was perfect and the landscape along the way is gorgeous. There are Kilometer and K of green cane fields between K after K of tree plantations. Here and there are homesteads, sometimes with three generations of buildings – round mud and wattle huts, round concrete homes, and then the new ranch-style house – all on the same lot, side-by-side.

As usual we got there early but Patriarch Jaba is always ready. We dropped off the three members and continued on to Ballito where we did some shopping – I had to get a new charger for my cell-phone because I left mine down at Pumula Beach. We also found they had real, made in the USA Bugles. Now if they just got in some A&W diet root beer I would be in heaven.

After shopping we went out to the Pottery Gallery that is just off the M-4 and spent a couple of hours looking at the animals, buying a couple of pieces of pottery decorated with Guinea fowl feathers designs, and having a piece of freshly made carrot cake. We then found a quiet place to just sit and read until we got a call that the Patriarch was done. On the trip back to Esikhawini, everyone got good naps except me…I must say that I was jealous.

We then went to the chapel where Mary gave three piano lessons. She did not seem to get tired so maybe she is almost fully recovered. When we were finished we hurried home so we could unload the groceries we bought in Ballito before going to dinner with the Griesmers.

We had a wonderful dinner and visit with them at the Thai Wok down in the Tuzi-Gazi waterfront. Elder Griesmer loved the sweet and sour stirfry with prawns that the Mickelsen’s discovered the last time we ate there with them. The Griesmers had a good afternoon of visiting members in Engwelezne. It gives them a chance to meet with the people in their homes which is a special part of being missionaries. They are actually called to be the Employment Resource couple for the mission which is what we did in Indonesia.

After bidding goodbye to them we went back to the Richards Bay chapel to make copies of the Home Teaching message for the branches. We found Colwyn Baldwin there putting in some of the cabling for the new computers that recently arrived. We are hoping that no one breaks in and steals them as they have done in other chapels in the mission.

When we got home there was a fax from the Esikhawini elders for a baptismal service they will have tomorrow. Two members of a large family is being baptized and hopefully the rest will join them in the near future.

We got a call from the Bartholomews and we talked about everything that is going on in the branches. They may be living in Utah but their hearts are actually here in Richards Bay. Sister B said that she felt that all they needed was to come home for a couple of months between missions and then head out again. Her children are capable of taking care of themselves and each other while their parents are needed in the mission field. I wish more couples would understand this and not use the needs of the family as the reason for not going on many missions. With 30 to 50 High Priests in a ward and 200 to 300 in the Stake, who needs another one…but how much they are needed to guide and train the twigs and branches in so much of the world. BTW Mary is hinting at another mission more often – so I do not think it is any longer if we are going out again but when and then where.

So it was another busy but wonderful day serving together here in South Africa.

05 March 2010 – Friday

I was up early because I needed to take the car in for it’s 60,000K service. I even managed to get the trash out to the curb before I left. The trip to Engwelezane went quickly but then I had to wait over an hour to get a ride back to our boarding. I could have asked some of the elders to pick me up and take me home, but I do not like to ask them to get up that early.

However we did ask the Enseleni Elders – Tsugula and Dimene – to take Mary to the hospital to get her pump cleaned out. They arrived about 20 minutes early and insisted on using that time to sweep out our very dirty garage.  At the couples conference we talked about how couples help elders but no one pointed out how the elders are always ready and willing to help us when we need them.

After making the garage beautiful, they took Mary to her appointment. Later when I called to see how they were doing, they said they were using the time to do contacting at the mall. They ended up with 20 new contacts – I think the Lord blessed them for their service and their efforts.

While Mary was gone, I did some house cleaning. We had not cleaned under and behind the bed since we got here so I should not have been surprised at the amount of dust that had gathered during those months but I was. The daily breeze off the ocean seems to push dirt through any small crack and this house has more than its share of them.

It turned out that Mary had to keep her pump for at least another week. But at least now she knows how to turn off the beeper that comes on when there is a problem  so if it goes off during a meeting she can silence it and fix the problem after the meeting.

In the afternoon we got a ride back to the dealer and picked up our car. On the way home we did most of our shopping for feeding the elders on Sunday. We are going to keep it simple so Mary does not have to do a lot of cooking. By the next time we feed them, hopefully she will be back to normal.

In the evening we got a call from the Hafens asking about some of the members. It seems that once you get the people of the Richards Bay area in your blood you never forget them.