15 March 2010 – Monday

Of course we woke up to rain on this P-day. I mentioned to Mary that when she was in the hospital or recovering it had not rained on P-day. Perhaps we need to ask President Mann if we could have P-day on some other day. Then at least the rest of the zone would not be stuck with rain.

I met the elders at Hi-Q to replace a front tire that was badly worn on one edge. The people there tried to sell us four new tires but we ended up just putting the spare on and getting out. I did talk to the manager about re-imbursement for the rental car but it looks like we are just going to have to turn it in to our insurance company and let them fight it our with theirs.

The next thing that we needed to do was to go to the hospital so Mary could get her incision looked and re-packed.  Hopefully some day it will heal completely and the twice a week trips to the hospital can stop. After that we basically we spent the day running errands and spending money. We picked up my suit – now I have no excuse for not wearing it to church or to zone conference. We did our shopping, went to the ATM, bought electricity and did other necessary tasks.

We did have one adventure for the day. Not far from Meer en See there is a road that takes off from the John Ross and according to the map joins a road that runs along the lake. Mary has wanted to go there for a long time and she convinced me to give it a try. As many roads here the pavement ended at a single track dirt road which we took through the jungle until we came face to face with a bakkie coming the other way. It turned out that a tree had fallen across the road so it was blocked.

I backed up and managed to get the car stuck in the mud. The driver of the bakkie helped me try to get it out but it would not budge. Just then two men came up the road and gave us a hand. I have no idea where they came from and they just as quickly disappeared back into the bush. Maybe it was two of the 3 Nephites or if not at least two tender mercies for sure. We then tried the other fork of the road but after going through a couple of nasty little puddles we gave that up also and came home.

The rest of the day just moved on through. Mary started a new 1500 piece puzzle of a leopard that we bought earlier. From the looks of it is going to keep us busy for a couple of weeks at least.

While at the mall I dropped in to Woolworths to get some strawberries and Portuguese rolls – they did not have either but they did have fresh sweet corn on the cob. We have not had any since we got here so for dinner we had hamburger patties, sliced tomatoes and delicious corn on the cob. It seemed like we were home again.

I was in the Meer en See mall a couple of weeks ago on a P-day and I did not have on my white shirt and tie but I was wearing my badge. A man, who I did not know, walked by and said ‘where is your white shirt and tie.’ I explained it was our day off and he just kind of nodded. Now I have not been in that mall very often and I am not sure he was commenting because he had seen me before or if he had just seen other missionaries with their white shirts and ties. Anyway I felt rather bad because usually even on P-day I will wear whites when we are out shopping.

What was funny was that a week later I was back at the mall trying to pick up my cleaning but this time I was wearing shirt and tie. Amazingly the same man walked by, looked at me and said ‘I see you have your white shirt and tie on. Good for you.’ I guess the lesson to be learned here is that people recognize us because of our badges even if they do not know us personally so we should always look and act like representatives of Jesus Christ and his Church no matter what day it is.