01 April 2010 – Thursday

No fooling around for us today! We did not hear any April Fools jokes yesterday and I did not play any. I can remember last year when I wrote an e-mail to all our mailing list saying that we were extending for an extra 5 months. Our good friends the Christensens in Hong Kong fell for it. Anyway this year I think we were just too busy to have time to think about a good idea.

We went to Zone Development Meeting where Elders Lerios and Nkosi did an excellent job of teaching about finding. When we got to the RB chapel we found an electrician working on getting the audio system repaired from the damage done when it was broken into a couple of weeks ago. They wanted it to be done so they could show conference on Sunday.

We found out that one of the branches did not get the word that there would be no transportation to RB on Sunday and that they needed to hold a regular Fast and Testimony meeting. When I heard this from the elders I put in a call to the branch president to let him know this. I am pretty sure I had told him this earlier but perhaps I just thought I did. With 4-5 branches to watch over sometimes things just get lost.

We had lunch at McDonalds before driving to Port Durnford for English, Youth and piano lessons. But before we did this we stopped in Esikhawini to see if Musa had the copy of his police clearance so we could fax it to Joburg. I forgot to write that yesterday we got a call from the mission office saying that they could not send Musa and Khulekani’s mission papers in because they needed a copy of their police clearance and the receipt for the application would not do. So we called the two young men and found that both of them now had them so all they needed to do was get a copy certified and get it to us. I am afraid that Khulekani is going to die from anticipation before he gets his call.

We took the paved road out to Port Durnford to see if they had filled in any more of the potholes. They had not but it is no worse than the sand road. However there are a lot more cars and people to contend with so we will probably go back to using the alternate route in the future.

As we were approaching the turn-in to the chapel I saw that a young lady who was standing nearby had a pile of groceries sitting next to her and no one seemed to be coming to help her get them home. So I made a U-turn and asked if we could help get them home. She was happy to do this so we loaded up the car and ended up driving her to Bernard Mhlongo’s  homestead where she borrowed a wheelbarrow to take her supplies the rest of the way home.

We were very surprised to see Bernard working at clearing his yard. Just 10 days ago he was taken to the hospital with what we were told was a heart attack. Obviously it was not a bad one or he has a very strong constitution.

Half of those who usually come to English class were away so Mary taught just sisters Nzama and Chirwa. Because we knew a number of the youth were also gone and we had a 5:45 appointment with the Richards Bay elders, we decided that Mary would have her music lesson with Lungani and I would play games with the Youth that came.

It worked out well. Besides Fufu and Thobani we had a number of young people who are staying at the Mlondos for the school vacation. I decided to play Book of Mormon matching with the hope that they would learn some of the people in the BofM and what they did. I think everyone had fun and I know all of them liked the bananas we passed out at the end.

We stopped at the Mthalanes on the way home and picked up Musa’s police clearance. I was surprised to find President Nyawo there. It turned out that he had gotten an e-mail telling him about the problem with the clearance so he had dropped in to see if he could take care of it. He is an excellent branch president.

We had just enough time between appointments to rush home and grab a very quick dinner before meeting the elders at the Engen station and them following them to where we were to teach Morris and his family. Unfortunately Morris had to work late and although we said we would be available all night, the elders never called. I suggested to the elders that they make the next appointment later in the evening when Morris would be more likely to be home and we would be happy to go with them and teach about the temple.

So it was a busy day. Not as busy as we would have liked but a good start to another month.