All over Esikhawini and Port Durnford there are huge bushes covered in daisy like yellow flowers. These along the PD road are about 9 feet high and stretch for 40 – 50 meters. There always seems to be some tree or bushes flowering in South Africa.

Most of the time we find geckos climbing the walls inside the house, but I noticed this little critter on the outside of the sliding glass door. I put my hand next to it to give an idea of just how small it was. Notice the pretty pink belly. Now if I could train them to eat the ants…

Misc pictures from the month. The nice green bunch of bananas the Mickelsens gave us on Monday. They make an interesting table sculpture. The Blackburns were with us last Thursday and joined us at Port Durnford for Youth where they joined in teaching the gospel. Last Saturday morning I caught this picture of the trees and clouds at sunrise at Little Haven. It was a lovely, cool morning in Durban.

19 May 2010 – Wednesday

From one of the old mission blog posts:

Elder Andersen:
Ordination gives authority. Righteousness gives power.
To increase spirituality in a stake, teach the principle of tithing. Tithing for members is like mission rules for full-time missionaries. If they are obedient, they will have the Spirit.

For some reason this just hit home this morning, especially the first one. However the one about tithing is also so true. Many of the members here do not really understand the blessings that come with paying a full and honest tithe. When they are taught and understand the principle they start paying and then the Lord blesses them.

Out early so we could buy and deliver a food order to Enseleni. While there we took care of a request that president Baldwin called us about earlier and also stopped in to see president Vilane. President Vilane did not look good at all and the hospital at Engwelezane is really not helping at all. I am afraid he is dying.

We went to DDM where they reported their week of 2-mite days. The average was about 2.75 out of 7 which gives them lots of room to improve. As they do, the Lord will bless them and miracles will happen.

After DDM we had some lunch and then found that we would not be able to teach English this afternoon because our student would not be in town.

Instead we ran some errands – including helping the elders try to get a couple of bikes out of – and ended up spending an hour talking to our old landlady (I could not come up with a better term for ‘old’ – sorry Bessie) about birding in the area. She is a wonderful lady and just bubbles with enthusiasm for gardening, birding, and just about everything else she does.

We then came back home, where I finalized what I was going to train on this evening at District Council meeting.  I decided on talking about how the Aaronic PH committee is supposed to work in the district. It is an area that is clearly under the district president and that is not really working as outlined in the handbook of instruction right now.

The meeting was quite good. I think my training helped and president Baldwin made plans to instruct the branch presidencies when they come for training in June. All of the members of the council are good men and just need more training and experience.  We talked about finances, reviewed calendar items, and new branch clerks for a couple of the branches.

So the day did not go quite like we had earlier planned but some good work got done.