03 June 2010 – Thursday

We spent part of the morning with President Mann and the Empangeni District elders.  He spoke about the successes – by the end of June the mission should reach it’s goal for the year – but also had to talk about a couple of problems that have come up that has kept him very busy. He mentioned that as the missionaries have become more successful, Satan has stepped up his efforts to stop them. As we left so they could get on with their training and interviews he gave us hugs and thanks. It is us who should be giving him thanks for all that he and sister Mann has done for us.

Later after taking care of some of the errands that seem to always be there, we stopped at McDonalds to grab a quick lunch and ran into Elders Reeve and Kaseke. They mentioned that they needed a sign for Empangeni and we told him we would be happy to get one since we have provided them for a couple of the other branches.

When we stopped at the sign shop I just asked for the young lady who had designed the other ones and she immediately knew where to find our account. The sign should be done by Monday.

As we were driving through Esikhawini on our way to PD, Bongumusa called and said he was running behind us. It turned out he was on a taxi but he got off and went with us to PD and English lessons. Before the lessons we had a good talk about how all of us are brothers and sisters. It came up because he mentioned that we cared about his family even though none of them were members.

Since I needed to be home in time to grab some dinner and get to a 6:00 pm District Council meeting, we spent only a short time with the PD Youth. We were happy to see Blessing and Siya there. I spoke to Siya about his future and how he really should prepare for a mission. He is such a sharp young man that if he decides to get ready and go, he will be a fine missionary.

Before we left we got them to completely clean the chapel. It seems that those who came to the Monday evening FHE did not think it was necessary to sweep up all the mess they made. I called the PD elders and suggested that they do not leave before the chapel was put back in order.

On the way home we stopped by Bongumusa’s home and talked to his mother and sister. He was still down at the Nzamas chatting up the family. It turned out that they had gone to court yesterday and Bongumusa’s father had been ordered to pay the family R500 a month as well as R400 for transportation to school. This will be a great help to the family but I hope she also starts a small business.

District Council meeting got a lot done. Mark Duplooy did some training on ordinances and there were some things in the manual that I did not know about. It goes to show that we should read the instruction book before we serve. I turned in the curriculum orders for the branches outside of RB. Maybe they will not get so many items they do not need. I did not get the certificates for the Career Workshop…hopefully they will be done before we head home.

It was a rather typical day for us as we handle errands, met with missionaries, taught members, talked to people, and went to meetings. Of course there were also many, many phone calls. Some of them important and some of them only passing on information. I have no idea how we could be effective missionaries if we did not have cell phones.

The Lord continues to bless us with beautiful weather and good health. We are truly blessed to be here in the Richards Bay district among so many wonderful members and non-LDS. The field is white and we are winning.