13 June 2010 – Sunday
I arrived at Engwelezane and there was no one else at the library. The elders arrived next and for a while we thought we would not be able to get into the building because the lock seemed frozen but elder Kaseke finally got it to open. The elders started setting up but had to leave to walk one of their investigators to church. So until about 10 to 9 when others started arriving I was the only one in the library.
By the time the meeting started there was about 15-20 people in the audience and there were only about 40 there for the meeting. This is about 25 less than normal. I guess they heard how bad my talk was going to be and decided it was better to just stay home.
Sister Myani gave an excellent talk and I would have been happy to let it rest there but since there was 30 minutes left in the meeting I had to give my talk. It was very disjointed and I never felt comfortable for more then a couple of minutes. Of course after the meeting people said they thought it was an excellent talk but the spirit did not seem to be with me. I am pretty sure I was not edified by the talk but I was by preparing it.
After Engwelezane I went to Enseleni where I found not only elder Dimene and elder Webster but also the assistants and of all people elder Nkosi. I knew the assistants were probably going to be there because President Mann called me about a problem that he sent them here to look into. He and sister Mann were in Bloemfontein for a district conference so he could not take care of it personally. It turned out that elder Nkosi just could not take the cold in Lesotho – it drops below freezing at night – and so is going to be moved to a warmer climate.
I was also surprised when president Vilane came walking in. He said he walked very slowly and he seemed to be feeling OK but I asked him to please be careful about doing too much too soon. If it had not been for the 6 missionaries attending, there would not have been 20 members by the time the sacrament was passed. They did make it to over 40 by the time the meeting was over.
I talked to president Moloi about this – he was there as the district speaker – and he said he thought it was because it was the holidays and many young people went back to their homesteads. Hopefully that was the case. Later I talked to president Vezi and he said they had about 50 at PD. I told him that was great. We talked about getting more chairs, another sacrament tray and some more hymn books. Those are nice problems to have.
The rest of the day was spent at home or visiting Mary. I did do some cleaning around the house. We certainly have accumulated a lot of stuff in just over a year. I am sure the South African economy is going to suffer when we leave.
Mary was fine except she of course would love to be out of the hospital. She has found that she does have to take it easy – her body is not feeling as well as her mind is. She asked for her cross-stitching supplies and I reminder her she has now been working on the one piece for over 2 years. I gave it to her for Christmas 2007! Obviously cross-stitching is not her favorite pastime.
We visited Arthur Wilson and he is doing much better. He will probably get out tomorrow. The Baldwins visited him later and then went to see Mary. They brought the Career Workshop certificates that we have been trying to get for about 6 weeks. Sister Manamela will be very happy.
I must confess that at times I think about going home and what we will do when we get there. I think I have done this more since Mary has been in the hospital and I have had too much time by myself. There is just so much I can accomplish by myself – Mary is the real talent. I understand that may be more of an excuse than a reason but it seems to be mainly true. Hopefully when she gets home we can wrap up as much as we can before we leave this wonderful land.