07 June 2010 – Monday

We went with the Zone to Umfolozi and spent about 4 hours touring the park. We were only inside the park 2 K or less when we came upon a group of 6 lions lying in the grass about 200 yards from the edge of the road. Unfortunately they were pretty much hidden by the grass and trees but some of them got up and walked around so the elders did get to see them clearly. It was the first game drive for elder Webster and imagine his camera was really clicking. Later we saw a group of five lions resting on the bank of the river and although they were quite a distance away they could be more clearly seen through our binoculars.

We managed to find a large herd of Cape buffalo, 3 rhinos – one of them quite close and drinking from the river, and one lone elephant. Of course there was the usual zebras, nyalas, wildebeests, and wart hogs. We only saw one giraffe but it was also drinking and that is always an interesting site. Since the elders wanted to get back to do their shopping and e-mail we had a quick lunch and said goodbye to them.

We then went on to the Hluhluwe. We were not having much luck in finding any animals – not even zebras or nyalas. We did have one elephant come out of the bush just as we were passing and storm across the road behind us. But that was it until we got to the part of the loop where we had found the large herd of elephants when the Mickelsens were with us.

We found a family of five rolling in the mud and then throwing dirt over their back. They were just finishing up when another group came in and this continued until we actually got tired of seeing them roll in the mud and decided to go further down the road. We did manage to see a small herd of wildebeest that we scared off the road as we came up but nothing else until we got back to the elephant hole where new ones had moved in. We watched a little while longer and then left them to enjoy the mud. We did get lots of pictures.

On another loop we found two cape buffalo having a great time in a large mud hole. The female even got up and showed off for us. As we continued down the loop Mary mentioned that we had seen only the one giraffe and she really would like to see more. Five minutes later we came across a herd of them spread out on either side as well as on the road and so we watched until we were again tired of seeing them.

We continued the loop and had to pass once more where we found the giraffes and they not only had not moved, but more had come. One of the big males took up a position blocking about half the road and since we had heard that their kick could easily break out a window or seriously dent the car we decided to wait until he moved. But he was not about to move and it was only when I started honking the horn that he moved enough to let us get safely by. It is not often in a lifetime that you get trapped by a stubborn giraffe. We then went to a lookout where we could see another large herd of giraffes mixed with zebras. Mary certainly could not complain about  not  seeing many giraffes.

As we headed for the Memorial Gate to come home, I said that we had a great day but we had not really got anywhere near a rhino. We had seen two at a long distance and one other one lying down under a tree but none standing where we could get a good look. Less then a minute later as we were driving along I noticed a rhino coming out from behind a bush and then noticed that there were a couple more already out. We stopped the car and a total of 6 rhinos came out to munch on the grass. They kept moving closer and closer to the road until one was about  20-30 feet away at the most. We got lots of great pictures but I carefully kept the car running and in gear just in case one of them decided we were upsetting their meal time.

As we left the rhinos I said I wondered if we started complaining about not seeing any leopards that a group of them would come walking out of the brush and pass by the car. Unfortunately what worked for giraffes, rhinos and elephants did not work for leopards. But we still had a wonderful P-day at the game park.

The drive home was not fun at all. The N2 was very busy, there was construction, and lots of slow trucks and high-beam lights. It seemed like it was a lot longer than a one hour drive from the gate. I was more than ready to pull into our garage and turn off the car after being in it for almost 12 hours.

06 June 2010 – Sunday

It was one of those Sundays that makes a couple feel needed but also shows how the branches may have come to depend too much on us for some things.

We picked up the Esikhawini elders and took them to the chapel. We then picked up the Nyawos and brother Nkosi for PEC. However we could not stay for it because we had to run home and get the baptismal programs for Esikhawini that we managed to leave on the counter. We will have to make some arrangements for getting them done when we leave.

We went to Esikhawini’s sacrament and enjoyed the testimonies of the members. I tried to write down the main thoughts of each testimony. I find it helps me to listen and feel the testimonies. There were a number of investigators at the meeting and the elders were very pleased.

As we were getting in our car we found that I left the phone there and a number of calls had come in from the Enseleni elders. I called them and found that they did not have any sacrament cups. Usually we keep sacrament cups in the boot – something I had learned from brother B – but I took the box out because the latch was broken. I thought that would not be a big problem because I could just borrow some from Esikhawini until they could get an order in. Unfortunately Esikhawini  had used their last cups for today’s sacrament. It was a blessing for them that I checked or they would have been without any next week and we would not be there to help them. But this meant we had to go back to our boarding once again and pick up some sacrament cups and take them to Enseleni.

When we got there, the elders said that president Vilane wanted to come to church so we went and picked up him and his family. I asked if he was sure he felt up to going and he insisted he was. I told him if he got sick because of going that sister B would thump us both on the head.

I had forgotten that president Baldwin was coming to Enseleni to interview a brother to be branch clerk. He presided and brother Chiliza conducted. Brother Chiliza continues to get better at conducting and in a couple of more months he should be able to do it with little or no help.

After sacrament president Baldwin had his interview and afterward we talked for a while about the call and about his plans for when we leave. He is going to have the members of the District Council watch over the branches more closely and that will be a wonderful step in making the District self-sufficient.

I almost forgot that president Vezi had sent us an SMS saying that he needed tithing envelopes and that is one thing I could not help him with. President Baldwin is going to have the district order extra sacrament cups, tithing envelopes and other supplies that the branches might need that they can not safely store so they are available as needed.

05 June 2010 – Saturday

The morning just kind of went by with some shopping and waiting for the Zone Leaders to come by for funds to go to Kosi Bay.

After lunch we went to Esikhawini where Mary taught piano lessons and I had good talks with Musa and Percy. Percy told me that he applied some suggestions I gave him about being the best employee he could be and it has paid off with his boss adopting some suggestions he made on how to improve the way things work at the office. It seems he is being such a good employee that the other employees are giving him trouble. I told him that he should do everything he could to love them and do things for them for that is what Christ would do.

Musa and I talked about his mission and what he might do after he was released. He wants to work in some part the biological field which should be a good occupation. He has already looked into the best universities for his field and believes he can get into one of them.

In the evening we had dinner with the Griesemers and enjoyed it as always. We talked about the Engwelezane branch, what we were going to do after we are released, and other things. They are a wonderful couple and elder Griesemer is a good leadership trainer. They would like to go back to working with less actives when they get home. They do not know if they will go on another mission.

04 June 2010 – Friday

Our day started sadly when the Enseleni elders called to say that Mbali Seoka had died yesterday. 4 weeks ago she was singing in a choir at Church and now she will be singing in a celestial choir.

Martin finally got the garage door opener to work. It turned out that they had put a faulty board in when they supposedly repaired it in Joburg. We have become pretty good friends because I have been careful be reasonable about waiting for it to be done correctly. I told him we would probably be leaving before we had a chance to see him again and he said that he hoped we would be able to have a cup of coffee together before we go. I did not mention that would probably have to be hot chocolate but I was pleased that he would even say that.

After Martin left we went up to Enseleni and took president Vilane over to Mbali’s home. Her mother had already left for Maphelane to the family homestead where she will probably be buried. But we had a very nice talk with her grandmother and gave her our condolences. President Vilane is still quite weak so we could not stay long before taking him home.

We stopped by mama Zulu’s and met her son who was visiting her and his son who she is raising. She seems to be proud of him even if he basically abandoned the boy so he could continue to live with the mother who would not keep him. Mama Zulu is going to hem the material we bought to make a curtain to block one of the windows during church.

Our day continued that way with us visiting members in Enseleni , Esikhawini and Port Durnford before going to the Esikhawini chapel and helping with youth. We had stopped by president Nyawo’s to give him some pictures and ask him where the Home Affairs office was. Since sister Nyawo was ready to go to Youth we gave her a ride to the chapel.

Youth went well. Musa conducted and I reminded him about learning the theme. We did that for a while and then played the Book of Mormon match game. As young men and women kept coming we ended up having two groups playing. For the last game with my group I made them into two man teams and a couple of non-LDS young men won. They then went out and helped clean out the baptisimal font for the baptism on Sunday.

I think that between Musa, Solo and Sister Nyawo the Youth will be OK. But when Musa and Solo leave for their mission in a couple of months hopefully there will be someone called to help sister Nyawo.

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.

Martin our garage door man trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with the opener. He has been here so much we are thinking of adopting him. Since the first time we saw one of these trucks we wondered what kind of mind would choose RATS for the name of their company. But since they are everywhere I guess it has worked. Morning out our back sliding door is always different. The dark clouds let little light through this morning.

We took few pictures during our short game drive. This magnificent kudu buck just walked right by as if we were not even there. The female on the other side of the road was more curious. We are still not sure the name of this antelopebut liked the way the hair on the back was standing up to tell us we were bothering them.

As we drove out of the game park, this beautiful rainbow spread across the landscape. I have decided that it was there to let us know things would be OK even if we had to tie our boot lid down after the latch broke. Sister Zulu’s son is visiting her and his son.

Missions are all about people. These are some of those we saw and talked to today. Sister Malinga’s grandson finally smiled for me but would not hold it long enough for me to take his picture.

02 June 2009 – Wednesday

I was out of the house early to go to the Nissan dealer to try and get our boot latch fixed. Unfortunately they did not have the part but they did manage to tie the boot down in such a way that it is closed and the rain will not get in. However we will have to put all our many different bags of supplies in the back seat instead of the boot.

Mary stayed home so if the garage door man came she could let him in. He did not arrive until after I returned home and of course he could not solve the problem so he took the whole thing out so he could take it to the folks who sold it in the first place. If we did not know that another couple should be coming here in August, I would just tell him to forget it.

We were late to DDM at Empangeni but managed to be there in time for the lesson on how to introduce the Book of Mormon to an investigator. It was interesting to hear the missionaries tell all the different ways that they have used. The one I liked best was where they would use it to answer questions and then put it away until finally the investigator asked what they were reading from and could they have one to read.

After lunch we went to Esikhawini and visited a number of members and gave them some pictures we had printed on Monday. We were encouraged when sister Malinga said that she would see us at church on Sunday. Sister Tembe is reading the Christ Ideals for Living book we left a week or so ago. She is determined to be able to walk well enough to go back to work.

We stopped by the chapel and found president Vezi coming out of the gate. We stopped and talked about a number of things including the District Council meeting that we thought we were having tonight. I also told him about President Mann wanting to meet with the presidency when he was in RB tomorrow. This was followed by a number of calls that worked out some details and we found out that the District Meeting was to be changed to tomorrow night. It was a blessing that we ran into president Vezi when we did.

President Mann called to tell us that he would not be staying with us on Thursday night but needed to get back to Durban to take care of some problems that came up. This included being with Sister Mann who is having some complications with an operation she recently had for an abscess. It seems that the last month of their mission is going to be somewhat of a trial for the Manns. But they both have great spiritual strength and very positive attitudes so I am sure they will come through it fine.

When we did get home, I found myself taking a nap before dinner. I am starting to think I am getting old! We are starting to use up the food in the pantry so our meals are sometimes rather unusual. Tonight it was soup and left over macaroni and cheese.

In the evening I called Tom and talked to him about lots of things including if we should buy an I-pad and if so which one. He agreed with Mike that we should get a Wi-Fi model with 64G and so he is going to order it and load it with books and movies for us to catch up on when we get home.

Winter is certainly quickly approaching as it is very cool and leaning towards plain cold in the mornings. The South Africans are all wearing coats and sweaters but I am sticking to just a short sleeve white shirt. Brad Hafen wrote us that it was approaching 100 in Southern Utah. Sister Swazi-Wilson will love it when they get home tomorrow or the next day. Elder Wilson will be turning up the air-conditioning.

01 June 2010 – Tuesday

We had a very interesting and blessing filled day. It could have easily been a complete disaster.

It started out perfectly. I decided we could take the other half of our P-day by going to St Lucia and going on the hippo boat ride. Mary has wanted to do this since she first heard about it and I have been dragging my feet.

The trip to St Lucia was quick and beautiful. The sky looked like it was going to open up and pour but other than a few drops here and there we stayed dry. We drove through a very bad accident at the first Mtubatuba exit but there was a fairly clear path through the debris. I think this is the third bad accident we have seen at that intersection. I imagine there are a lot of them since there is a busy road crossing a national highway.

We found out that the first boat did not leave until 11:00 so we took the opportunity to do a quick tour of some of the game reserve. We did not see a lot of animals but we did see some that we do not often see. There were at least three red duikers and one of the largest kudus we have seen. Unfortunately none of them stood still for picture taking. The duikers are especially shy and the biggest kudu kept head turned away at all times. Later we got up close and personal with another good size kudu but he was only about 75% as large as the big one.

The first problem came up when the trunk lid popped up. This is not a new thing for us and this car but this time instead of it being the lock itself it was the slot the lock goes into. It broke completely off and so I had to use the rope – I now carry rope just for this purpose – to tie it down. I also had to move all the stuff in the trunk to the back seat so it did not get wet or stolen when we parked for the ride.

As we drove out of the park, Mary saw a beautiful rainbow right in front of us. I stopped an took a couple of pictures. I thought that made up for the broken lock. However we did call the Nissan dealer and get an appointment to get it fixed tomorrow.

Even with the problem with the trunk we made it to the boat in plenty of time and had just settled into enjoy the ride when the security company called to say our house alarm had gone off. I immediately thought of the Klingers who lost their lap-tops with all their pictures just a few months before they went home. I knew the security people would not get to our house and be able to check it before the boat took off for it’s two hour ride. I decided we should not go on the ride but head for home. The people at the boat were very helpful and said we could use our tickets another day.

I called the RB elders and asked them to please drive by and to go over the wall and check the doors and windows if the security man did want to do that. We were on our way home when we got a call saying that when the elders arrived and gave him permission the security man went over the wall and found that everything was secure and it must have been a false alarm. That made me feel better but I still wanted to get home and make sure everything was OK.

As we were going down the N-2 at a brisk pace, the very large flat-bed truck just in front of us had a rear re-cap tire come completely off. The re-capped part rolled off the road and then crossed right in front of us – I was afraid that it would turn right into us and we would have a very nasty accident much like the Mickelsens did. But the Lord blessed us and it went past and came to rest between the two lanes of speeding traffic so no one got hurt.

When we got home we found everything locked up and nothing missing.  However I would just as soon not have this happen again before we leave. Being of a suspicious mind, I wonder if some one set off the alarm to see what the response time was for the security company. I remember when our business alarm went off three nights in a row and on the fourth night someone did break in and carried off some equipment. Because there had been three ‘false’ alarms in a row the security people were not in a hurry to see what was going on the fourth night.

After lunch we went up to Enseleni and checked on a number of people. We were able to meet mama Zulu’s son and he wants us to get the address of the church in his area in Joburg. We then went to mama Rose’s house but Thandeka was gone. We stopped at other houses and either dropped off pictures or took them. We ended up at the Vilanes’. President Vilane was asleep so  talked to sister Vilane about how the president was doing. She said he was getting stronger but still far from being well.

The only other excitement of the day was that brother Bartholomew called to tell us about their trip home. When they got to Joburg they had to go through some very tight security which included body pat-downs of every passenger on their plane, carry-on luggage carefully gone through and hard eyed security people everywhere.  When they finally got seated sister B found that the passenger next to her was ex-president Jimmy Carter! I hope she got a picture with him.

It really was an interesting way to start a new month here in Richards Bay.

31 May 2010 – Monday

Because the crew came to try and fix our garage door again, we decided to make it a ½ P-day and ½ working day. We made a long list of things that needed to be done for the branches and once the crew left – without the door being fixed – we set out to get everything done. A number of hours later everything that could be done was done and we felt we had accomplished a number of important tasks. None of course were earth shaking but they were all necessary.

We were having lunch at Spurs when who should show up but Elders Lerios and Bentley. They had taken their car into get some things fixed and so all the elders got into one car to do their shopping and e-mail. They call it 6-packing and you want to make sure everyone took a shower that morning before you try it.

We then spent the rest of the day at home. Mary tackled entering all the expenses for the last week or so and was going to do the medical bills but just could not stand to look at another number so worked on the puzzle instead.

I worked on getting pictures in order and some of them posted on our blog. I hope somebody besides sister Mickelsen reads the blog and enjoys the pictures. But since it is really a journal of our two missions, it serves a good purpose even if no one besides myself reads it.