06 July 2010 – Tuesday
I woke at 3:30 and could not go back to sleep because I kept thinking of things we needed to do before we left tomorrow. It proved to be a long day.
We left the boarding before 7 to take Mary down to get her pump removed and her incision dressed for the last time in South Africa. While she was doing that I did a number of errands – there always seem to be something to do.
We got home so Justice’s crew could do the yard and we thought some of the sisters from RB were coming over to do some house cleaning. They did come only it was about 2 hours later than we thought. We used the time to continue to clean up areas and pack. Mary made copies of the Area Book that we have been writing for the Nuzmans.ÂÂ
After the sisters came, I went out to do more errands including dropping keys off at Rose’s, going to the municipality offices to get the billing address for the water changed, and finding out how to disconnect the phone and internet.ÂÂ
When I got home the sisters had left because the water had gone off – they were working on the lines. They are going to come back a few days before the Nuzmans come and do a complete cleaning. We continued our packing and cleaning – it is beginning to sound like that is all we did all the time. We had lunch at Mugg and Bean for the last time before coming home to more of the same. I organized all the paperwork that we are leaving or still had to distribute on the table. ÂÂ
Packing is always a chore. I thought we had plenty of room and weight allowance for the few things we were taking home. I was wrong. We had to make some choices about what we would take and what we would leave…mainly about clothes. But by the time we were done we were pretty sure we were ok on weight.
We packed one bag with all the things we thought we would need in Chicago so that we would not have to open the other three bags while we were there. (note added sine 5 years later…when we got to Chicago our bags were not on the plane. Thankfully we had enough in our carry on bags to see us through our visit with Jim and his family. Our bags finally arrived some days after we got back to Provo.)
07 July 2010 – Wednesday
I am writing this almost 5 months later and there is no way to fill in the missing experiences we had as we came home from our mission. For some reason i stopped writing for over 3 months.Â
As we drove away from our South Africa home for the last time I commented to Mary that if we could get to our children and grandchildren for a reasonable cost and in a reasonable time, I would not mind living in Richards Bay. She felt the same way.
We stopped by the Engwelezane elder’s boarding and picked up Khulekani before heading off to Durban. We dropped him off at the mission home and then went to our B&B for the night. We had dinner with some of the couples and had a wonderful time. We will probably not see some of those great people ever again but we will not forget them.