July 2015 – Birds, Seminary, Vaal Zone Meeting

If you have been reading this blog you will know that I feed the birds in neighborhood. It is something I also do when home in Provo. I have Alton Thygerson to thank for this habit. He is an avid birder and a little of his enthusiasm has rubbed off on me. After I have filled the feeders and then sprinkled some on the lawn, one or two birds arrive and like scouts make sure it is safe to eat. They are soon joined by a few other feathered friends. Then more and more come to eat  – it is as if an open for breakfast sign was somewhere in the yard. At times there are 30-40 weavers, sparrows, doves and pigeon all busy eating. IMG_0907 IMG_0908 IMG_0910 IMG_0910 a

Thursday is Seminary and activity time. Because many are away for the school holidays there were just four at seminary. Mary has been assigning members of the class to teach the lessons and they do a wonderful job. Today it was Shavonne Kruger’s turn. After the lesson we played a game of ‘Who am I”  where one person goes out of the room and the rest decide who he/she will be. Then the person must ask questions that can be answered by yes or no until they come up with who they are. It turned out that they were very good at the game – better than I was when I was ‘it.’

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On Friday we went to Sharpeville for Zone Meeting. On our way there we usually stop at this ‘garage’ – in America it is a gas station – along the N12 to fill up. Most of the attendants are women and while most stations have some women working the pumps usually the men greatly out number the women. These women are very friendly and efficient. Here in South Africa there is no self service – reminds us of Oregon – and the windows get cleaned, oil and water checked if you want them to and even tire pressure checked. Of course they also are paying about $5.00 a gallon for unleaded gas.

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Every transfer there is a Zone Meeting where all the elders come together to be instructed by the zone leaders about what they learned at the Mission Leadership meeting held the week before. This is usually ideas and areas that the mission president wants to have all the missionaries be aware of. In this case it included how to answer the phone properly – no ‘Yeah what do you want?”

For some reason I did not take any photos during the meeting only before and after in the parking lot. The elders enjoy getting together and just chatting about what is going on and catching up with what other elders have been doing.

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