07 February 2010 – Sunday

One more day without my companion…not fun at all.

I made the usual Sunday morning trip to Esikhawini to pick up President Nyawo and brother Nkosi for PEC. Sne was not going to come to PEC because he needed to be at the RB branch conference but I told him if he came to PEC I would drive him to RB.

President Nyawo still has not quite figured out how to use the PEC meeting but he is trying. I think I am going to ask President  Baldwin to have President Van Thiel do a mock PEC at the next training meeting so the branch presidents can see how it should be done.

I talked to Sne about how he was doing and how Solo and Musa were coming on getting ready for their mission. We had a good visit and it was nice to get to know him better. I just wish we had three or four good returned missionaries such as him in each branch. But that will come in the future.

I decided to stay for the sacrament part of the branch conference and I am glad I did because a couple of the talks – especially President Baldwin were very meaningful to me. Because I am a counselor in the mission presidency I was invited to sit on the stand – I was glad I was wearing my coat.

After the meeting President Baldwin asked me to go back to Esikhawini and get some PEF papers he needed for one of the loans. So I made a quick trip back and got some paperwork but not what he wanted. A call to the Mickelsens got me the information that the loan was not far enough along for the form that he thought he needed. I went back to the RB chapel and told him the situation.

However it turned out that he promised to get me a copy of a Career Workshop certificate that was vital for the loan application to continue being processed so in the long run the Lord’s work got done and the Mickelsens were happy to hear that we would bring the paperwork to Durban on Monday. Hopefully!

I almost slept through afternoon visiting hours at the hospital. It was the first nap I had taken since Mary went into the hospital almost 2 weeks ago. She looked fine, has stopped taking pain pills, and if she was not in a hospital room would be quite happy.

I fixed dinner for the elders. We had planned for it to be simple before we even knew Mary was not going to be here. Yesterday I bought everything we needed for sandwiches, chips, fruit salad, drinks and ice cream. About all the preparation I needed to do was slice tomatoes, separate the lettuce, and cut up the fruit.

The elders started arriving about 7:40 and continued coming over the next hour. Actually Elders Nare and Tsegula did not come at all but I sent food home for them. Since it is Elder Nare’s last Sunday on his mission I would guess that he and his companion got fed all day.

I enlisted Elders Wengert and Nkosi to drop some clean clothes off at the hospital so Mary would have something to come home in tomorrow…he says hopefully. It also gave me a chance to do the clean-up which mainly consisted of throwing away paper products and washing lots of forks and spoons. No pans and only one bowl – it was very nice indeed.

Before going to bed I called Mary and made sure she got the care package. She sounded upbeat and we really think Dr. Kelling will let her out tomorrow.

During the day we got a nice long e-mail from the Bs that suggested that they might come back for a visit sometime in the next few months. I also got a call from Elder Greismer telling about their experience in Engwelezane today. It was all positive and it turned out they had 5 students for their temple prep class instead of 3.

I must say in reading the above, the day sounds busier than it really was.