On Friday the 5th, the branch and missionaries put up a street display. In the past we did it on a Saturday morning but we decided to see if the evening display when people are coming home from work would provide more men who were head of households. The three hours produced about 50 names and hopefully one or two will be baptized in the next month or two.

As usual the booth was set up under the KFC sign on the busiest corner near the chapel. The hope is that those who come by live close enough that they can walk to the chapel in less than 30 minutes. President Kwaikwai and brother Thomas are setting up the display. Brother Thomas is an investigator but from  the way he talked to the people about the Church you would think he had been a member for a long time. He will be baptized in a couple of weeks. One of the others who helped is a recent convert who was just baptized last month. Their testimonies and willingness to serve is powerful.

Elders Perez and Lohmann watch – well they were watching before I started to take a picture – one of the men who came by sign up for a Book of Mormon or a video that the elders will deliver in the next week or two. In the background you can see brother Thomas hard at work as a woman he was talking to walks away with a passalong card.

Here are a few shots that really do not fit into other posts but show part of mission experiences.

If you look carefully past the right side of this pile of trash you will see a piece of playground equipment. Piles of trash is something you just get use to in townships as often they do not have trash pickup or people can not afford to pay for it. So they just pile it up in areas and then often they burn it so on any given day you will see lots of columns of smoke rising up over the houses. I took this picture of a great looking fence. Often you fences like this protecting very humble homes. However here the house was neat and clean.

Another picture of the birds gathering at our feeder. We have counted as many as 15 birds in our yard at one time as they seek out the feed we spread around. The last picture shows a house in progress. Notice there is a fence already in place. That is because they tore down an older house to build this one.

Wow am I behind in writing about our experiences and commenting on the pictures. I wish I could say that it was because I was so busy but the truth is that I just grow lazy at times. On the 28th we went to do apartment inspections up/over to Ennerdale where two companionships live in different apartments in the same complex. It is a good 90 minute drive and none of it is very interesting. But meeting with the missionaries – we see them only two or three times a transfer – and getting to know them at least a little is one of the tender mercies of a senior mission.

On the way back to Potchefstroom we stopped in Parys and had a nice visit with sister Bobbi who we helped move to a new flat just a week ago. She loves her new flat and I think it is much nicer than her old one. After our visit we took the long way home by going on a route we had never traveled before and probably will not take again. I will have to take some pictures of the views along the way but if you have ever driven across Kansas you have a pretty good idea of what it is like. What is funny about that is I mentioned this to Mary as we were traveling and she told me that it was exactly what she was thinking at that time. I guess 58 years together – 56

The next day – Friday the 29th – we went to district meeting. Since this was the last one before transfers we kept up our tradition of taking the missionaries to McDonalds for lunch. Elder and Sister Dummer are now part of the tradition and shared the cost.

While we were inspecting the Ennerdale elder’s flat, the Zone Leaders dropped in on their way to the mission office to pick up supplies and mail. So I got a picture of elders Pedersen and Stilgoe bookending elders Flynn and Menendez. A few days later elders Pedersen and Flynn were transferred to new areas so it is kind of like the last picture of the 4 of them together. The Orange Farm elders – Dutson and Puis – also got a last picture as elder Puis was transferred.

On the board behind elder Otieno is the prediction squares – at the last district meeting the elders often make predictions about who is going to be transferred and where they will be serving. I predicted that no one was going to be transferred because all the companionships had only been together for a single transfer. It turned out I was wrong. Elder Lohmann is comfortably watching the predictions. You will notice he has his coat on because it is colder inside the building than it is outside.

Smiles all around – Mary, Elders Perez, a little piece of elder Larsen, Fidel, Graham and Lohmann. Then it was off to McDonalds for lunch with E/S Dummer and the missionaries.

Elders Fidel and Otieno with elder Larsen once again hidden. Finally I got a picture of elder Larsen with his famous smile. He was sitting next to a young lady who I approached and gave a passalong card. I then mentioned to elder Larsen that she lived in his area and he should get her name and phone number.

I was having some problems uploading pictures to the blog but it seems Jim fixed it so now I need to do a little catching up. Last Friday we inspected the Klerksdorp/Jouberton flat. It is a very nice stand alone house with lots of bedrooms, a big kitchen, and a large living room/dining room. For the most part the elders did a great job cleaning up for us. After the inspection we went to district meeting and for some reason I did not take a single picture. However as usual it was a spiritual experience as we discussed mission work in the district and how to improve member lessons so they want to be more involved in helping the missionaries.

The kitchen is much larger than ours as is the living room. Our flat is considered the nicest one in the mission but this has it beat for size. It helps that it owned by a member who lives next door.

Elder Otieno looks over the equipment list while Mary starts inspecting. Almost any flat we go into has lots of white shirts on racks being dried or ironed. The house is big enough that they can devote a complete room for this

The elders take their shoes off while inside. They can do this because much of the floor is carpeted. This is the main bathroom which also has a shower.

After district meeting we went to the Sandwich Baron for lunch. The Drummers could not join us because they had to go to an appointment in Jouberton. The food was very good and they had strips of bacon on the breakfast sandwich. I commented to the manager that we had never seen bacon in strips in any store. He told us that they got it special from a supplier in Joburg. As we were leaving I had to take a picture of the motorcycle used for delivery. It reminded me of the hundreds of them that we saw almost every day on our mission to Indonesia.

 

During the day we went visiting and at one of the homes we met this man with the great looking hat and smile. The person we were looking for was not home and the man did not speak very good English but he loved the picture I took. In the evening we were invited to have dinner with the Dummers. They came over to Potchefstroom and we went to an Ocean Basket restaurant that had delicious Kingsklip. Near the end of the meal they told us that this was their 46th anniversary! We were happy that we got to share it with them. During the day

 

On Thursday we made another trip up to Parys to help sister Bobbi with the last of her moving to her new flat and on the way home I saw this herd of Bontebok and took a picture. What I did not realize was that there was a nice looking Springbok lying in the grass who stood up just before I took the shot. We love to see the birds come to eat from the feeder and I was able to catch this beautiful yellow bird catching a little snack.

During the week Elders Perez, Lohmann and ourselves made the 30 mile trip up to the city of Parys (Parr – is)  to help sister Bobbi move to her new flat. You can see how excited she was to have her picture taken.

The elders, myself and a young lady who works for sister Bobbi did most of the work because she is not well and of course still insists on helping. The elders took down her computer at the old flat and got it back running  in the new one. I was very glad to let them do this because they have known computers all their lives and I think of them as tools.

I think the same about cellphones which is why I was very happy when elder Perez figured out how to make it so I get audio notices when a SMS comes in. I have had a number of people – including elder Lohmann try with out success. But in just minutes elder Perez had it happily chiming away. If you look at the elder’s legs you can see that they do not get a lot of time to lie around in the sun getting tans.

 

Of course when sister Bobbi moved her pug-nosed dog Louis came along. Louis thinks he is a human – only better – and sister Bobbi treats him that way. At the back of this picture you can see Paulina – sister Bobbi’s helper for the last 6 years. I told her she deserved a number of gold stars for lasting that long. Sister Bobbi laughed and agreed. Mary was happy to sit with and talk while the elders got some of the boxes emptied. BTW so was I.

One of the things we try to do is wish members happy birthday. We do not always manage to do this on the right day, but in sister Thulo’s case we did. I had to show a picture of our new hose pipe.  Here you can get them cut to length and then you put on connectors. In this case it is 3/4″ in diameter and 25 meters long. I can not water the plants and lawn in our backyard and when we have a baptism I will take it to fill up the font!

After showing you all the birds we get, I decided to get a bird feeder so that we could have them all the time. Yes I put the top on crooked but I have since fixed that problem.

I love to feed the birds in our area. Here are some of them but except for the common English sparrow I do not know their names. I have a book on birds of South Africa but of course left it at home. But I think you can enjoy the pictures without worrying about what they are called – as Sam our driver in Indonesia would say when I asked him the name of birds there – they are birds!

District Meetings are always enjoyable to go to and share some time and learning with the elders.

Elder Otieno has my respect because he always starts the meeting on time no matter how many are there. In this case the elders Flynn and Menendez, the Zone Leaders were just a couple of minutes late. Since they had to drive about 140K to get to the meeting that is not bad.

Elder Larsen was asked to lead the music and he did a very credible job. Later in the meeting he and elder Graham, his companion, gave an excellent lesson on having the right member present at teaching opportunities. After the meeting there is the parting ritual. Elder Perez is shaking hands with elder Menendez. They went to school together in Southern Utah. The always smiling elder Otieno is seen in the background.

Elder Larsen poses for camera while elder Otieno smiles for me. All the elders in the district plus the ZLs are in the last picture.

There are some amazing gates and fences in the townships. Some day I am just going to go around and take pictures of them and doors on homes. When I got to looking at this one I decided it is really a sculpture of an angry owl…do you see it. From angry owl to love birds sitting on our back fence. I thought they made a great picture.

Last week we talked to E/S Dummers about going to a game preserve that is about 2 hours from our house. I had checked and they opened at 7 every day of the week. So E/S early Monday morning they arrived at our house and we loaded up the car and headed off for a P-day adventure. We were excited because about the only wild animals we had seen were the guinea fowls that are sometimes along the road.

 

We had planned to go to the Suikerbosrand game reserve. I had called earlier in the week to find what time they opened and that they were open on Mondays. As we were making the abur two hour drive I kiddingly said that it would be just our luck to arrive to find that it was some kind of holiday and the park would be closed. I should have kept my mouth shut because when we got to the gate we were told that due to a large fire over the weekend the were closed until it was cleaned up. We did not even get to see a single animal!

Elder Dummer got on his GPS and found that about 30 minutes away was a bird sanctuary. Not wild animals but it sounded OK. When we got there it turned out the sanctuary closed a long time ago and it was now a housing development. However the lake was still there and a few birds but not worth the trip. Strike 2

 

We then decided to go see the famous dome outside of Parys where 2 billion years – give or take a few – ago a meteor hit and changed the landscape for hundreds of miles and put dust in the air that changed the climate for years afterwards. On the way we stopped to have lunch at a park we knew about along the Vaal river. That went well and it was nice to sit in the sun and enjoy a quiet lunch.

 

The river is very low – notice the white lines on the rock. In january it will be as high as the top of these stairs or higher. It floods part of the town each year.

We got to share the area with a couple of dogs who obviously know where to go for some lunch. The bridge in the background use to allow you to cross over onto an island but the island end has been blocked off but you can still go to the middle of bridge and take some nice pictures.

We shared part of our lunch with a stranger who was near the bridge. i gave him a Faith in Christ passalong card which he seemed to be as happy to get as he was the sandwich. We then left to go to the dome and along the way saw some antelope on a ranch that raises them to sell to other parks and to places who offer exotic meals. We had never seen either the Springbok above or the Bontebok below on any of our many trips to game parks on our first mission to Africa.

  

While we were in Parys we stopped at the local tourist information center and asked about the road to the dome entrance. We were told it was 15K of good road and we could make 60 to 80K per hour. When we actually got to the road we found that it was terrible. A really rough, washboard that limited travel in our car to about 10K per hour. As we did not want to spend 90 minutes or more bouncing all over the place we turned around and made for home.

So we did not get to see any of the attractions we tried for but we had a great day with E/S Dummer, a lovely lunch along the river and we even saw a couple of antelope species we had never seen before. So it was a matter of counting our blessings instead of counting animals!