Will post a lot more later – for now this is just a place holder. The great Vaal Zone!    

We invited elders Liera and Taylor over for lunch and afterwards they helped with our half-finished puzzle. It turned out that both were keen puzzle workers and they got it far enough along that we were able to finish it on Tuesday.

Monday evening we were in charge of the YSA Family Home Evening where Bill provided the lesson on elder Bednar’s talk “Being Converted unto the Lord.” This was followed by a wild game of Book of Mormon “Go Fish” and then some of Mary’s delicious chocolate chip Rice Krispy treats. It was not until later that we realized that she spent the day surrounded by men because no sisters came to FHE. But she is kind of use to this since we have four sons and only one beautiful daughter.

   

We have been blessed to have two of our grandchildren serving missions at the same time. Sister McKay Pier has been serving in Seattle while elder Shane Webb has been serving in Spain. They both are coming home within days of each other and will give their reports in their ward on the same day. We are proud of all of our grandchildren but we share a special bond with these two because we have been serving missions at the same time they have. We look forward to August 2015 when we can finally give them both and the rest of our family big hugs…

  

On our way home from Botswana we had a chance to stop into a game reserve just outside Mafikeng and spent 3 hours looking for some animals. I think we were the only car in the reserve during that time other than the game wardens. We did manage to see a couple of rhinos and got up close and personal with three giraffes but mainly the animals were quick to bolt when the car came near. So most of my pictures were taken with a lot of magnification. What we were surprised not to see was a single zebra. I am sure this is the only time we have been to a reserve that had zebras and did not see one – the park rangers and the Taylors said there are large herds but they must have all decided to gather outside our view.  However it was fun to drive and look for animals, have a quick snack at a picnic area and then come home after a nice break.

        

I had to chuckle when an elder told me his mother told him to stop sending pictures of clouds and send her pictures of himself and his companion. I take lots of pictures and a goodly number are of clouds. Thursday as we drove two of Mary’s seminary students home, I had to stop and take a picture of the sun setting over a small lake. Later that night I noticed how the full moon – or close to a full moon and the clouds made a great looking picture.

This is the home of the students we took home. It has been in the family for a couple of generations and will probably stay in the family for years to come. Just inside the fence was these beautiful flowers. With the sun and now the rain, the NorthWest is becoming filled with flowers and blooming trees.

Friday we went to Klerksdorp for District Meeting where the only picture I took was of this mime. There is a crew of them that stand in the middle of the street and perform. They have a can for the motorists to made donations. I have yet to hit it – even when we are stopped. In the afternoon we needed to take one of the missionaries into the emergency room – a mistake on our part because we could have taken him to our doctor – where we spent 4 1/2 hours waiting for him to finish being treated. But it was worth the wait because today he says that he feels great. This is our third trip to the clinic in 3 months or so. Hopefully we will make it through the rest of our mission without having to do it again.

I accidentally took this picture of my keyboard. I was about to trash it when I realized how dirty it is so I decided I should post the picture and shame myself into cleaning it.

One of the fun parts of going on missions is the gathering of souvenirs that you can display around your house and later the children can decide what they want and give the rest to DI! We were blessed when we were in Indonesia to have a way of getting boxes home at almost no expense. Also they cost almost nothing – I can remember bartering with a vendor and realized that we were haggling over a nickel! So of course we bought lots of things to bring home.

On our first mission to South Africa we were blessed to because President and Sister Mann were going home just a few days before we were and the container they are allowed was not full so they told the senior couples that they could put their boxes in the container and then pick them up in Idaho when we came up for their mission report.

Florida was really easy because we had our van there and we could pack just about anything that we chose to take home. However we did not get much there – after all we were in the US and nothing was very ‘native’ that we could not get on line.

So now we are back in Africa and although we probably will not buy much, we have started to accumulate some things that we will need to either put in our suitcases or send off via a package. We did bring a few things from home – mainly batik hangings from Indonesia. But they are easy to fold up and pack.

The three batik hangings are from Indonesia. Because they not framed they are easy to take with us but when we are finished going on missions I will have them framed. The giraffe in the picture with the house batik is our big $9 purchase here that I am trying to figure out how to get home.  The elephant, nativity set and two Christmas ornaments were bought in Kimberly.

The gourd nativity set has figures made from banana leaves and we got it when we were with the Taylors early in this mission. Then on Tuesday we were with them again when Mary bought this wood nativity set.

This very beautiful stone nativity came from our trip to Kimberly with elder and sister Dummer. Going places with other couples can become expensive. But we will be able to enjoy these while we are here and long after we have said goodbye to Africa for probably the last time.

With the permission of our mission president we took a three day trip to Botswana to spend some time with our special friends elder and sister Taylor. We served with them in Indonesia and they spent the first few months of this mission in the Joburg mission before going on to the Botswana mission where they were actually called.

They have some major problems with immigration and so there are only 7 young missionaries serving within Botswana at this time. The mission president and his wife live there but the Taylors have only a few days left on their temporary visa and then they must leave. Hopefully their appeal with be granted so they can stay for another year.

Elders Antonou and Basima are the only elders serving in Gaborone – that is pronounced Hab-a -roan-ee. Up north in Francis Town there are two elders and three sisters. Please pray that the government will allow the Lords missionaries to have visas so that they can bring others unto Him.

Unusual Big 5 Carving…I do not imagine there are any senior couples who serve a mission in South Africa who do not come home with at least one carving, painting, or sculpture of the big 5 – that is cape buffalo, black rhino,leopard, elephant, and of course the mighty lion. We have seen many different ones but I think this is the first I had ever seen the big 5 carved on a large fish! It is carved front and back, 24″ long, about 5″ tall, 3″ wide in the middle and cost a whole $15 US! All the animals are great looking except for the leopard.

The carving is actually hollow at the bottom so we are thinking about how to add lights to make it even more interesting.

After traveling up to Joburg on Tuesday we took elders Liera and his new companion up to Parys to meet sister Bobbi and her dear friend Louis. After a nice visit we took a short walk near her flat where we took a look at a restaurant that is nestled in a lovely forest setting. She then showed us a very unusual tree. The rainbow eucalyptus basically sheds it bark and this exposes a multi-coloured (I put the u in because sister Bobbi says Americans can not spell correctly) inner skin. This tree had muted blues, pinks and grays but if you google the name you will see that other ones can be amazingly colorful (without a u.)

On Friday the new Ikageng district met for the first time. Elder McAllister is elder Mukasa new companion while elder Rami’s new companion is elder Oldroyd new companion.

Here is the whole district with elder and sister Dummer. I found out that elder Rami is elder Taylor grandson!

During the week there was a very heavy rain storm here in Ikageng. In Klerksdorp where we hold the district meetings there was a powerful hail storm that tore up the chapel roof and then the rain flooded much of the building. To give you an idea of how much water got into the building, this chair has about an inch of water sitting in it. It is going to take a lot of work to get things dried out for Sunday’s meeting. Unfortunately almost all the hymn books got wet.

Friday morning I got a photo of this flock of about a dozen weavers and sparrows having breakfast in our backyard. I can not seem to get enough pictures of the red bishop weavers – there are at least two males who visit – so here is the latest.

Here are a few more pictures that I took at transfer meeting…

Elder Lyon talking to elder Rami. In another transfer post there is a picture of the two of them facing the camera. I was taking a picture of elder Johnson when this elder walked between us.

Later I got a picture of elder Johnson with  sister Dunn and her mother who is visiting from the US. Elder Rushton is the new companion with our dear friend elder Perez.

Elders Perkins and Johnson are now companions serving in Tembisa 1. Elder Liera stays in Ikageng with elder Taylor from Arizona as his companion.

We had to have one last photo with elder Perez as he moved to his new area and companion.