We got a chance to take a picture with the Richards Bay elders at KFC. Elders Lemmon and Zondi – the end two on the right – will be leaving the area on the 6th. Elder Lemmon heads home to the US and Elder Zondi goes home to Durban and at the end of May will report to the Joburg MTC for his mission. We will miss these two fine elders. You have heard of the saying about being out until the cows come home…well today as we were about to turn on our street we almost ran into the cows coming home.
29 April 2010 – Thursday
We again spent much of the morning just doing odds and ends. Mary worked on things for her English and music classes. I posted a lot of pictures to her Face Book account – I did not take the time to write any headings. I will do that over the weekend if I have time. I was still posting pictures when Melissa Hoyt (ne Fernald) commented on how great they were. Talk about a quick response.
Elder Kitili has been having headaches for a long time and nothing seems to help so I contacted Sister Mann and got permission to make an appointment for him at Spec Savers to see if it is a problem with his eyes. I took pants to the cleaners, visited our mail box – a piles of bills, and dropped the clean and folded (thanks to sister Mickelsen) baptism clothes off at the RB Chapel.
As we drove into the parking lot at the chapel we saw the elders’ cars and realized we had completely forgotten about the RB DDM! Talk about a senior moment. We stopped long enough to apologize to the elders for missing their meeting but we did have a number of other things to do. We stopped by Spec Savers and paid for elder Kitili’s exam as we can not be there when he comes in for his appointment.
As we were ordering our lunch at KFC, I called the RB elders and suggested that since we had not brought them any treats for their DDM and two of them are leaving the area – elder Lemmon is heading home next week and elder Zondi will go home to prepare for going to the MTC in late May –that they join us for lunch. This not only gave us a chance to give them a goodbye meal but also to have our picture taken with these four fine missionaries.
The rest of our day was spent in Port Durnford where Mary taught English to just two of the usual four women, having an excellent meeting with the youth, and Mary giving Lungani a piano lesson. I taught the lesson from Jacob chapter 4 about the importance of scriptures and got each young person to commit to reading the scriptures each day this coming week for 15 minutes. We will see what comes of this.
As we were driving around today and yesterday we noticed that there were cane trucks back on the road, so the harvesting of this years crop has begun. Soon the sky will be filled with clouds of smoke from the burning fields and we will be following more and more cane trucks as they take their loads to the sugar factories. We have now lived here for a full year’s cycle of life. What a marvelous time we have had and how much we have learned about the land and the people. It is an experience we could never have had – or at least we would not have taken – with out the opportunity of going on a mission together. The Lord truly has blessed us through our membership in the only true and living church on the earth.
The first thing I did today was get the car washed. Two days of driving over gravel roads had turned our usually blue car to a shade of rusty red. Â I was lucky because there were no cars in front of me so I was in and out in 30 minutes instead of the usual hour.
We went to an excellent DDM up in Empangeni. It was Elder Kitili’s last DDM but he did not show any signs that he is trunky. He did take a lot of pictures but that is understandable.
When we came out to get in our car, I saw that the passenger front tire was dead flat. Luckily there were three strong, young elders right there to change it for us. Talk about a Tender Mercy for us if not for them. But they are always happy to help us as we are to help them so everyone is a winner.
I did not want to take a chance on a second flat without any spare, so we went back to Richards Bay and dropped off the flat to be fixed while we had lunch.
After lunch we picked up the repaired tire and then it was back to Esikhawini where Mary taught an English lesson and I went to meet with President Machaka about a number of things. Just as I was getting ready to leave, the elders drove up and we took care of some more business.
I got back to where Mary was teaching before she was done and used the time to make a number of telephone calls. I found that President Vilane was going to Swaziland for a funeral and that President Mngadi was working on his reports that are due on Saturday.
We then had a number of errands to run including getting a new microphone for Esikhawini. It seems we have to replace it about every 6 months. I am going to tape this one in place so that they can not pull on the plug which seems to be the problem.
By the time we got home it was growing quite dark – I had forgotten how early it gets dark here in the fall and winter and we are still almost 2 months away from the shortest day of the year.
I spent most of the evening working on pictures from our drive. Elder Mickelsen had downloaded what his to one of our thumb drives so I had his 130 plus our 80 or so to go through. After about 3 hours of staring at the computer screen and making adjustments I called it quits for the night.
It was a good day for us and as usual we were blessed often by the Lord.
On Saturday the 24th we came back from Durban with the mission call envelope for Elder Zondi who is serving a 6 month mission in Enseleni while waiting for his call to arrive. We invited his companion and him over to get some other things we brought from the mission office without telling him about the call arriving. You can see how excited he was about getting his call to serve in the Johanesburg misson and reporting to the MTC on May 27th.
On Sunday he was able to baptize two new members of the kingdom that they have been teaching: Mduduzi Ntshangase and Fatima Mlungwana. He is going to be really prepared to serve even before he goes into the MTC.
Our good friends and fellow missionaries the Mickelsens go home on the 17th of May. For the last four months we have tried to come up with a time when both couples could take off one or two extra days and so something special together. Due to many things coming up, including Mary getting ill and the Mickelsens trying hard to make sure that no PEF loan is left behind, it just did not happen until now.
We had two wonderful days together enjoying the beauty of South Africa – especially its wild animals. On Monday we were up before the sun and off to Umfolozi Game Reserve. Sister Mickelsen’s wish list of animals to see included cheetahs, lions, elephants and of course leopards, but she would be happy to see almost any animals.
At one of our first stops – a look-out at the top of a hill – we stopped the car and got out to see if there were any animals on the hills before us. As we were walking around we all of a sudden saw two wild dogs on the road we just came up. They were no more than 10 yards away from where we were standing.  This was the first wild dogs any of us had seen. The two, soon became three and then a pack of 10-15 appeared. What an exciting start for the day.
Throughout the morning we saw the usual collection of impalas, warthogs, zebras, giraffes, wildebeests, cape buffalo, rhinos, and even some nyalas which are not always seen in Umfolozi. These animals with the special sighting of the wild dog pack made it a good day. Then as we headed back to where we came into the park, we saw some cars parked looking at something under a tree. We asked one car that was leaving what they saw and they said there was a cheetah lying in the grass. So we were able to add the elusive cheetah to our list of animals seen on the drive. Of course this was the first one we had seen and in talking to a guide later that day he said that he had spent thousands of hours in Umfolozi and had never seen one. What a great morning.
After a quick lunch we then drove through the Hluhluwe Game Reserve on our way to Leopard Mountain Resort where we were to spend the night. We did not stop to look for animals but just as we were almost to the Memorial gate, we came across a boggy area that had buffalo, rhinos, zebras, warthogs, and giraffes all mixed in together. We had never seen anything like it. We had just passed this menagerie of animals when we came across a family of baboons sitting in and on the side of the road. Dad was getting his fleas picked by what looked like a grandson and really did not want to move so we got some great pictures. What a wonderful way to end our morning.
Leopard Mountain turned out to be a wonderful resort with excellent accommodations, food and staff. The only weakness is the game drives but we were already aware that this might be so before we came. The evening drive was pretty much anti-climatic after what we saw in Umfolozi but once the sun set, it seemed animals came out of the bush and we got to see some interesting animals in their night time mode. The best thing we saw was a very old, very big rhino that was no longer strong enough to have a place in a herd so he will spend the rest of his life wandering around alone.
Dinner was served outside and we found that Nyala was a very tasty meat. By the time dinner was finished all we could thing about was getting to our room and beds – it had been a long and wonderful day.
Tuesday again started just after 5:00 a.m. as we got up to get ready for the morning drive. Once again there were few animals to see. Johan, our fine guide, tried his best to make things interesting by talking about birds, spiders and plants, but after wild dogs and a cheetah it was not very exciting.
We had a nice late breakfast while looking out over the beautiful landscape. Then we packed up, checked out and headed back for Hluhluwe. Yesterday we saw a lone elephant high on the hillside that looked more like a dot with large ears than a might elephant so I was determined to find an elephant for Sister Mickelsen before we left the park and headed home.
The first animals we saw were three Cape buffalo rolling around in a big mud hole. Behind the buffalo were two giraffes eating their breakfast. This setting made for some great pictures. We went another kilometer or so and found ourselves literally in the middle of a herd of 40 – 50 cape buffalos that wandered across the road in front of us. Once again we were able to get some great close up pictures of mature and immature animals. As we drove around the loop, we came across more groups of buffalo – there must have been at least 100 in the area.
By the time we were finished with that loop our time was getting short so we decided to do one more loop and then go home. As we were driving along we saw some cars stopped with people pointing down the mountain to a valley. When we looked through the binoculars what at first we thought were rhinos turned out to be a very large herd of elephants. We quickly made our way down to the area and for 30 minutes or so we were able to watch and take pictures of over 50 of these remarkable animals. There were everything from the smallest baby we had every seen – about the size of very large dog I would say – to full grown males and everything in between. They drank, ate, tossed dirt on their backs, rolled in the dirt, sucked, and two ‘teen-agers’ played tag. It was a wonderful experience and sister Mickelsen certainly got to see her elephant.
As we were driving out to the main road to head for home, a lioness and her cub came down the road and walked into the bush. It happened so fast that the only picture elder Mickelsen and I could get was a poor shot I got of the cub. So no good pictures but sister Mickelsen did get to see a lion. We had just started up again when what do we see walking down the middle of the road towards us but daddy! He was just strolling along checking out the ground in front of him.
This time we were able to get pictures of him coming at us, then walking pass the car on the berm on the side of the road and finally heading into the bush. I have to say that seeing a free ranging lion that close gets my heart pounding. Â
By the time the lion had disappeared it was getting close to the time we needed to leave if the Mickelsens were not going to have to drive home really late at night, so I hurried out with only a stop to take a picture of a very large white rhino that was not far from the road. We did not even slow down for the young giraffe that watched us drive by 50 feet or less away.
We left the park and drove to Richards Bay where we had dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant, down-loaded the 150 plus pictures that elder Mickelsen took on our trip, and said goodbye until we see them just before they head home in May. We were so glad that the two days turned out so well and we saw so many beautiful and exotic animals.
We got calls from a couple of our elders. We found out that one of the elders had been very ill for the last 18 hours. His companion told us his symptoms and so as soon as we said goodbye to the Mickelsens we drove to Empangeni and dropped off some medicine and counsel. We were happy to hear he seems to have stopped loosing liquids. However his head ached and his stomach was churning. We will check with him again tomorrow morning.
Later in the evening, Elder Dimene and elder Zondi stopped by so I could solve a problem for them. While they were here elder Dimene mentioned that he was getting a headache. In the past this was the prelude for a full on attack. I told him that he knew exactly how he felt when an attack came and if he felt the symptoms coming on that he must call me immediately so we could get him checked out at the hospital.
It is good to be needed – but I always feel bad when an elder gets sick – especially since they try to work through the illness until they can not possibly go out. We worry about each of them while they serve here. They become like our own children and we try to take care of them as we would hope other would take care of our children and grandchildren if we were not there.
It was a very eventful day in Richards Bay. It started with us picking up the Esikhawini walking elders because the Zone leaders were up at Kosi Bay. I then went to Esikhawini’s PEC and I think we got quite a bit accomplished.
President Baldwin had called me yesterday to say that he wanted to show conference in Esikhawini and asked me to have Port Durnford join them. I called president Machaka so he could let his members know and arrange transportation.
President Baldwin came well prepared for the meeting – he even brought black plastic bags to cover the windows. There was an amazing turnout – 101 for the first two hours and 67 for the second. Anyone with small children really could not stay for the second hour.
After watching some of the first session we went to Richards Bay to take part in the baptisms. What a wonderful day with 8 baptisms from Engwelezane and 3 from Enseleni. I got to help get all the Engwelezane candidates and PH clothed in white and serve as a witness with Elder Reeves as the other. There was a great spirit at both baptisms. Elder Zondi got to do one of the Enseleni baptisms. What a great weekend for him. He got his mission call last night and got to baptize someone today.
The Mickelsens came up this morning and went to the Enseleni meetings. They said that the room was packed. They then came to Richards Bay to join in their baptisms. After the baptisms I loaded all the clothes – and there was a pile of them – into our car so we could wash them.
The Mickelsens followed us back to our boarding where we enjoyed a nice dinner and then played Mexican Train. After that we worked on our blogs before heading off to bed.
I called President Mann to tell him about elder Zondi’s call and then sent him a text message about the baptisms. I did not mention that next week there will be five or six more baptisms. We are winning.
We start the day with one of Grace’s delicious breakfasts before heading to the Essenwood craft market. It is always a mistake for us to go to a market like this – especially if we are already primed to buy. We ended up with more than we should have bought but we did not buy as much as we could have in the two hours we spent there.
The morning was overcast and quite cool – I loved it – and by the time we approached the Empangani turnoff we were getting some rain. We caught a quick lunch at KFC before going to the Esikhawini chapel so Mary could teach her piano lessons. Only three of her five students came but one had sent a SMS saying they could not come and the other does not come while it is raining because he has to walk a long distance.
While Mary taught her students, I had a chance to talk to some of the RS sisters who arrived for a meeting. It was not very well attended because of the rain and the lack of transportation. After the lessons we headed home, stopping only to buy some things we needed for Sunday dinner with the Mickelsens.
During the day we called Elder Zondi and asked him and his companion to please stop at our boarding before they went home for the evening. We also invited the RB elders to stop in so they could be here when he opened his mission call.
Elder Zondi had no idea that his call had arrived so when I gave him the enveloped he was shocked. We called his parents so they could share in the experience. He was of course very excited about opening the envelope and reading the call to us and his family. I got some great pictures of his face as he found that he was going to the Joburg mission and has only about a month to get ready. 2 of those weeks will be spent still on his temporary mission here in RB.
It was a wonderful way for us to end this day. Another righteous son of God willing spending two years of his life in serving the Lord by bringing the gospel to his brothers and sisters.
We drove to Durban today so we could drop off two boxes that the Manns were kind enough to allow us to put in their container and to pick up some Elder Zondi’s mission call and other things that the elders needed. Also so we could go to Essenwood Market to get some things to take home to our kids and grandkids – also of course a few things for ourselves. We made our usual stop at Ballito to have lunch and to pick up some food items that we can not get anywhere else. We also were able to get things for Sister Mann.
It was a beautiful day for the drive down the N2 with miles after miles of green fields of cane or trees. The sea shows up from time to time on our left reminding us that we are just a few miles from the beach.
After stopping in at the mission office to do the necessary dropping off and picking up we went to Little Haven to check in for the evening. As always we were greeted like family by the wonderful Rawlings. We will miss this fine couple who after Sister Mann was the first members we met in South Africa.
We had decided to go to a pub where we really love their food and started calling the other couples to see if they wanted to go with us. We were happily joined by the Mickelsens, Coxes and Davises for an evening for good talk and good friends. We love to share the experiences of the other couples. Each of us have different calling so many of our experiences are unique to one couple but there are of course many that we all have. We did not want to stop but we finally broke up the party went home.
We started the day by going to the hospital for what we hope was the last time – at least the nurse said Mary did not have to go back. Then we went to Esikhawini to solve a problem for Sbongele Nvlovu before going on to the DDM meeting at Empangeni. It was a well run meeting that concentrated on training on the ‘How Great Shall Be Your Joy’ program for working with members .
After lunch I spent way too much time on the phone solving problems and then letting people know what was going on. During the afternoon we found out that the nationwide strike was finally over so we might get our trash picked up some day. Unfortunately the office that prints maps had closed down during the strike and will not be open until Monday.
In the evening I went to the Richards Bay to meet with Calwyn Baldwin for a couple of hours to catch up paperwork.
22 April 2010 – Thursday
It was a very usual and unexciting Thursday for us. We went to DDM with Richards Bay, ran some errands then on to Port Durnford for English class, Youth and piano lessons
We had a very quiet Monday that we mainly spent at home relaxing, cleaning house, doing laundry, etc. I called the Mickelsens to talk about next week and found that they were both not feeling well. Sister Mickelsen said that the Coxes were also ill. We were sorry to hear about this and hope they all get well soon.
20 April 2010 – Tuesday
Medical day for us – we seem to have had a lot of these over the last 10 weeks. Today we met a group of elders at the Care Doc clinic where three of them got booster shots and one went to the eye doc. Anything we do with the elders is good fun – elder Musisi really did not like getting his shot, elder Dimene who was worried before hand came through it like a champ, and elder Moremong took his shot and his eye exam in stride. We were happy to find that elder Moremong did not need glasses but did have an infection that needed some drops to correct. He got a letter from Specsavers saying that his vision is 20/20 so he can get his drivers license without buying glasses.
We also did a number of errands including getting a sign for Esikhawini. Since it was a duplicate of one we had made for Enseleni, it only took about 4 hours from when we ordered it to when we picked it up. Elder Lieros and I had a chance to talk a little about the YSA at Port Durnford and we found that Gabi had moved back to the family homestead and had come to Church on Sunday.
It was very strange day because we did not have to rush around getting ready by 6:45 so we could be in Esikhawini by 7:30. Instead we had a leisurely morning but with a little excitement when the power went out while I was ironing my shirt. We supposed it was one of the normal shut downs that happens fairly regularly but for some reason I had the feeling that I should check our breakers. It is a good thing I did because it was just our house that had lost power and until I flipped the main breaker nothing was going to happen.
We got to RB early so we could say hello to everyone. It turned out a number of people were not there. The De Klerks did not come in because one of their sons was bitten by a very dangerous snake. President Baldwin and president Vezi were in Kosi Bay for a visit and the Duplooys were at Engwelezane so Mark could speak there.
Everything went well until just before Mary was to speak and then the power went off. This time it was not just the chapel but the whole area and it stayed off for the rest of the meeting and beyond. But we both are able to speak loud enough that everyone could hear us – except a couple of the young men who slept through the meeting. Mary’s talk was excellent and I thought mine was OK. At least it felt good and a couple of the members were nodding in agreement at the right time. Freddy came up after the meeting and said that he could hear and understand everything we said. This is not always true for him because he has to use a hearing aid and sometimes they speak so softly he can not hear.
Before the meeting I introduced myself to a woman I did not know and found that she had just came back from New Zealand where she has lived for 4 years. She said the area she lived in had about 20,000 people from South Africa and when she went to church she found out the bishop there had been one of her bishops here. She hopes to go back in a year or so with a new work visa.
I had planned to meet with Calwyn Baldwin and get some records straightened out but with the power off we could not use the computers so we changed it to Wednesday night before the meeting. Mary and sister Khumalo were going to meet with Jackie Duplooy so they could give her some training but she must have decided to go to Engwelezane with her husband.
When we drove up to the library in Enseleni we knew there was a problem because the elder’s car was parked outside the gate. It turned out that due to the municipal strike the library could not be used and we could not even meet on the grounds. So I suggested we meet at a member’s home and the elders went out and got permission to meet in the Gumede’s garage. We just held sacrament with two short talks – there were 38 members –including 5 investigators – present which is pretty good since a number of members had heard there would be no meetings today. They had the same problem in Engwelezane so they met at President Moloi’s house. They had 63 in attendance.  It shows how faithful many of the saints are in these two branches. Hopefully the strike will be settled by next week or we will not be able to show conference in those branches.
In the evening we had the elders over for dinner. I am not sure how excited some of the African elders were with roast beef – it is something they never have had before. I noticed that one did not even try it. But there was plenty of mashed potatoes – well there should have been plenty – corn, fruit salad, rolls, chocolate cake, and ice cream so I do not think anyone went home hungry.
So it was an interesting Sabbath day here in Richards Bay. There were problems but it did not stop the work from going forward.
We got a chance to take a picture with the Richards Bay elders at KFC. Elders Lemmon and Zondi – the end two on the right – will be leaving the area on the 6th. Elder Lemmon heads home to the US and Elder Zondi goes home to Durban and at the end of May will report to the Joburg MTC for his mission. We will miss these two fine elders. You have heard of the saying about being out until the cows come home…well today as we were about to turn on our street we almost ran into the cows coming home.
