January 2013

Tom had another good and interesting experience in the temple.  He was asked to be a follower on the first session of the shift.  I went along as a patron.  We usually don’t have brother followers on sessions here just the officiator and a sister follower.  The reason he was asked to go in was to help Elder Rakotonjanahary, from Madagascar, as he officiated his first session after being here for a number of months.  His English is not very good, but he is anxious and willing.  He actually did pretty well.   Tom had to give him a few clues, but it went well and it was fun for Tom to be of help.  When we were done his wife, who was the sister follower, thanked Tom for helping her husband and being patient with him.  He also thanked Tom and gave him a big hug.  After being in Japan we can understand the problem when you don’t know the language very well.  There are a number of languages here that the regular temple workers need to deal with, many more than we ever could imagine in Spokane.

The Eppels have been assigned a major project in Madagascar.  They will leave on January 31^st and won’t return until March 2^nd.  They will be training priesthood leaders and doing all but one of the 41 units’ audits in the country.  One audit will usually take about 2 hours when the data is good, which in many cases is not true.  These will also be done in French, which Elder Eppel speaks only a little, which will add additional time to the audits.  They will be busy traveling, training, and auditing the whole time they are there.  We told them they might come back older than we are when in reality they are about 9 years younger.  Obviously there is something needed in Madagascar to require this much effort.  Elder and Sister Rakotonjanahary’s name is typical of what names are like in Madagascar.   We are glad the Eppels have Madagascar as one of their countries. 

 

One Friday morning this month we left early for Botswana.  We followed directions we got from Google and only made two wrong turns.  It took about an hour to process the papers at the border and in all about 6 hours to get to Gaborone.  We enjoyed seeing Bob and Janet Rands from Spokane who are serving in Gaborone as the seminary and institute directors.  We had lunch with them and then went to a small game reserve near where they live.  We saw lots of warthogs including some babies who were nursing.  We also saw zebras, impala, monkeys, and a couple of large antelope called elands.  We also went by the place where they filmed the movie “The First Ladies Detective Agency”.  The set was in pretty sad shape as the weather has caused it to deteriorate.  When we got back to the Rands they showed us the first part of the movie on video.  We could see what the set had looked like originally. 

Verdet Monkey


Hartebeest

      Ladies #1 Detective Agency/ Warthogs

 

The next morning we trained President Clement Magswagothata and his counselors and clerks of the new Gaborone, Botswana Stake in their new financial responsibilities.  They are enthusiastic and well organized.  We think they will do very well in getting the audits done and in teaching the local units to follow church policies.  We left about noon for home.  This time it only took about a half hour at the border and we followed our GPS and were home by five.  The GPS took us home a slightly different route.  One interesting sidelight – along the shoulders of the main highways in Botswana graze cattle, goats and even donkeys.  One has to keep an eye open not to run over some stray who takes a mind to cross the road.

 

The car we were assigned to drive had about 5,000 to 6,000 kilometers on it when we got it.  The car needs to be serviced every 15,000 km.  Well we hit that a little while ago; so we made arrangements with the Area car manager to have the car serviced today.  He led us on a very exciting 20 km drive in rush hour traffic.  He knows the way, but we didn’t have a clue where we were going.  Except for the bus that almost crushed us it went well.  We had to go back and get the car after work and that went much better.  The lady at the Nissan dealership said we were good until the car reached 30,000 km or a year went by; so unless the car breaks we should never have to have it serviced again.

We are getting ready for the audits for year-end 2012, but there probably won’t be many done until February.  We hope they all start early and get them done by the March 15 deadline.  We are also getting started planning our assistant area auditor conference that will be held on April 25-27, 2013; so we are keeping busy.

The Area Office is in the process of completing the annual history for 2012.  Each department has to write the happenings they experienced during the last year.  Tom did a great job of doing the history for the auditors.  The main progress we made was in the calling of all the local assistant area auditors.  These brethren will make a difference in being able to train and follow through with the local priesthood leaders in seeing that church financial policies and procedures are observed.  The Eppels had a touching experience as they trained in a very remote area in the Congo.  I will share with you what Sister Eppel related.

“One of the highlights of 2012 was a training trip to the remote Luputa Stake in the Kasai Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  What a wonderful training meeting!  There were 41 men in white shirts and ties reverently seated and prepared for the meeting.  The singing of the Church hymns was beautiful.  There was such a strong spirit.  The Stake President was a fine young man.  They all sat attentive during the training – very participative and involved.  All in all an incredibly spiritual experience and well worth the difficult trip.

The next morning at about 7am on the return journey the area auditors passed a Bishop riding his bicycle back to Mwene Ditu.  Amazing to think he had ridden all that way to attend his meetings the day before and who knows what time he had left that morning on his way home again.  A two and a half hour trip by car!!  The commitment to and love of the gospel of that group of priesthood leaders was truly inspiring.”

This last Friday night Loretta Sibanyoni from our ward received her own endowments. We gave her the temple preparation lessons in Tembisa.  I was able to be her escort, except since I was also on shift as an ordinance worker, I was also the follower on the session.  She confided that she had seen negative comments about the temple when she “googled” the church shortly after becoming a member about two years ago.  So she was a little nervous about going.  She said it was much different than what it said on Google.  The assistant matron who gave her the instruction did it in a loving and comprehensible manner.  Hearing her do that brought up sweet memories of the times when I was privileged to do the same thing.  We took her to Muggs and Bean, a small restuarant,  for something to eat afterward and then home to Tembisa.  Understandably she didn’t want to take a combie (taxi) home by herself so we offered to take her home.

Yesterday Crystal and Eric arrived! They brought us mail (Christmas cards mostly), brown sugar, vanilla pudding and most important themselves.  It is so good to see them.  We took them to the devotional this morning and will go to a family home evening tonight.  They even walked with us at 5 this morning.  They will be here for two weeks.

 

 

 

December 2012

 

 

Early in the month we attended a community Christmas concert at a nearby univeristy auditorium. It was delightful. There were about 40 people in the chorus, 20 female and 20 male. These were all young people and the majority were black. Maybe there were 5 whites total. The orchestra was mainly 16 strings with one each of flute, oboe, clarinet and trumpet. And there was one person who played timpani and another drums. Of those in the orchestra they appeared a little older and there were maybe 5 or 6 black persons. The audience was 90% old white people. It was a lovely concert with 23 songs. The songs included favorites such as Away in a Manger, Cantique d'Noel, and Silent Night. There were also spirituals such as Mary's Boy Child and Go Tell it on the Mountains. They included hymns from many countries. There was Irving Berlin's White Christmas and The Battle Hymn of the Republic from the United States. We were a little surprised that they would sing of a White Christmas and have a fake snowman as decoration on the stage as it is summer here. Anyway it certainly got us in the spirit of Christmas and taught what a truly Christian country this is. It is a great experience we are enjoying here. We pray for the African nations that they will continue to work for peace and allow the gospel of Christ to be taught to their subjects that the Lord may bless them and prosper them.

One of the highlights of the month was the Tembisa Ward’s Christmas party.  It was announced that it would run from noon on Saturday to 6:00 pm.  This seemed very long to us, but they never planned on starting at noon, but at 1:00 pm.  Africans are noted for being late, and they know it as well as we do; so they set the early time.  We got there about 1:45 pm and it had just started.  It was a nice party with lots of primary age children from who knows where.  There definitely aren’t that many at church.  It was good as member-kids brought their friends and all had a good time.  Tom was asked to be Father Christmas (Santa).  He found a Santa suit that somebody in the Area Office had.  It went well as the kids seemed happy to see Father Christmas and many followed him around.  On the lawn outside the children lined up to receive a small gift from Father Christmas.  One little girl gave him a kiss, as you see in the photo. 

 

 

The other interesting thing about that party was the food they served.  Several women spent the afternoon in the kitchen preparing the food for nearly a hundred people.  A few of the men cooked the meat on the brai (grill) outdoors by the parking area.  They served a salad that resembled cole slaw, beans with chilies and pap.  Pap is a staple food of the natives.  It looks much like mashed potatoes but is heavier and made of maize or corn meal.  It doesn’t have much of a taste, but it is filling.  They piled the pap on the children’s plates and gave them a small serving of beans and a small piece of meat.  We wondered if the children would eat it all.  But they brought back empty plates and were looking for more.  No utensils were served.  Everyone, including us, ate with our fingers.  Also there were no tables with chairs for everyone.  They don’t have the facilities for that.  The children all went to a couple of small classrooms and sat on the floor.  The adults ate out on the lawn or standing up.  They brought us two big plates with salad, beans, a good portion of sausage and chicken and steak and pap.  We said we would just share one and thanked them.

 

 

 

 

We made a trip to Luanda, Angola to train an assistant auditor and the district presidency.  It was about a 3.5 hour flight and over 1500 miles.  Everything is very expensive in Angola; a car wash is the equivalent of $50.  President and Sister Thompson fed us and let us stay at their place for the night.  We offered to take them to dinner, but they said the traffic was so bad that they drove as little as possible and they weren’t very impressed with the restaurants they had tried in their neighborhood.  The traffic was the most memorable thing about Luanda.  For one thing one drives on the right side of the road there.  The roads themselves are in pretty good condition, except the major roads are at the most 3 lanes wide going one direction and four or five lines of traffic try to squeeze in.  It reminded me a little of Los Angeles freeways, only the traffic was only inching along and cars kept barging into our lane, motorcycles kept darting in and around, and pedestrians crossed wherever they felt they had a chance.  Elder Eppel, who has seen a lot of Africa, says that it is the worst traffic in Africa including Kinshasa in the Congo.  To make matters worse it is impossible to make a left hand turn off of these main roads because they have built concrete barriers down the meridian.  About every 5 kilometers they have built in places to make U turns.  So to make a left someone has to drive to a U-turn and go back the direction they came from until they come to the corner where they wanted to turn and then make a right-turn.  It makes for added mileage and traffic. 

There are many modern buildings in downtown and many under construction.  But Luanda like so many other places in Africa is a city of contrasts.  The people on the street appear poor.  And there are slums and shanties on the outskirts of the city.  There are the little stalls along the roads (no sidewalks to speak of) where people try to sell food, clothing, trinkets, souvenirs, tires, etc. Several times while we were at the Thompsons the power went out and their backup generator came on.   I was glad to return to South Africa.

The Buhamahlo orphanage in Tembisa is one several of the missionaries here have tried to help.  We went with some missionary couple to provide the orphanage a Christmas party.  The Tshbalala family (Dominic is an employee in the Area Office) did a Nativity and we sang Christmas carols, ate lunch and gave some gifts to the kids.  It was a fun morning and we think the kids enjoyed it.  One of the missionary couples had rallied their family and they bought Mama an industrial type sewing machine that she loved.  In the accompanying photo Mama is wearing a duck (headdress) and flowered top.  The Tshabalala family is in costume, the rest are the orphans and help.

 

On December 17^th, a national holiday, the temple missionaries and area office missionaries rode a steam locomotive train from Johannesburg to Magliesberg which is a couple of hours west and north of where we live.  We parked the car at the bus/train station in downtown Joburg.  Even though it was about 8 in the morning the place was filled with people – all going somewhere with kids and baggage in tow.  Our group filled one whole box car.  It was a fun ride and we got to see places we haven’t seen before such as Krugersdorp.  Most townships have shantie villages on the outskirts.  The photo is one near Krugersdorp.  It is hard to imagine how people live in such places.  Magliesberg was our destination and we ate lunch there at a nice hotel and spent some time investigating the small shops in the town.  Since it was a public holiday (Day of Reconciliation) most of the shops were closed.

 

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year.  Time is going by so quickly.  Another week, another month, even another year just went by.  It is a reminder to me of how precious time is and how I must make the most of it.  As we never know how much more time we may have.

Christmas was wonderful in that we got to talk and Skype with our children and most of our grandchildren.  We spent Christmas Eve with a few other missionaries relating our testimonies of Christ.  On Christmas we shared a meal with the other missionary couples and spent the day relaxing.

  Hippo on his back

The 26^th of December is another national holiday in South Africa – Day of Goodwill.  We invited the Kraczeks, a new missionary couple,  to go with us to Pilanesberg which is a big game park about two hours north of here.  We arose early and left here about 4 am.  We had been told that it is good to arrive about sunup in order to see more animals.  It is one of those places where you drive your car around the park and keep your eyes peeled to see what you can.  We saw a rhino. hippos, and some giraffes in the distance and kudus (large African antelope), impalas (small antelopes), warthogs, wildebeest, and a large millipede up close.  We also saw many colorful birds.  There were a couple of places where we could get out of the car and walk in a protected area to observe the animals more closely.  These are called “hides”.  I think Americans would refer to them as “blinds”.  In one of these blinds we saw a kingfisher (bird) with a small fish in its beak whacking the fish and smashing it against the tree limb.  I supposed it didn’t care for a live meal. It was there we also came across a small crocodile.  Sister Kraczek really wanted to see an elephant so she could report to her grandson that “yes, they had seen an elephant”.  The park reported having 200 elephants, but they were hiding from us that day.  The Howes, another senior missionary couple, also were in the park that morning and they did see one on the same road we had been on.  How can you miss an elephant?  The Howes explained that even though they are big, they blend in with the environment.  The Howes also saw some fun hippo activity in a hide.  I will share a photo they took as well as a couple we took.  To see more of this happy hippo go to my facebook page.  Photos of hippo by Sis and Elder Howes.