March 2013
Another one of the senior couple went home this month and
that is always a little hard as they are all good people. This one was a little harder than most. Elder Ralph and Sister Edy Howes were the
ones leaving. They were our host couple;
so we felt a closeness to them that we might not feel with everyone. When you get off the plane in Johannesburg
after about 24 +or- hours in the air or in airports it is so good to see the
smiling faces of someone you don’t really know, but who wears a black badge
just like you. They were an excellent
host couple as they helped us through those first hours and days as we got our
feet on the ground. They have been
especially good to us since then as well.
They went to Madikwe with us, Crystal and Eric. We didn’t travel together, but had good times
there with them. Elder Howes has become
a very good photographer and you have seen some of his pictures already. The ones of the revived missionary are a
couple of my favorites.
Early in the month we received a call from our friend, Patrick Bonkemeyer. He is from
Spokane but is now living in George, South Africa. He was returning home from a trip and had a layover
in Johannesburg. During the night he got
an attack of appendicitis and was taken to the hospital in Kempton Park.
Raylene, his wife, flew up to be with him.
We picked Raylene up at the airport and took her to the hospital. On our way in we met two priesthood holders
from the Kempton Park Ward who had come to administer to him. We learned later that they had contacted Rob
Milne and he drove over 60 km to help out when he couldn’t reach anyone
else. He is a modern-day Good Samaritan. After the surgery we were able to arrange a place
for them to stay in Duke’s Court for a night and then got them to the airport
to go home. Last we heard he is
recovering well. We were glad we were here to help them out a little as they
are good people.
We have been given an assignment along with the Eppels and
the whole MSR department to locate “lost sheep” in the address unknown file. We
call those for whom there is a phone number listed, hoping to contact them and
get their current address. Most of the time the phone number is wrong or just a
bad number, but we have found a few that we have been able to transfer to a new
unit. When the phone is answered and
they aren’t there we leave a message and request them to call us back. We don’t know whether the person we are
calling really lives there, but we hope they do. We get very, very few calls back. We were given 2000 names to contact. Some of these people have been in the dead
file (address unknown) for ten years. So
far we have only been able to contact a few, but for those few it is important.
The ward clerk (membership clerk) has an important responsibility and should be
tracking down these people as soon as it is determined they have moved.
The Centurion Stake Conference was held this month. I enjoyed singing in the stake choir. The
stake music director and his wife are the accompanist and director
respectively. It is interesting to watch
the interaction between them. He
obviously chose the music and has his ideas of how it should be presented, but
she is the director and has a take-charge attitude. She often scolds him for not watching her
closely enough. We sang for the Saturday
night session as well as the Sunday morning.
The Sunday session was in Kempton Park which is at the southern end of
the stake and closer to the townships in the stake. It was held in a very commodious civic center
building. The choir and the congregation
were equally mixed black and white.
Actually looking down at the congregation it may have been about 2/3
black. I haven’t noticed much feeling of
discrimination or prejudice among the church members.
After nearly six months I got a new bridge of four teeth. The old bridge broke. It
has been quite a process to have the implants done. I will be glad to be able to chew on more
than one side of my mouth once again. My
dentist is an Indian Muslim whom I believe does very good work.
At the end of March we took a 4 day trip to Blantyre,
Malawi. The priesthood brethren that we
saw there are faithful and diligent. We
were there to do the audits for the four branches and district. It was gratifying to see that they had
improved and had adopted some of the suggestions we had made in previous
visits. The one branch which was
probably the poorest was the best about having receipts and returning left-over
money which had been advanced for activities even though it amounted to just a
few cents. Another senior couple, the
Shields, escorted us around and took us out of town a ways to see acres and
acres of tea fields. Tea is harvested
from small bushes, and here it is cut and gathered by hand. At least it provides for employment. We also saw a parade (only people, some in
costume – no music or horses) of Christians (Anglicans we were told) marching
down the narrow street. They were 7 or 8
abreast and a kilometer long. Many of
the women wore long purple skirts, white blouses, and purple head scarfs. We were headed in the opposite
direction, but were soon ordered by the local police to pull over to the side
of the road and wait. Near the end of
the parade a truck equipped with loud speakers announced something and the
people in the parade knelt on the street and prayed. Afterwards when we traveled through some
small villages on the way to the tea fields we saw people similarly dressed –
perhaps left over from a similar activity.
We are impressed observing multitudes who are always on the streets and
highways. Along the highway going to the
tea fields we saw many women (not men) carrying large loads of sugar cane on
their heads. Some of them were chewing
on a stick (sugar cane). In fairness to
the men we did see a few pushing bicycles loaded with large loads of charcoal.
The highlight of this month has been attending the temple
with six of those whom we have taught the temple prep classes in the Tembisa
Ward. Norene was the escort for 4 of the
5 women and Dad was the escort for the man.
The other woman had two escorts from the ward. One of the young girls also had her fiancé
there. So it was a nice group and a very
enjoyable experience. We borrowed a van
in order to bring them to our apartment afterwards for lunch. It was a small van so Dad had to make two
trips to get all eleven of us there – but we are only 7 minutes from the
temple. We served them sloppy joes,
potato salad, chips, and ice cream brownie sundaes for dessert. Almost all of the food was consumed, so we
assume they liked it. We couldn’t take
them all back to Tembisa in the van (no one has a car and had to take a combie or
taxi to come to the temple) so we took the older ones and gave the younger ones
combie fare. Here is a photo of those
who received their endowments. Going
from left to right is Nomvula, Mpho, Moses, Kedibone, Dimkatso, and Brenda. Mpho, Kedibone and Dimkatso are sisters.
We complained about our first travel arrangements Salt Lake
had made for us coming home. It was
going to take 50 hours with half of that time spent waiting in airports. We are happy to report that it has been
changed and instead of 50 hours it will only take us 28. We fly through London to Seattle and then
Spokane. We are now scheduled to arrive
home on June 21st.
We are keeping busy and are happy doing the Lord’s work. Recently I gave a lesson on consecration. My thoughts were how we in our abundance and affluence could help those who barely have the necessities of life such as in Malawi. It is not things they need so much as opportunity - opportunities for a good education and employment. Sister Shields said the country had 95% unemployment. We don’t know how true that may be, but we did see many who didn’t seem to have much to do. I would have a hard time sitting on a city street corner selling a few peanuts all day or tend to a small lean-to selling clothing or dishes when there were 50 more such enterprises in the same locality all competing for sales among people who had little to buy with. We are more and more appreciative of the comfortable and luxurious life with which we have been blessed and wish we could do more to help those not so fortunate.
