Monday, July 8th-Bookstore at the mall encounter-FHE at Holts

Today we pretty much stayed in our flat's office working on all the details for the concert. I forgot to mention that when we were in the mall, we stopped by the bookstore so Elder Kyle could look for a book. I was kind of bored, but found a discount book and took it to the checkout. The young black man who processed the sale saw my badge and asked what we are doing in Africa. I told him a lot of things and then mentioned the wheelchair give away and the other humanitarian things the church is doing. He said that it was great that a church was finally doing something for the people instead of taking their tithing and telling them to wait for blessings which never come. We then got in a discussion about how many churches there are (He said he was 7th Day Adventist) and how do you know which one is true when they all say they are the one? This naturally led in to discussions about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. He then told me he was studying theology in school.

About that time, Elder Kyle came over with his book and the three of us discussed religion and the Bible. He was a very intelligent, nice looking black man, but when I asked him what area he lived in he got uncomfortable and then said a name I didn't recognize. When I said I didn't know where that was, he said, "It's a township." That means a very poor area. He was very passionate about how the black people needed to pull themselves out of the poverty and backward ways. He talked about how all the children are learning Zulu and said, "How can they ever hold jobs or be anything when that is their only language?" We promised to bring him some reading materials, DVD and Book of Mormon and then went in the next day to give him the Book of Mormon. He was more interested in the DVD that we said we would bring later. But he is a scripture reader, so hopefully he read some of it. I couldn't figure out if he was ready to be converted or if he was trying to convert us, but it was a really great experience and we plan on checking on him again tomorrow or the next day. Unfortunately, the book store is closing the end of July, so he won't be working there anymore, but we have a few weeks before he leaves and we'll find out where he is going. These are the situations that make this mission seem more like a mission. Our badges are amazing in their power to draw people in. I'm glad I have been able to experience that. People here for the most part love Jesus Christ. Just having it on our name tag makes us better people in the black person's eyes... the Muslims and Indians not so much, unless they are already Christian.

I also forgot to tell everyone that Sister Murdock that we mentioned several times in this blog went into the hospital Thursday night for emergency surgery, because her appendix ruptured. She is still in the hospital and they have to open up her incision and drain the infection daily. We cannot figure our how come the doctor did not diagnose the appendicitis when we took her to the hospital last Sunday. They could have avoided this whole scary infection thing that happened when it burst. I looked up the symptoms of appendicitis and she had them all. We really feel bad for her. She has gotten blessings, and we are praying for her recovery and for the infection to be gone, so the antibiotics can be lessened and she can be released.

After a whole day on the computer trying to answer emails and plan for the concert, we stopped and headed over to the Holt's apartment for family home evening (The Clusters on left and Holts on right - Starks not pictured). We talked about temples and how they are built and how tall the Angel Moroni is on each temple and how they used to make the angel and how they do now. There were stories about the temples and some photos. We learned a lot. It was real fun and several of us shared our favorite memories of the temples. We are all waiting for the location of the temple that is to be built in Durban to be announced. Apparently, they are still trying to deal with the local government that is telling them their spire is too high. That is almost comical when you see the things that are built here. There certainly doesn't seem to be any building codes! Ha. Everyone thinks we know, because we are public affairs, but we don't know yet either. We have been informed that when they do get final approval, we will get special temple packets that tell us what to do to prepare for the temple to be built and we will be very busy...wait, we are already busy...I guess they mean we will be even busier.

The upstairs office in our flat where we spend a lot of time

We are trying to plan a trip to Cape Town before the concert there to make sure that all is well before the concert moves to that area. We will be taking care of all arrangements here in Durban when the group of nine pianists come for the concert and fireside. We will have to figure out transportation, meals, lodging, etc. And, they arrive during the wheelchair giveaway right before the concert, so that may be tricky...Ha. When they go to Cape Town on Monday, we will have to go with them and help provide the same services there (while they do a fireside and concert). Do any of you want to come and help? We need help here! We'll make room for you!