Sunday, July 14-umlazi ward-queensburgh ward

It is Sunday and we have flyers to pass out to two wards, so we head off to go to Umlazi W ward for sacrament meeting. This is an almost all black ward, except for us and three of the four missionaries from the United States. The Chapel is nice, but upholstered chairs instead of pews. No one minds and the chapel is packed.  As the people come in, they stop and shake hands with us. Everyone seems happy that we are there and they even acknowledge us when they start the meeting.

The sacrament was passed by men except for one small boy, who couldn't have been more than 12. It seems they are lacking young men in the ward, though maybe just this Sunday. The first speaker was an older gentleman whose talk was entirely in Zulu. He was very animated and talked loud so no one was bored and several times during his talk, the audience laughed. It was odd hearing this strange language with clicks and having no clue what he was saying. We heard only a few words in English, like 'Kingdom of God' and 'dispensation'. There was a second speaker, but this guy just kept talking. Finally the Bishop passed him a note and he abruptly finished his talk and sat down. The second speaker, who I would have loved to hear, just from the first few sentences he spoke basically bore his testimony, because there wasn't time for more. He started off with a short story, which I made note of, but can't find where I wrote it down, so I'm sorry to say I've forgotten. He is a member of the Bishopric, so I hope to get to hear him again.

After the meeting, we left for Queensburgh, a town in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa that is situated inland (southwest) from Durban and now forms part of eThekwini, the Greater Durban metropolitan area. The hilly area was settled by people working in Durban who wanted to escape the humidity of the coastal city. In 1924, four residential townships in the area, Malvern, Escombe, Northdene and Moseley combined to form the town of Malvern. In 1952, to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne, Malvern received municipality status and changed its name to Queensburgh. We had never been there before and didn't know what to expect. Of course, we got there during Sunday School. The building is different than any we've been in. You enter from the top floor and take the steps down into where the classrooms are. The top floor has a long hallway with the usual bulletin boards, but was eerily quiet. We walked to the end of the hallway, but didn't see anyone, so we surmised that everyone was down the stairs. When we got down there we could hear some faint chatter inside the rooms, but it was still pretty quiet. All the rooms had a piece of white paper with computer printed words. One door said, "Priesthood". One said "Sunday School" and "Relief Society". One said "Primary", etc. We heard a familiar voice teaching the lesson in Sunday School, former Bishop of Pinetown, Brieckhoff. We wondered why he was there, because he lives in the Pinetown area on the other side of Durban.

A woman appeared in the hallway with her teenage daughter and introduced herself as the Relief Society President. She said we could go on in the class, but the hour was just about up, so we said we would just wait. She opened the door went inside and set up some chairs along the wall and then beckoned us in. Then she left. Bishop Brieckhoff was just finishing up and it sounded like he gave a great lesson, but here is the weird thing...Elder Kyle was the only other man in there. There were about seven woman...that's it. I whispered to him, that maybe it was Relief Society and they had gotten Bishop Brieckhoff to speak to them. Luckily it was soon over and was indeed Sunday School.

Relief Society consisted of seven white women, all over the age of 50, 4 black women, probably in their early thirties and one Indian woman, probably in her thirties. Where is everyone, I kept thinking. It was time for Relief Society to start, but the Relief Society President was not there...Finally she came in and asked another lady to wing it until she got back. I heard her tell the lady that if she didn't get back in time, to ask everyone to share an experience where their testimony was tested this past week. She had to meet with the Bishop about getting some counselors called...hmmm. So this lady had us sing a song without a piano and then asked me to say the prayer (This was not a good day for me to forget my missionary badge! Yikes).

After the prayer, she asked if anyone had an experience where their testimony was strengthened - kind of the opposite of what she was supposed to ask them, but who can blame her for being rattled, when she is not even part of the Presidency. There were two older women who took up all the time talking around the subject and telling their personal stories. Finally, the Relief Society President showed up with her pretty (probably 16-year-old) daughter. Her daughter sat on the chairs by the wall that were stacked on top of each other and played with her two mostly naked Barbies. It soon became evident that the daughter had some mental problems, as she acted somewhat like a four-year-old. It was obvious that her mom was used to ignoring her and doing her business...in this case teaching the lesson. She started off by saying that we could put our Lorenzo Snow manuals away, because she was not going to teach from it.  She pulled rope from a spool of rope that she had brought and told us to move our chairs facing each other. This was hard, because the chairs were heavy and the ladies were old. I helped most of them move their chairs to face the other chairs. Then the rope was placed down the center on the floor. About this time I see out of the corner of my eye that her daughter at the other end of the room is taking her clothes off. Luckily she has pants and a blouse on under her dress (this must have happened before and mom is prepared). The blouse is coming unbuttoned, so she buttons it, but it is crooked. She walks by her mom and tells her, "I took off my dress. See I buttoned my shirt." Her mom distractedly says, 'Okay' and goes on with her lesson.

The RS President passed around small slips of paper and told us to write an incident that happened to us last week that tested our testimonies. She said to just summarize...that it didn't need to be too detailed. I figured that she would have us read them, so mine was so general that only I would know what it was trying to say. She then passed around a small bucket and told us to put ours in it and all did, except for one of the black ladies who was totally writing a book. Finally she put hers in and it was explained to us that we would comment on the 'test' the person had and tell what we would do.

 By now I am very confused. She then said the rope is the iron rod and when we do the right thing, we get to hold on, that our goal is by the end of class to have us all holding on to the rod. She pulled the first one out of the bucket and said, "Oh this is perfect, it is just what I was looking for." Then she asked what we would do it we were at a luncheon with people of another faith and they asked us what church we belonged to. The same two ladies that spoke before raised their hands and proceeded to tell everyone about their individual experiences with this. One of them was told to pick up the rope and hold onto the rod, because she had a good answer. This went on for awhile.

Four people were holding on when the Bishop slipped into the room and asked if he could say a few words before class was over. It was about the end of the hour, but she just went on with her lesson. The Bishop kept looking at his watch, but she just kept going. Finally with just four people holding on, she abruptly ended the lesson saying that we all need to hold on to the iron rod. I was thinking she could have had everyone pick up the rope and then say that just being in church meant they were all holding onto the rod, but she just ended it. The Bishop then got up and said that he needed to tell them all something very important. By the way, the bishop looked about 20 years old. He asked them what time sacrament meeting starts. They all said 9:00 and he said that was right. He also asked who got up to an alarm every morning to go to work. About half raised their hands and then he asked again what time church starts. He then said that it doesn't start at 9:15 or even 9:05, but at 9:00 and if they couldn't get their at 9:00, they needed to start setting their alarms, getting up earlier, planning so they could be there at 9:00. All of a sudden one of the ladies started crying and saying she was sorry she was late, but she had a personal problem... By now, I am feeling like I am on Candid Camera and any minute someone is going to say...Just kidding. Ha.

Afterwards, I found out that the neighborhood and ward used to be all Afrikaners and after apartheid many of them left South Africa. The ones who stayed just got older and many of them had passed on. The Afrikaners who are left in Queensburgh  are pretty set in their way with their old religion (Dutch reformed I think). Of the new people moving to the neighborhood not very many were converted to the church yet, so the ward was really hurting. Their average sacrament meeting attendance is 38 people. Bishop Brieckhoff and his wife were asked by the stake president to go to the Queensburgh ward and help these people, so the woman who was taking over for the RS President was Brieckhoff's wife and he taught not only Sunday School, but priesthood too. It was very sad. All the other wards we have been to have been packed, so it was hard to see such decline in a ward. The black families in the ward will be what saves it eventually. The missionaries have their work cut out for them in that ward. Sister Brieckhoff spoke to me after church and it was obvious she was having a hard time with this assignment. Elder Kyle and I decided that maybe we should go there more often just to have two more bodies.