Monday, Sept 30th thru Saturday, Oct 5th invitations to dinner-PA business

Monday was catch up in the office again. We spend a lot of time on the computer answering emails, doing Mormon Newsroom stories, categorizing project photos, talking on the phone to people out in the field who need our help. Recently Elder Kyle got a call from the Carliles in Bloemfontein. They are putting on an open house and eventually a family history fair and wanted some family history sheets. He talked to the family history people in the area office and got them hooked up with the materials they need.

Elder and Sister Anderson, from Bethlehem (South Africa), wanted some help creating some pass along cards in anticipation of their open house. They have officially started using their new meeting place. This used to be a super market and the Church completely refurbished it for their meeting house. The members are so happy to have their own building and the missionaries want to use this as an opportunity to invite members to their branch. The branch is next door to Bethlehem in Phuthaditjhaba, so is called the Phuthaditjhaba Branch. Try saying that one. I designed a card based on Elder Anderson's requirements and sent him the file to be printed. It was nice to be able to use by designing skills and be creative. I am still waiting for the after photos, but this is one of the befores.



We are communicating daily about the Bednar visit with Sipho Duma, who has been a major part of scheduling the key people for the meeting coming up. We help him create letters and bios, but editing and sometimes searching for information. When an apostle comes and is scheduled to meet with people, a complete bio and other information on the person/persons has to be send ahead of time to Salt Lake. There are some safety issues involved as well as Elder Bednar needs to know in advance things about the person he will be speaking to. It's a lot of work and our public affairs national and district leader have done a great job.

We had family home evening at the Holts tonight. Elder Holt passed out three talks by Elder Bednar and we agreed to each take one and use that as our lesson for the next three weeks. Two are on Faith and the other is on being truly converted.

Every week in Church we talk about Elder Bednar coming in Sacrament meeting, in Sunday School and in RS and priesthood meetings. So, I guess it follows that we also talk about him in our family home evening get-togethers too. We are coming to know him and that will make his visit even more special. This is an amazing experience for all of us in Durban. Excitement is in the air. How lucky we are to have Apostles and Prophets in our church. The respect and love we have for them is evident when we watch General Conference and read the Ensign and use their talks to give our lessons. Many people here have not had the opportunity to see an apostle in person. We are in Africa, so far away from where these apostles live and yet he is coming here to speak to these people. It means a lot to them and to us. We look forward to learning even more about Elder Bednar through these three talks.

Tuesday, we had dinner with the Holts. I had my first steak since I've come here. I am not much into meat, but Sister Holt said they had great steaks, so Elder Kyle and I tried fillets and they were wonderful. That may be my quota for the year, but it was worth it. Yum. We have become good friends with the Holts (from Canada), but they are going home the end of November and that makes us sad. Canada is a far-away place from Texas, but maybe somehow we can see each other after mission...At least it is closer than Africa! ha.


On Thursday night, we had dinner with the Wilsons from Pinetown Ward. What a treat that was. The Sutherlands were also invited. They live less than a kilometre from the Chapel, so not too hard to find. They have three teenage boys who were there to greet us, as well as a couple of dogs. The fence said, beware of dogs, but they didn't seem to dangerous to me. The big black dog just wanted to be petted and the smaller dog grabbed a hold of my skirt and dragged me into the house...funny.

Elder Wilson was born in Zimbabwe and Sister Wilson was born close by...It used to be called Rhodesia. They both raved about how wonderful Zimbabwe is and how much they loved it, even though they left when they were young and came to South Africa. They knew each other as children growing up, but both families moved away and when they  met up later, he did not remember her...Ha. But it didn't take long for a relationship to develop. I love both of them, very sweet, but capable and very down to earth. They asked lots of questions. It is fun to see the ideas that others have about America, especially those in the church. They seemed a bit in awe of America and would obviously like to visit, but they love Africa. It was fun sharing things with them and them with us. We are not so different, except they are in their 40's and we are ancient...Ha.

We had dinner outside on the balcony. They apologized for not having a dining room table...They all have been eating on their laps in the living room, but they said a table was ordered, but they just hadn't gotten it yet. Outside eating on plastic lawn chairs around a plastic table was lovely and the dinner was really good. We had yummy chicken curry and rice and a yogurt/cucumber dish that is supposed to be eaten after the curry (to settle the mouth, I guess, though the food was not hot at all...to us anyway). Dessert was a kind of cake (bread pudding?) with custard sauce and it was good as well. The adults ate on the balcony and the boys ate inside on their laps...totally casual, so we felt right at home. I hope we get the chance to return the favor. She is RS President and he is in the Bishopric, so they are both really busy. It was so nice of them to ask us. We enjoyed it tremendously.

On Friday night, we decided to watch one of the DVDs we bought about a girl and a horse. Elder Kyle would describe it as a groaner...at least he was doing some groaning during the move...ha. I was a little more vocal about the bad acting, but it had a sweet message and was pretty harmless (though we would not recommend it). It was about a girl whose father died and brother died when the car carrying all the family was in a bad accident. The mom and daughter survived, but the girl had a badly broken leg that needed a lot of rehabilitation. They had to leave their nice home and  move to a trailer park in a different area. It happened to be next to a place that trained horses and she became attached to a horse there that helped her come out of her shell. Mom ended up with the guy who had the horses (His daughter died in an accident on her horse), so he was messed up too. They all helped each other through this and ended up with each other at the end....totally predictable - Mom even had the opportunity to marry a rich good looking guy (don't ask me how, because she wasn't that great) and she turned him down for a broken down cowboy who looked terrible in the beginning and had a make-over mid movie. I am groaning just writing about it. Ha. Hey, nights are pretty uneventful around here. Every once in a while we need to watch a movie and choices are limited...obviously!

Saturday was P-Day. Our neighbors are moving next weekend. We are so bummed. Sonali came over and brought their new doggie. Dad had just brought it home and it is so cute, a German Shepherd, Rottweiler mix. It looks more like a German Shepherd, but a little ball of fluff. The dog is very well behaved for a puppy. Sonali and her brother hold him all the time. They named him Skye.  We are happy that they have the puppy. They seem so lost much of the time. I'm not sure why, but they certainly have perked up since dad brought the dog home. They brought over our wipe board that we let them borrow and they had drawn a heart on it saying they love us and thanks.

Saturday evening we got on the computer to watch Saturday morning conference live. It was 8 pm here. The talks were great and we really enjoyed each and every one of them. The hard part was getting anything out of the second session, which started at 10:00. For some reason we were both zonked, so it was hard, but we made it through. The woman who spoke did a great job and we enjoyed the new guys that spoke in Conference for the first time. How they must have been shaking in their boots. Ha. They did such a great job and of course we always enjoy hearing from President Eyring, President Uchtdorff and President Monson. What a treat.

We got a lot done this week, even though most was not something interesting to talk about. We will get really busy again and have no time to write blogs, but for now, having some time to get caught up has been great. it was a good week.