Sunday, September 22-church at Swazi Mbabane building-Elders speaking-lombardi for din

Today is Sunday and we are going to church at the Mbabane building, because we are meeting with the Branch President and our PA guy after church. We have not been to this city or church building. We reached it after a beautiful drive on winding mountain roads at the top of mountains. It is a very pretty part of Swaziland. The church building is also very nice and the people quite welcoming. The Sutherlands and the Lombardis were also there.

Sacrament meeting was a missionary theme with four Elders speaking. We met them before Sacrament and they are a very sharp group of young men. They were all fairly new on their missions, but did not seem at all nervous about speaking. As you can see from this photo, they all had really big smiles on their faces.





The first speaker was this elder from Kenya, who did a great job: God expects us to keep his commandments and do his will. How can we be valiant soldiers of God unless we follow our commander. Pray often that we might be humble. Pray often that we might be true followers of Jesus Christ. Pray often that we will think more of others than we do of ourselves. Pray often that we will love our neighbors and let our lights so shine that we glorify our Father who is in Heaven. Our duty is to bring many souls unto Christ. Our battles may be many, but our victories will be sweet. Satan is strong, but God is omnipotent.



The second speaker, Elder Lowry from Idaho on left, was a great speaker. He had a way of smiling while he talked and during his whole talk he looked radiant (as they all did). He spoke of love being the way to be successful with missionary work. Without love, even successes will turn into failures. People need to feel the love that we have for them. We need to be good examples of patient, loving, honest and true members of the church.

We also need to love those who are baptized, so that they do not fall away after the member's newness wears off. Everyone wants to be loved and accepted. If you have trouble loving the way Christ loves us, pray and ask Him to help you develop Christ-like love for everyone you come in contact with and he will bless you with that gift.


The third speaker, Elder Ferrin, talked about how hard it is to be a missionary and bring others into the Gospel. As members we often try to leave that up to the full time missionaries and shy away from doing that ourselves. Even missionaries sometimes find it hard to approach strangers to teach them the Gospel. They sometimes feel inadequate, timid or afraid of rejection. They may have very little confidence that as an individual they can accomplish converting someone. Satan also wants us to believe that we cannot do it, so he can accomplish his goal, which is to keep all from obtaining eternal life. He talked about how he was into sports in school and his friends talked him into joining the track team. He did it, but didn't really find joy in running and didn't think he was that good, but he liked the high jump and decided to learn how to do that. He began to practice jumping every day after school until he was a pretty good jumper. Finally after several competitions,  his school went to the regional finals, where he was seeded number one. He talked about how each person gets 3 jumps to try and make it over the bar without knocking the bar down. It was down to he and one other person and he had to do his jumps last. The other person could not make the jump. It was higher than either of them had ever jumped before. The problem with this is that even if both people make the same mistakes and knock the bar down, the person who goes last will lose, so it was very important that he make the jump. He was very nervous. His first two jumps, he did not make it, which made him think he could not do it. He was standing by his coach thinking this was it...He was not going to make his last jump and the other guy would win. While he was thinking these negative thoughts, the coach stood beside him and put his hand on his shoulder and told him that he was good enough to make that jump and he would do it. He told himself that the coach was right and he was good enough to make the jump.  He ran and sailed through the air making sure his arms and legs were pulled up and away from the bar. Finally he was on his back on the cushion below the bar and the bar was still there, the crowd was roaring and he realized he had done it. His coach had given him back that voice in his head that tells him he can do things and he did it. He likened this to the way the Lord stands beside us and tells us we are good and can do it, even with little doubts creep in and we think for a moment that we cannot. Listen to that voice and then do your best and you will accomplish great things for the Lord. The goal is to know if the Gospel is true. As you pray, you will get an answer and that answer will be powerful, as if the hand of Heavenly Father is on your shoulder and he is saying, "You can do it."

The fourth speaker was Elder Daniels from Port Elizabeth. He spoke about the scriptures and the importance they have in teaching people about the Gospel. He spoke about the Book of Mormon being the foundation of his testimony and the proof that the Gospel is restored in these, the latter days. If we read and ponder the scriptures, pray that we might know the truth of all things, be good examples and love all those we come in contact with, the Lord will pour out his Spirit upon all things good and we will see the glories of Heaven. He didn't have much time, as the other speakers took up the time, but he bore his sweet testimony.

Then, it was announced that someone was getting baptized after church and we were all invited to stay for the baptism. The woman who was baptized is married to the guy who handles our missionary visas. They are a very cute couple. They have only been married about two months, so just newlyweds. After the baptism she bore her testimony and talked about how great her husband is...ah...true love.

Sunday School was taught in the Relief Society room and was packed. We're still talking about the pioneers, the hardships of their journey and what we can take and apply to our day and time. Most of which centers around their faith, their testimonies, their obedience and their courage. The man who taught the lesson spoke so softly that it was hard to hear him. Then he would ask a question and let it hang, even if no one answered. He didn't try to fill in the gap or go on to the next item, he just waited patiently until the silence grew long enough that someone would answer. Although uncomfortable at first, I learned that it was very effective. It got them thinking about what he was saying, so the next question they would be ready to answer. Also, although he seemed shy and inexperienced at first, it was obvious as the lesson went on that he was very smart and knew his material and how to teach. He is the 2nd guy from the left in this photo. The guy in the middle of the photo facing right is the District President's 1st Counselor.

Priesthood all met together, but then the young men were excused after announcements. Since there are no high priests in this ward, except for Elder Lombard, he, Elder Kyle and Elder Sutherland met with the Elders. Elder Sutherland played the piano. The lesson was on an article from the Liahona.

The Relief Society spoke about self reliance and the steps we need to take to get ourselves to a point where we can not only help ourselves in time of need, but others as well. I've heard the lesson before, but she did a great job. This is a picture of our teacher.







The ladies all participated in the lesson and were very friendly to me and Sister Sutherland. Of course, Sister Lombardi knew them all and hugged each one. She is such a blessing to this area of Africa. They go home in January and have no one to replace them yet. It would be a tragedy to not only have to let her go, but have no one to replace them as a couple. The area relies on them so much. Pray that more couples will agree to come to Africa! The beautiful lady with her is the RS President.




I took some more photos while waiting for the District President to be ready for us. Everyone wanted to get their photo taken. After I took the photo, they would check it out to see if it was a good one, and if not, they wanted me to take it again. The photo of the three young people was the funniest. I had the hardest time getting the guy to smile (same with the baby). A camera can break a lot of shyness barriers, and look at those cute little girls! It was a cold day.

After church we met with the District President and his counsellor. We told him about public affairs and how that is supposed to work. He was very positive about it and we cleared up some things he was not sure of, so things should work smoothly in that district. Our PA director, Brother Shongwe was also there and we met with him after the meeting with the District President to go over receipts from his previous months expenses, so we can get him reimbursed for PA expenses.

After that, we headed over to Elder and Sister Lombardi's home for dinner. They are always such great hosts and give us invites for dinner. Sister Lombardi is such a good cook that we look forward to getting a nice down-home meal. Southerlands were invited as well. I helped her by making the frosting for the cake she had already baked and for mixing up some cornbread. We had beef roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet and sour carrots, jello-fruit salad and cornbread. Chocolate cake and ice cream was for the Monday dessert. We were too full for dessert after a great meal.

We had a wonderful time and I tried to help Elder Lombardi with some computer issues. I got the MP3 copied on to a DVD, but it would not play on his DVD player and as I explained to Elder Lombardi, it probably would not play on the Elder's DVD player either. It was disappointing, because he wanted to give each Elder a copy of a great talk of Elder Holland's from several years ago, but it would not play without a mp3 player. We're trying to think of another way, but cannot find the original copy of the talk. The guys are relaxing before dinner.

After out great evening, we had to go back to our hotel for some much needed sleep.  Once again, it was a good day.