Monday July 22 - Saturday, July 26 chatsworth YC - deliver blankets to Little Lambs Baby Home

We previously scheduled the guy to do the pressure washing at the Youth Centre on July 21st, but the YC director told us that he was getting paint donated and it would be painted before August 10, so we cancelled the pressure wash. Monday, he told us that he found out the paint company was donating paint, but no labor. He told us it was okay to pressure wash the place, so we called the pressure wash guy again and he said he could do it on the 27th. We turned in invoices to the area office for down payments to all the vendors doing stuff the day of the event, but the area office called and said we couldn't do the pressure wash and needed to find ward members to do it. So, once again Elder Kyle called the pressure washer and cancelled. I sent an email to all the PA people and stake and ward leaders asking for pressure washing help. We got responses immediately from three sources. We also called Brother Brieckhoff again, the Helping Hands director for the stake, and he said he would try and get one of them or more to do pressure washing and all he needed was to know how many hose bibs and electrical outlets, in case the pressure washers needed them. He then laid out a plan to do the Helping Hands activity and we were so happy that he is so efficient. He planned on doing it Saturday, July 21st and Saturday, July 25th.

Tuesday, we went out to Chatsworth Youth Centre to check out the hose bibs and electrical outlets.  When we got there we noticed someone had started painting, but we could not get a hold of the youth centre director and the job was only partially done (very small part), but enough to question whether it was going to get painted or not and whether we should continue with the pressure wash. You can see the difference with the nice clean yellow paint and the wall below it that is not painted.

Courtyard of Youth Center

Wednesday, we tried to find out more but did not reach him, so we went back out to the youth centre (by the way, this place is not close). Nothing else was going on, so we checked and found the hose bib, singular and electrical outlet, singular. Our concert flyers arrived and we took some to the mission home and gave some to the Chatsworth Elders to pass out in Chatsworth. At this stage, we are thinking it will be painted and we can skip the pressure wash, so we let Brother Brieckhoff know. By now, he is probably thinking to just ignore us and maybe we will go away.

Little Lambs home for orphaned babies

Thursday we delivered some baby blankets to the Little Lamb's Baby Home for abandoned or abused children....mostly babies. The Afrikaner woman who is doing this out of a guest house or remodeled garage next to the main house of her property in a very nice Kloof neighborhood, is amazing! She gets very little assistance to run this place and had to rely on donations. Sister Von Stetten got the blankets sent to her from her family in the US. I think it might have been a RS or YW project. She didn't get to deliver them before she left, so she asked us to do it.

Pictures of the babies and toddlers that have stayed there

 She had a whole wall of photographs and she pointed to some of the children and told us their story and who adopted them and talked about the ones staying there now. Three were old enough to go to school so they were not there. Three more were just a few months old and one little boy was between one and two. He was leery of us, so she had to hold him the whole time we were there. A couple of the children (ironically two white girls) were the ones that were abused and they were in school while we were there, but she had their pictures on the wall and they were both adorable.

We were not allowed to take photos of the children's faces

She showed us around the place and told us she is down to six, but she had 13 two weeks ago. She showed us the room where they wash clothes and the clothes that were donated were on hangers in that room. That was the room where the babies are given baths. It was very neat and organized. She said they go through one large package of diapers and a large can of formula every day. What she needs most are diapers and formula, plus soap to wash clothes and dishes, which is continual.

Beds were the occupants sleep

There was a small room with cribs and little beds where they all sleep. Everything was so clean, beds were made and covered with cute little blankets. Another room had a little area on the floor with a big quilt spread out and fenced in with a colorful plastic fence. Three babies on their stomach were looking at bright toys and little stuffed animals. A black woman that works there was laying on the blanket behind the fence talking to the babies. No one was crying, and the place did not smell of diapers or the usual baby smells...very impressive.

Play yard in the front of the building

As she talked about these children, you could see that she loves them and worries about them all. She said that there are 2.5 million babies that need to be adopted, but only 2000 per year actually do. She said the social workers call her first, because they know she cares and the children do very well with her, but she told us that one time the social worker met her at the home where they were supposed to pick up the child and the social worker brought out the child and then left. She couldn't get the child to get into the car with her, so she had to spend an hour persuading the child to go with her. She is a real trooper! There are people like this everywhere we go....working for just the satisfaction of helping others. From what she said, the government run facilities were awful...It's a shame, because most of the children are there.

CE Mobility where we get our wheelchairs made& adjusted

Today Friday, we went back out the youth center to see if they had painted any more, but no luck. I guess the pressure wash is officially back on.
We got the rest of the names of the people getting wheelchairs on August 10th before the concert. I forwarded them on to our wheel chair guy from CE Mobility. His office is in this cute restored ancient house in the Berea area, close to downtown. 

Unicopy for professional printing and supplies

We went to the Unicopy across the street from there to pick up more flyers and we had lunch at the café there in the mall. There were tons of people in the mall. It is Mandela's birthday on the 18th and they celebrate on the 18th and 19th.

Cafe in the mall where we had lunch.

We are going to Cape Town on Monday and we don't have many winter clothes. We heard it was pretty chilly there...at least 10 degrees colder than Durban. Elder Kyle found a pullover sweater at a good price, but I couldn't find anything. There was a lot of extra security in the mall, but nothing going on. Maybe they heard something was going to happen or maybe they were just being prepared because of the holiday, but all was quiet. These tables and chairs were where we ate lunch.

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.

Friday, July 12 and Saturday, July 13-Lunch with zachrisons, visiting Taviso in Umlazi

Friday we worked in the office in the morning and then went to the Mission office at noon to visit with the mission president and give him an idea of what we are up to. When we arrived, he was busy...His wife has set up an office inside his office...odd, but kind of cute. She came out when a missionary came in to see him. I can tell that he is feeling quite out of his element as a Mission President after being a lawyer for so long. He acted a bit frazzled, like he wasn't quite sure he would ever catch up with all that was going on. They have only been here about two weeks, so I think they are doing great, but it is catching up with them. Last week they had to drive around to Bloemfontein and other areas (like we did our first week out). They drive this huge van, which is difficult to do on these little streets and small parking areas.

When he was finally done, he came out and announced that we were all going to lunch. The Holts looked startled and Elder Holt said, "No we are not going." President Zackrison said, "Well you gotta eat don't you?" Elder Holt very firmly said, "We are the only ones in the office, so we must wait until the other's get back to man the phones. You guys go ahead." By the look she gave him, I could tell that Sister Holt would like to go, but he was right. So Elder Kyle and I went to lunch and they drove the big van. We went to a nice Italian restaurant, but the service was very slow and I could tell that the President was exasperated about it. He hasn't learned T.I.A. (This is Africa) yet. We went over the things we were doing at lunch and they asked questions about us so we told our life stories. Ha. They are nice people, but I can see where they might seem intimidating to the missionaries. In many ways they seem to be the opposite of President and Sister Von Stetten. But, both of them have great qualities. The mission is in good hands.

We then went to pick up flyers for the concert and went to the grocery store. When we got home we ordered a pizza and Elder Kyle ate all but one piece of it (It wasn't all that big so he actually didn't get that much).

Today (Saturday) is our Preparation Day, which means we can wear casual clothes and get our work done, but Elder Kyle promised our landscape guy here at the apartments that we would come and see his new house in Umlazi. Several weeks ago, Taviso came to Elder Kyle and asked if he could use the church's bakki (truck) to move. He said he had borrowed it previously (before we came) to move. Elder Kyle was pretty sure that was not allowed, but he asked and they said that it was not allowed and they didn't know who would have done it. When Elder Kyle told Taviso that we could not let him use the truck, he asked him how much it would take to rent a truck to move. He said R400, which is about $40. Elder Kyle gave him the money and told him not to worry about paying it back. Ever since then he insists upon washing our car every Friday to pay back the money. He told us how much he and his wife and children like the new house and showed the pictures of it on his cell phone. So Elder Kyle said we would come and visit on Saturday.

We could not find the address on the GPS or the Google Maps, but the street was there so we started off in hopes of finding it. Umlazi is a bunch of houses built on hills with small winding roads, so I was not too sure of being able to find it and pretty sure we would get lost, but we were in need of an adventure I guess, because we went anyway. When we got close to his neighborhood and then found the street, we were feeling pretty good; however, house numbers were not matching up...many did not have house numbers and we decided to stop and call Taviso. As soon as we stopped, we saw him walking up the street. He had been looking for us and told us he would get in the car and show us where to go. This is hard to explain, but his house was behind another house and the only way you could get to it was to park at the other house (hardly anyone has cars in Umlazi) and walk through this house's backyard down to his house (down because it is on the side of a mountain). I wish I had taken pictures. I don't think my description will do it justice, but let's just say it was a very modest area with debris everywhere and a makeshift fence with a 2 foot path of dirt and weeds that went down and up and over until we reached his house. This view is from the front of his house.

His house is a government built home for people who don't have housing. It has electricity, but no water and the house is not entirely finished, so the homeowner has to do it himself. For instance there is no ceiling inside, just rafters and there is no bath or kitchen set up. We have no idea where they go to the bathroom. This photos is a finished house in Umlazi. His is not at all this nice, but it could be eventually. I didn't feel right busting out my camera to take photos of his humble home.There is a community tap somewhere where the neighborhood people go to fill up buckets with water. We have no idea how they bathe, perhaps a washcloth? The house was a very small rectangle with a tiny living room with two beat up vinyl couches facing each other and a chair on the end. There was a very small outdated TV playing nice music and a DVD player. That took up 90% of the floor space. The main bedroom was very teeny with a bed on the floor. The other bedroom had no bed for baby or their 6-year old daughter or his brother who appeared to be staying with them.

However, he was so proud of his home and so happy that we would come and see him. He said it made him feel like a 'King' that we would come. He also said that all his neighbors would now think of him as a king, because we came and visited him in his house. I am having a hard time writing this without crying, because it was so humbling. What a sweet man. We kept trying to tell him it was we who were honored, but he just kept repeating how happy he was that we came. His little girl was adorable, very pretty about the size and age of our granddaughter. She was very shy and kept putting her hand over her mouth when she thought she might smile. His other daughter was six months old and I got to hold her. She was such a chubby baby... felt like lead, and right away starting pulling my hair. Her mom and sister have no hair to pull, so she was pulling my hair with all her might. Then she went after my earrings. She is very cute. I brought them cupcakes that I made and they brought out a container of grape juice and some store-bought biscuits (cookies).

Taviso's brother is younger than him and not married and not employed. They all grew up on a farm. We gave them one of the church Cd's about Africans and they wanted to watch it while we were there. It talks about the importance of families and the work the church does in Africa. After it was over, I looked at his wife and she had her hand over her heart...she was obviously touched by the DVD. We talked to them about the church and how great their lives would be if they would attend and get to know the members. He said, "Oh yes, we will go." When we left, Elder Kyle gave him the pamphlet where the addresses of the chapels are in Umlazi and elsewhere. When driving away, we just looked at each other and were both thinking, "Wow." It made them so happy that we came. It shouldn't have, but it did. The Africans are definitely teaching us the meaning of being humble.

Here is a bit of history on Umlazi:

In the province of KwaZulu-Natal is Umlazi, its biggest township with an estimated population of 800,000. In South Africa, Umlazi is the second to the biggest township that was once made up of several townships. In 1967, Umlazi was formed by combining these smaller towns in order to create a “black township”. This was, of course, during the Apartheid period and the government at that time wanted segregation of race and skin colour. Many black people were moved to Umlazi and even after Apartheid, it became known as the “criminal capital of South Africa.” Sadly for Umlazi, it is having a hard time shaking off that title.

Nonetheless, visiting Umlazi is not what one would expect from a town that has supposedly has a lot of criminals. It’s a beautiful area where infrastructure has been developing at a comfortable pace since 1994.

Even the name of the township has a legend regarding the origins of the name, and it is not favorable to the place or people of Umlazi. According to the story, when the great Zulu leader, King Shaka, was passing through, he came upon the local river. Since he was thirsty, he was offered a drink from the river which he promptly spat out claiming it tasted like “umlaza” which is a Zulu word for sour acid from fermented milk. Since then, the place has been called Umlazi.

Umlazi is southwest of Durban.The township is divided into 28 areas strangely named after the alphabet like AA, BB, and CC. Many of the houses were originally nothing more than shacks but with the housing project of the government under President Zuma, RDP houses are replacing them. RDP houses are subsidized low-cost houses and are a major project for the president using alternative and affordable construction methods.

Umlazi is a good place to live in because of its rolling hills, natural green landscape, and rich soil. Life is very traditional in the sense that the food uses many African herbs, and sangomas and natural healers are very popular. The sense of community is also very strong and many locals are intent on changing the image of the township to a more positive one. In fact, you won’t be surprised to see young men and women sporting national replica soccer jerseys on occasions when national pride is at stake: the same pride is beginning to develop with regards to the township itself.

That pretty much took up our Saturday. I thought about taking Sister Stark dinner, but could not get a hold of her to see if she wanted it (She had arthroscopic surgery on her knee Wednesday). I made pasta salad and Sloppy Joes that were actually really good. I found this pasta Bourgeoisie sauce with meat. We had it once with hamburger on pasta and I thought at the time that it wasn't good on pasta but would be a great sloppy Joe mix, so tonight we put it to the test and it was delicious. It is in a jar, but tastes very fresh and has small diced veggies in it. When hamburger is added it is very nice. I learned quickly that you just got to try things here and maybe you will come up with a masterpiece!

After dinner, and reading scriptures, I started doing this blog and Elder Kyle read all the Facebook posts and was laughing at the Dachshund  photos. He kept saying, "Look at this one." It was very annoying, but they were very funny photos.

Thursday, July 11th-visit Adele's handicap home for teaching skills-getting wheelchairs-Rajesh Indian home

Today we had two appointments to see people who were promised wheelchairs from the church, by Lotus FM. We want to make sure that the chairs are going to individuals and not institutions, so we are scoping out the two non government agencies that were listed, along with some individuals getting chairs. Our first appointment was with Adele Walker who runs an organization out of her home for handicapped people who would like to learn skills that will help them earn money and be independent. This turned out to be an amazing experience.


Adele and he husband live in a modest home in the outskirts of Durban. It started when a handicapped woman came to her home and asked her to teach her to sew. She did and then someone else came and asked to be taught. This snowballed quickly until she had to get more machines. Then she started looking into ways for these people to earn money through sewing. She contacted environmental companies and found that they would be interested in having things sewn for them.



They would provide all the materials and pay someone to sew in a straight line all the different materials. This worked out great, so they started checking into sewing other simple items. Handicapped people kept coming and she realized she could not teach them all to sew. She needed another way to keep them busy and help them earn a living, so she visited manufacturing plants to ask them if there was something these people could do.

Adele showing us what they are doing to renew headrests

In one of these places that makes headrests for cars she saw huge bags of stuff stacked everywhere and asked them what it was. They explained that it was the plastic devices used to blow the foam into the headrests, but there was foam still in the plastic, so was not environmentally friendly and could not be thrown away. They didn't know what to do with the stuff. She picked up one of these plastic pieces with foam sticking out and started twisting the foam. It finally came out and she thought, my people can do this. The manufacturer started paying them to do this and they reused the plastic device. Adele thought of other things at the plant that they could do and the plant paid them for all those things. When we visited her that is what the people were doing. This is Adele showing how the device works.




Some were sewing...others taking the foam out of the plastic pieces. They also teach the handicapped to wash their own clothing, so they bought all these washing machines and people in the neighborhood started paying them to wash their clothes.










They eventually got soccer teams to pay them to wash the uniforms and another income source was born. It goes on and on. The lady is a genius and she also got food donated by stores who were throwing out outdated food. She has it prepared the day she receives it and the poor people come and eat twice a week...usually soup in the winter and other simple fare in the summer.

Determining the needs of the centre and how the Church can help

Half of her house is taken over by these projects and she is happy as can be. The people who come there are making money, learning self esteem and all are benefiting from this woman's loving guidance. Since the people she ordered wheelchairs for do not live there, we know these chairs are for them and we suggested that if she knows others to get their names and we will get them a chair also.




We also invited them to attend the concert and she said she would take them all there in kombi. How great is that! Transportation is one of the biggest problems with the people who live here. Two of the ladies, who were so cute, come from Umlazi and she asked them to arrange for a kombi. They may be handicapped, but she treated them like anyone else. It was fun to see.

Aryan Benevolent Home for Indian population

After leaving her place, we travelled to Chatsworth where the Aryan Benevolent Home is. The list Lotus gave us said they were to get 20 chairs, but no names were mentioned. We met with the CEO, Rajesh. He is also an amazing guy. He has about 600 aged people living there. He has about 150 orphans.  The facility is supported by private donations and gets a little from the government. Some of the elderly people are pretty bad off, but there were no smells. Many of them do not have any visitors. He said that some were just dropped off there and their family left notes that they wanted no contact with them again...very sad.

He also has a nursing school. The people studying nursing get to work in the adult care unit, so he saves money there. The place was as clean as can be and Rajesh spoke to the people there as we toured the facility in a very nice way and they knew him. There was a large group of people being taken by the staff to the circus. When we invited them to attend the concert along with the wheelchair recipients, he said that he would bring at least 60 people and to save them seats. He will supply us with names of the people getting wheelchairs.



These are drawings the children made for the aged that live there. Rajesh is Hindu, but is doing the work that Christ would want us to do.

As we were leaving and talking to Rajesh in the parking lot, a lady walked over and gave me a hug and a smacking kiss on the cheek, then she turned to Elder Kyle and he started to shake her hand, but she grabbed him and hugged him and gave him a smacking kiss also. I think he turned red. Rajesh introduced her as Sarah, their resident dementia patient. After she kissed us, she just walked away. He says she does that to everyone. Ha.

Well, we had some eye-opening experiences today and will never forget them. My spirits have been lifted. I met two 'Mother Theresa' types today and realized how much more can be done by us in the U.S. to help ease other's burdens. I know it is something Heavenly Father wants us to know. I now am looking forward to the concert so I can see these people again. WOW!

Wednesday, July 10th appt with Rising Sun newspaper

Today is Wednesday and we have an appointment with The Rising Sun Newspaper editor. V.  Thambiran. He is the guy in the left middle with the glass of wine. I found this photo online. They were not celebrating our visit...ha. The building was very nice. They had animals engraved in rock on the front of the building and inside was a modern sleek office with shiny black floors and pretty Indian young women manning the round modern reception desk. We were taken up a circular staircase to Vivaga's office. As soon as we sat down, he started talking about the community and how there are many Christian churches, but he is Hindu and he believes everyone can believe what they want, but they need to help those less fortunate and act like Christ, by serving the people. He then started talking about how so much propaganda is spread by the outside media that Chatsworth is a dangerous place, but that is just not true. He said, "When you go to an Indian's home, they invite you in and offer you tea and biscuits right? We looked kind of vague, because we haven't been to an Indian home, so he asked one of the girls from the office the same question and she said, Oh, they would invite you in and give you tea and biscuits. He then asked us if we ever saw any crime there and we admitted we had not, so he said, "You can walk anywhere on the streets here and no one is going to bother you. There is no crime, at least not any more than anywhere else. It is quite safe here." Then we told him a little about the concert and he said that it sounded good and gave us his card. He said he liked the guy at the youth centre...He is a good man and told us when we sent our press release he would print it. He said he also had a story about our last wheelchair giveaway in his newspaper. He is an interesting man and we enjoyed him a lot, even without the kind of reception that is in this photo.

We came back and worked on the press release and I found a place online that would do flyers for 1/3 of the printing places here, the flyers are bigger on glossy paper, so instead of paying the equivalent of $325 for 4000 1/4 page flyers, we are paying $125 for 5,000 1/2 page flyers...good bargain hunting. It takes longer to get them printed, but it will be well worth it. We are trying to get our PA council on board to find ways to hand them out to different neighborhoods and organizations. Did I mention that this is a lot of work?

We also got an email from Lisa at Lotus giving us the names of the wheelchair recipients so we can let CE Mobility start making the chairs. Unfortunately, when we got the names she had two organizations listed. One had the names of the six people getting chairs and one just said 20 chairs. Our contract is to give to individuals, not institutions, plus we have the wheelchair giveaway and we want recipients to be there. It would not do, so we made appointments with the two groups getting chairs for Thursday, so we can go and see what is going on. This concert and wheelchair handover has my moods going from happy to sad to mad, depending upon the day. Elder Kyle calmed me down and said just wait until we meet with them, because I was grumbling that we were going to all this trouble and no one was going to show up for the wheelchair distribution or concert. But, I calmed down, wrote a nice positive letter to Lisa at Lotus and decided to wait until tomorrow and see what we find.

Wednesday evening we went out to dinner with Elder and Sister Holt. We enjoy them and haven't been to dinner, when not working on Public Affairs, hardly at all, so we went to the Ocean Basket and all had king fish and chips (fries). and salad, except your dad who had fish and calamari. It was good, but the company was even better. They are a very nice couple from Canada. Sister Holt works at the front desk in the Mission office and is less than a year older than me. Elder Holt works in the mission office on the car fleet that the church has going for all the missionaries and is about two years younger that Elder Kyle. He worked for a feed manufacturer (for cattle) in charge of a sales region for most of his life. They lived out in the country. We had some great conversation and got to know each other a bit better. Another busy day.

Tuesday, July 9th-President Wilfords home

On Tuesday, after checking emails we went to Hillcrest Stake President Wilford's home to get him to sign our budget requisition for the David Glen Hatch concert. He lives in Kloof, which we know nothing about, except there is a ward by that name that meets in the Hillcrest building. It was pretty easy to find. The neighborhood was quite nice and we followed another car in his gated driveway, so all in all easy. As soon as we got in, a huge dog (bull mastiff mix)_came up to us followed by a black poodle (not trimmed). They were so friendly, but I've never been around a dog that big and powerful. When she leaned against me, which she did a lot, she almost pushed me over. I would pet her and she would immediately plop down on the asphalt and show her tummy for me to rub. It happened several times and was very funny. I'll bet she weighed 200 plus pounds...very powerful, named Candy.

The Stake President's home was beautiful in a homey sort of way, with comfy, tasteful furniture and decor that made you want to sink in and stay awhile. The grounds (like most of Durban) were beautiful and I imagined myself sitting by the window reading and enjoying the outdoors. We didn't get to stay long enough though, as he was working from home and pretty busy. His son rushed out as we were rushing in, probably to some sort of sport practice by the look of him and he was very sweet and spoke with a cultured English accent. Yes, we are beginning to tell the difference between the accents. President Wilford is a Clinical psychologist. I put a video of him on one of my blogs.










Then we came back to the flat and got the requisition sent over to the Area Office asking for funds. We also got a call from Elder Murdock and found out that Sister Murdock was still in a lot of pain and they were draining and scraping the incision (without anything to calm or ease the pain of the procedure. It sounds awful, but lots of infection got into her system, so they must get it out. Yuk!

I wrote a poem for her, because I thought she might get a kick out of it when she is better anyway. Maybe I should put it here...okay I will:

ODE TO SISTER MURDOCK (by me)

It started with a pain...a tic...perhaps even more
And the pain got worse...till all of me was sore.
Then things started coming up...not so good at all
But I’m a trooper and withstood the mighty fall.

What could it be I asked myself and got some answers too:
Must be kidneys, darn those Stones...What about the flu?
Or, the gallbladder is really tricky... an ultrasound should find,
But it cannot see a cause for pain...perhaps you’ve lost your mind.

What did you say? Oh I know it hurts badly my dear.
Have you tried Coca Cola...well maybe a bit of beer.
You know my friend had a pain almost like your own,
But she was full of gas and her stomach was o’er grown.

You know my dear that you could see a doctor for your pain.
Oh no, you already did and an infection you did gain?
Surgery?...Well I declare, I did not expect that too
Some will go to any length when they have work to do.

I hope she doesn't think it tasteless! Ha. It was fun to spend a few minutes laughing as I wrote it. I always think I am funnier than anyone else does (except my wonderful children and grandchildren, who appreciate my humor...I hope).

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!