Week 9--March 3-9, 2008

Dear Family:
We have decided to have our letter this week exerpts from our weekly diary.


Monday, March 3rd

Spent most of the day communicating via email to family, and Elder Johnson and President Egan regarding the new boarding we have located. We faxed various forms to the office for Elder Kuome who arrived this week from the Joburg MTC and before that the Ivory Coast. He is a delightful elder. One of the things that is unusual about the South African phone systems is that you have to buy minutes. You go to a store and buy, for example, 200 minutes and they give you a voucher with a numbered code. You dial a special number on the phone the minutes are for and key in the voucher code. When we tried to use our fax (which uses the same line as our land line phone) this morning, but we couldn't because the machine said we were out of minutes. So we had to go to the store and buy some. A lot of things are just not that quick and easy to do! As a diversion, we spent about an hour this evening driving down to one of the beach areas of the Indian Ocean in East London.


Tuesday, March 4th

We were requested by the office to have one of the elders sign 2 documents for his South African visa extension because it expires just a couple of days before the date of his release. The office faxed us the forms, we drove to his boarding about 5 miles (20 minutes) away, had him sign his name twice(!) because the Home Affairs Office won't accept faxed signatures (we already tried that with another elder), then went downtown East London to the FedEx (another 15 minutes away) office to send the forms back to the Mission Office by "fast mail", then back to our boarding (another 15-20 minutes away). As we said, a lot of things are just not that quick and easy to do!



While we were in the area, we also went to St. Dominic's Hospital where our elders go for immunizations they didn't complete before coming and TB test before going home or for their Namibia visa if this isn't done before they come. We wanted to locate their pathology and radiology departments so we can direct the elders where to go.



On hot days--which is most every day right now--we like to open our windows to cool our boarding off. The problem arises, however, in the evening after dark when bugs, especially moths, are attracted to light and invade the place because we don't have screens for the windows. Stan decided to make some screens so we went to the store called Build It and purchased some insect screening material and some wood. Total money spent was approximately 20 U.S. dollars. The screens are not pretty, but they work, so on hot evenings we can keep the windows open and have the fans on and not be invaded by flying critters!



During the evening we went with the East London Elders Dinkle and Power and visited 3 member families here in Gonubie. It was an enjoyable and productive evening. Earlier today we received a telephone call from our Zone Leader that the Area Presidency wanted all church owned vehicles filled with gas before midnight. Here in South Africa the price of petrol is controlled by the government and price increases are announced in the media. All stations sell gas at the same price, so their only competition is on service. At the station which we use, attendants run to your car, politely fill your tank, wash your windshield, check the oil and water as well as the air pressure in the tyres if requested. They do, however, expect a tip of about R3 (40 cents American). There are also official and unofficial attendants in many car parks (parking lots) at the shops (stores). They usher you into parking spaces, give you directions for backing out, take your shopping carts back to the grocery store, and some even say "I've been watching your car and there are no dents"! They also expect a tip of a few R.


Wednesday, March 5th

Today it rained off and on all day--the rainest day thus far on our mission. We received permission from the Mission Office to make an offer to Sister VanTonder to rent her boarding for the new elders. We met her before she left for work this morning and she accepted the offer and is delighted to have missionaries occupy the boarding. We visited with the contractor and he feels that he can have it finished by the 15th. We spent the middle portion of the day preparing for our Institute class. At about 5:00 we headed out to MD to visit with Tobeli's friend. Unfortunately he did not show up. Tobeli, however, had a back-up plan so he took us around to visit 3 member families. Sister Maluka is an old widow in her 70s or 80s. She has been a member of the church for 12 years. She has 8 children, but the one she told us about is a son in Joburg who is living with a woman and they have 2 children. Sis Maluka explained to us that in their culture (Lesoto, the independent country right in the middle of SA) the parents of the bride require a payment, called bola (sp?) from the groom's family before they can get married. They have already paid R11,000 but the family still wants more. Apparently, with each additional child the price goes up. Since they cannot afford to pay more, the couple is living together as though they are married, but they are not.


Thursday, March 6th

Today for lunch we had 6 elders in our home, including a set of Zone Leaders and APs. It all started when we asked Elder Maramela, who is famous for his "pop" to make us an authentic African dinner. He and his companion, Elder LaPorte, share a car with the Zone Leaders, so they came along. Then they found that they had a training meeting with the APs that same day, so they came along too. What began as a simple invitation to 2 elders turned out to be a group of 6. Pop is a white corn meal which is boiled, similar to grits in the U.S., but is served rather dry and pasty. It is covered with a "gravy" made up of baked beans in a tomato sauce to which has been added grated tomatoes and carrots, diced onions and then boiled. It was served with fried chicken. We bought all the ingredients Elder Maramela asked for and he and Elder Senne (ZL) were the cooks. They cooked up 5 lbs.of dry Pop, 1260 grams (3 cans) of the beans, 1/2 doz medium tomatoes, 3 onions, 2 or 3 carrots, 14 chicken breasts (the expensive chicken, the elders said), 3 doz chocolate cookies, ice cream--and they ate it all! We had a very modest serving. It was our first real African food experience. It was a fun time. In the evening we went to MD and visited with Brother Silmuko (saw-loom-ko) Siwisa (see-we-saw) who is about 45 years old, a convert of several months. We've heard that he had been offended by someone in the ward who ignored him, so he quit going. We had a nice visit with him and asked him to come to church on Sunday. He said he would. PS: He did attend church on Sunday, all 3 hours of the block, had a short visit with the Bishop in which they agreed that the Bishop would stop by his house this week and talk things over. He appears to be a very intelligent man who could make a real contribution in the ward. He told us that he is currently a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. We are going to drop by next week and see him again. We also visited Brother Thwani and his family. He is a high councilman in the stake and lives in the MD 3rd Ward, but is on special assignment to strengthen and build leadership in the 1st Ward as a counselor in the Bishopric. He has previously served as a Bishop himself.


Friday, March 7th

Went to the airport and picked up the mail then went to District Meeting. Stan, using an alphabetical ward list, divided it into several lists by proselyting areas to aid the missionaries in identifying part-member families and less actives. This was passed out at District Meeting. The afternoon and evening was spent working on our Institute class.


Saturday, March 8th

Today's Institute class went very well. We had 10 in attendance, which is the highest number so far. Last week we assigned out portions of the lesson to each student and they came well prepared and contributed significantly to the discussion. We continue to be impressed by their depth of understanding of gospel principles, their faith, and their sincerity.


Sunday, March 9th

Our day started with a 10:00 meeting with the missionary correlation meeting of the East London 1st Ward. The former Stake President is now the ward mission leader and has asked for our help with visiting less actives in his ward. We then went to our own ward in MD in which they announced that we will be teaching the temple preparation class begining next week.



At 5:00 we attended the CES fireside broadcast in which Sister Julie Beck, RS General President, was the guest speaker. Her message included encouraging the young adults to

(1)get involved in serving others;

(2)share the gospel;

(3)participate in temple and family history work;

(4)prepare for the future.

She said that if you focus your life in these 4 areas, you will be associating with other latter-day saints with similar standards and finding a mate will be a natural consequence.


Love you all,

MOM and DAD; GRANDMA and GRANDPA