The Wild and Unique Land of Africa

Dear Family:

What a past couple of weeks it has been--everything from feeding 50 elders to the electricity going off to seeing elephants and lions! A week and a half ago was Zone Conference. These take up 3 days. On the first day President/Sister Egan and the APs fly into town. In the late afternoon the Queenstown Zone comes to East London for a workshop under the direction of the APs and Zone Leaders. Sister Egan also gives a presentation. While the workshop goes on, the President interviews the elders. These elders then stay overniht at the local elders' flats (boardings). On the second day all 3 zones (Queenstown, East London, Mdantsane) meet in a morning session, have lunch together which we are in charge of, and meet for an afternoon session. In the late afternoon and evening the Queenstown elders travel home and the EL Zone have their workshop and interviews. On the third day the MD Zone has their workshops and interviews and by noon the President, Sister Egan, and the APs fly to their next Zone Coference venue and it all begins again for them.

This Zone Conference focused on Chapter 8 of Preach My Gospel, "Use Time Wisely", ie daily, weekly, and back-up plans. We were given an unplanned real-life lesson on back-up planning! Here in South Africa there is a shortage of electricity so the different areas in the different cities have their power turned off for a scheduled 2-hour block of time at least 3 days a week Since the outages are not all the same, one area in a city may be OK but another without power. When the Queenstown Zone at the EL Haven Hills chapel, the power was supposed to be on but went off just before their workshop/interviews began. (We were involved because we had the keys to open the building.) It was an unscheduled outage. So we all went to the Belgravia chapel in EL. The time travel between the 2 EL buildings is about 15 minutes. The next day's meetings went without problems. The MD workshops/interviews on the third day were changed from EL Haven Hills chapel to EL Belgravia chapel to avoid scheduled outages. We were just 5 minutes into the meeting when the power went off--unscheduled power outage. We all trooped to the Haven Hills chapel, and guess what? No power--unscheduled outage! We all drove to the MD chapel, about 30 minutes away, where there was power. All in all, it was a real circus. Sometimes even back-up plans have to be backed up!

On Saturday the young single adults of the 3 MD wards planned an activity at the church for all afternoon. If you expect them to walk for miles and miles, you better have something that lasts a long time! As a result, our Institute class was shortened to one hour and was held at the conclusion of the YSA activity at the church since the class members were already there. The MD building was really utilized that Saturday. There was a baptism, a ward council meeting, a primary-aged boys activity, as well as the YSA activity and our Institute class. These were all between noon and 6pm.

Sunday we helped transport a family being taught by Elders Pappoe and Magaia. There was a father, mother, and 3 children--all in the back seat of our small car. They stayed for all 3 meetings and told us that they enjoyed the meetings and would be back next week.
On Monday, the 21st we asked the EL Zone Leaders to bring the bakee (pronounced buckie, meaning pick up truck) which they drive, to help us move the furniture being stored in our garage to the new boarding. It took 3 loads. It takes quite a bit of work to round up everything needed for a new boarding which is brand new and totally unfurnished.

With our anticipated transfer to Namibia which could last for the rest of our mission, we decided to see as many of the SA animals as we can. We took the opportunity of time off for Couples Conference to visit some wild animal parks both here in the EL area and on our way to the conference in Knysna (nighz-nah). We visited Inkwenkwewzi just a few miles up the coast from Gonubie, Addo Elephant National Park, Kragga Kamma Game Park in Port Elizabeth, and the Pettenberg Bay Game Reserve. We have now seen 4 of the Big 5 animals of SA: elephants, lions, water buffalo, and rhinos. We have not yet seen a leopard, but since they are nocturnal we probably won't. The reason they are called the Big 5 is because they are considered to be the most dangerous African animals to hunt. We also saw monkeys, zebras, giraffes, hippos, warthogs, ostriches, and NUMEROUS members of the antelope/deer family including the blue (really black) hartebeest, red hartebeest, eland, springbok. They have really interesting horns--curved, twisted, or circular like a corkscrew. We even saw a black-backed jackal and a huge lizard which are hard to find and, of course, we cannot forget the flightless dung beetle (an endangered species probably because it gets squashed on the road!)

OIA would you see a roadsign which says "Dung beetles have right of way" or a hippo on a yellow caution sign or a sign along a freeway which reads "Feeding of baboons is prohibited"! We also went to a bird sanctuary called Birds of Eden where they have hundreds of species of beautiful SA birds. In our next few letters we will include some of our favorite photos of the wild life we observed. Over and over we said, "We really are in Africa" as we looked at elephants and monkeys and lions up close and personal! Sometimes it is still hard to believe that we are here in this wild, unique, and beautiful land God created.

On our way to Couples Conference we stoped at Bloukrans Bridge which boasts as having the world's highest bungy jump--218 meters (just over 2,000 feet high) and they drop head first towards a huge river! We stopped at the viewpoint just in time to see someone jump. It must be exciting for them, but we question the sanity of such an activity!

Couples Conference was held in Knysna, a coastal resort town about 1/2 way from here to Cape Town. There are currently 9 couples serving in the South Africa Cape Town mission--2 office couples, 1 employment, 1 CES, 1 Branch President, 1 Mission Presidency (2nd Counselor), and 3 similar to what we are doing. We had 2 sessions, each lasting 3 hours where we discussed couple's responsibilities and mission organization, church humanitarian activities in SA, auxiliary training assignmens in the various branches, and discussions on temporal things such as the purchase of approved items for elders' flats, first aid kits to go in automobiles, and rechargable electric lanterns to be used during power outages. Each of the couples gave a short report on their area and responsibilities. The conference ended with a testimony meeting of all couples who will be leaving within the next 6 months which includes President and Sister Egan.

There was also time provided for socializing. We won the opening night game because no one could guess our courting days experience! (Dad was dating Mom's roommate and she was always late so she asked Mom to entertain her date while she finished getting ready. So Mom did and we ended up getting married! One night while we were dating, Mom thought Dad smelled especially nice, and wanting to make a good impression, she complimented him on his after shave lotion. Dad had to admit it was his deoderant!) Everyone got quite a chuckle out of that. We enjoyed very much getting acquainted with President and Sister Bos who are currently serving in Namibia. They told us how much they have enjoyed their assignment there, and assured us that we would love it as well. We attended the Knysna Branch Sacrament Meeting and then drove home. It took us 6 1/2 hours.

The day after arriving home we began transfers which is always a busy time. We had 1 elder go home, lost 5 more to other areas, had 1 interzone tansfer and got 8 new including 2 greenies. To make it even more complicated we received 3 new cars from Johannesburg and Dad drove another one from Couples Conference which originated in Cape Town and the cars needed to be traded for ones we already have. We try to put the older cars with the MD elders because the roads are absolutely terrible--can we say POT HOLES! Some of the roads are as bad or worse than those out at the farm, and only about 1/3 of the roads are paved. It's not uncommon to scrape the bottom of the car as you are picking your way around pot holes. Speaking of pot holes, we have even seen permanent signs on secondary paved roads which read "Caution, Pot Holes next 10 kilometers" and they are not kidding!

We think about you and pray for you every day that you are in good health, safe, have the Lord's Spirit with you, and are living the gospel (which we know you are). Stay connected to each other! We love your emails and blogs. We bear testimony that this is the Lord's work and He needs us here.

Lots of South Africa Love,
MOM/DAD, Grandma/Grandpa, Stan/Karen