A Very Busy, Fun Pre-Christmas

Our graduations went really well. Some of the details and highlights follow.

Graduation for the Bedfordview Stake was held in each ward or branch.  This allowed students and teachers in each unit to share testimonies and encourage others to participate.  One 16 year old described how he was reluctant to come to seminary because he would have to miss a day of soccer.  He decided to attend and talked about how it was such a blessing to his life.

Graduation for the Johannesburg Stake was held for the entire stake on Saturday morning, Dec. 5.  It started with a breakfast at 7:00am, then the program at 8:30, and finished with a service project for the youth. It is interesting to note that one young man looked at his certificate and with excitement on his face he said something like "Wow, this has President Monson's signature!"

At a Seminary Graduation in a remote ward in Bedfordview Stake, we listened to strong testimonies of the youth and young adults. One of the group recalled that he had been invited to attend Institute as a nonmember 4 years ago, and now he was receiving his Institute diploma as a member of the Church. 

One sister related how she had asked her Bishop if she could teach Seminary. Through her preparations and experiences as a Seminary teacher, she not only loved and influenced her students in a very positive manner, but she soon began preparing for and receiving her endowment in the Temple. 

Alas, since some of the graduations were in Sacrament meetings, no pictures, and in our other stake we were so busy getting it all going well that we didn't think of pictures...Hindsight!

Our neighbor, Michelle, was just called as an early morning teacher beginning in mid-January. She came over yesterday and told us about it, and was so excited. She was thinking of teaching her daughter at home, but the Lord had other ideas for her. She will be wonderful.

Priesthood leadership in the stakes and wards are creating new seminary and institute units so that more of the youth and young adults can take part in this valuable program. I am pretty sure that some of the reason is that Lynn has worked so closely with them and they have been able to see how worthwhile the program is.

South Africa pretty much shuts down from mid December until the first of the year. Many people travel to be with family in other African countries (especially Zimbabwe), and others just want to stay home and enjoy the Christmas season with their families. In spite of this we have been able to meet individually with many of the new and old teachers and begin to give them materials and information for their classes which begin in mid January. 

The weather has been very hot, and definitely not very much like our idea of Christmas weather! Since we do not have air conditioning, we find our selves taking rides in our air conditioned car or window shopping in air conditioned malls. This week may be a bit cooler, and holds some rain, according to the weather man. We so hope he is right!

The Garbage Strike for the year (I hope) has ended and our streets are looking much friendlier. South Africa is in an economic tailspin. Their leader, Zuma, just doesn't seem to care much about his people. He fired his finance minister last week and brought in someone who hasn't had much experience in the field. The currency rate is 15 US dollars to 1 ZAR. Last week it got up to 16:1...fun for visitors, but not very encouraging for the economic stability of the country. We worry for the SA citizens about what the future may hold.

Besides doing teacher visits and preparing for "Pre-School" inservices January 9, as well as reading what we can of the curriculum, we have turned our attention to our orphan project. Our grandchildren have earned lots of money with which we have purchased pajamas and an outfit for each of the 40 children and youth. It has been pretty fun, but we had a great list supplied by the orphanage with names, ages, and clothing sizes, but finally today we think we have it all right! We've found great stores to purchase what we need, but we kept getting confused with sizes and gender! They are all in zip loc bags and we have the right size and gender for all 40. Our living area is overflowing with childrens' clothing!

I love Disney, but right now I am not too interested in seeing another Disney Princess or Frozen character for the rest of the year!

We plan to buy each child a gift and fill in with some needed food and school supplies, after Melissa arrives this Wednesday to help us. We are so excited to have her with us for a couple of weeks, besides the fact that she will be a big help with the rest of the project. We will have a bit of wrapping to do after we shop, but our neighbor Michelle and her 2 daughters have said they will come help us, so it should go well. We have arranged to deliver on Christmas morning.

This project has been so great for our family! Service brings joy, and for us to do it as a family, even though we're living on separate sides of the earth, has been amazing.

Maddie

Micah, Maddie and Levi

A few of our Christmas Elves selling hot chocolate and donuts.

That's pretty much it from here. If you have read through all of my ramblings, you probably have other things to do now! Christmas will be wonderful for us with Melissa here, but of course we will be missing the rest of the family.

We want to wish you 

A Very Happy Christmas, and A Wonderful 2016!

New Beginnings

This past 2 weeks has brought new activities with our Seminary & Institute assignment. Classes are ended for the year, and the focus is on graduations and preparing for the new year which begins mid January. We have spent time checking records, printing certificates and diplomas, and visiting old and new teachers.
We decided that it would be a good challenge to meet individually or in small groups with each of the teachers for next year(about 50, spread out across the Gautang). This entails much arranging and then driving to find the church or location we have arranged to meet at. We have gotten quite a bit of it done, but we still have plenty to go. It is really nice to get to talk individually with our teachers and discuss their challenges and ideas. They are so dedicated and committed to helping their students.

Sister Nomvula and Sister Sofi, two of our Seminary teachers in Ennerdale

Some women in traditional dress at the school which Orange Farm Branch uses for Institute, Seminary, and Church meetings

Laundry day at the boarding school

Brother John, InstituteTeacher and Sister Dorothy, Seminary Teacher of the Orange Farm branch

I think yesterday was probably our best missionary day so far here. We started out visiting 3 far away churches and the Seminary and Institute teachers that will be teaching in January. We were able to have really good visits with them and were able to distribute a lot of materials and preview them with the teachers. I always think of the excitement I had receiving my texts (or later my students) who I would work with for the year when I was working. They get really excited as they plan for the year, just like I did. It is always nice to visit with them as well, so that was a good start to the day.

In the afternoon we went to visit an orphanage we had been told about, which we decided that we will help as a Christmas project, along with our children and their children. We did something similar when we were here before with a different orphanage, and it was one of our favorite projects.

The orphanage is set up to care for children who have lost parents due to AIDS, and often have developed the virus themselves. They get the medication they need, which is donated by the government, and wonderful care aiming to help them live the most positive life possible in their circumstances. There currently are 40 children between the ages of 5 months and 18 years. They have needs for food, school supplies, clothing, and just about anything you could think of. It is so sad to see the children, but so heartwarming to be able to do a bit to help them. We will deliver our purchases on Christmas or the day before, and will have a small, wrapped gift for each one. They don't have much experience with receiving gifts, so it is pretty fun to see their expressions!

When we got there it was middle of the day break time....definitely for the kids, and probably for many of the busy staff!

They have done a great job of painting the walls, some with optimistic messages

Some afternoon exercise and games

Emma (your left), the founder, and Susan who took us on tour

We also started working a shift a week at the Johannesburg Temple last Thursday. We had to make sure that we would have time to do it on top of our other responsibilities, but we finally felt we could do it, and the Temple President was very appreciative. We love serving in the Temple....All in all, the past two weeks have brought so many blessings. We are so grateful for the opportunity to do this work. The weeks and months are just flying by!

This 'n' That

There has definitely been a looong time in between posts. It's not that we aren't thinking of you wonderful friends and family, but preparing for graduations is quite the project. Which means that many have visited our page to find nothing new. Sorry, we'll try to do better!

We've had Halloween which wasn't Halloween here. Our neighbors were curious about it, so we invited them for dinner and played games. We couldn't even find any Halloween candy! I'm pretty sure Thanksgiving is much the same, but I did see a very small turkey that should fit into my mini-style oven, so maybe we'll have a feast on our own.

Meet our neighbors/landlords, the Van Tonders. We really enjoy them and their children. In fact, Lynn had to go out and purchase a super-duper squirt gun to be able to compete with Antoine and Gian. I really enjoy Danielle and Meon, two really sweet girls, as well as Michelle, their mother. In fact Michelle and I walk together many days. They are Africaans and speak the language in their home. They speak English with a fairly strong accent outside their home. The little area we live in, Randburg, has many Africaans people. When we were here before I thought Africaans was a language of the past, but these people love it as a part of their heritage, and don't want to lose it.

I think the #1 question from my grandchildren is "What do you eat?", so I thought I would give a bit of a food tour here.  Many of the African people eat what they call "mealy meal". It is sort of like creamed wheat, only corn, and they eat it as cereal or with vegetables and a little bit of meat. When we were here before we were invited to a "braii" (barbeque) where they served mealy meal, vegetables and sausage cooked over a wood fire. It was sort of funny because they brought us these big plates of food, but no fork, knife, or spoon. They just went about eating with their fingers for as long as they could contain their laughter, and then asked if we would like a fork or spoon. We were so glad to be able to eat this unusual food with a fork or spoon!

The Von Tonders invited us over for a "braii" and cooked lamb in their bbq. Most of the meats are pretty much what you know, but there is more lamb and big curled sausages here. I have always loved lamb, but it is very expensive in the US, so I am getting a pretty good fill of it here! You'll have to think of us on Halloween and Thanksgiving...there is no canned pumpkin, so we may be missing out on all of those great pumpkin dishes. I do plan to buy some fresh pumpkin and puree it and try to use that...we'll see how that goes!  We also buy these beautiful bags of oranges that make amazingly delicious orange juice. I am not sure how long they will be in season, but for now, I could just about live on fresh squeezed orange juice!


 We were really excited when we got here and discovered that we lived very close to the fruit and vegetable market pictured below. When we were here before we would occasionally drive across town to shop at it because it is the best one we've found with plentiful fruits, vegetables, and a great inventory of herbs there is also a very nice bakery, a dried fruit and nut shop, and a meat market in this square. We now stop by probably 2 or 3 times a week!

As you can see below, we have our own little juicing industry right in our kitchen. So sad, though, because orange and avocado season is about over. We're told, however, that the mangoes will be arriving shortly, and so it goes!

ENJOY:

Johannesburg Botanical Gardens are a wonderful place to go and enjoy nature. We love the Rose Gardens that are terraced in about 4 large areas, with water features throughout. Since we generally need to be very aware of our surroundings and not stray very far from home, office, or church buildings, for security reasons, these gardens are a wonderful opportunity to experience the wide open, beautiful spaces here!

MIRACLE OF THE DAY 8 NOVEMBER 2016 (ANDY'S BD!)

We had another special experience of seeing the Hand of the Lord in this work.  We printed the Seminary and Institute Diplomas for the graduation programs.  The next step was to have them signed by a member of the stake presidency.  In one of the stakes we work with, it seemed like it was hard to get the support of the stake.  Anyway, we arranged to meet the counselor assigned at noon in the stake center for him to sign the diplomas.  

We went to a sacrament meeting at 10:00 some distance away in a township, but felt we had plenty of time to get to the stake center.  Well, there was major road construction and the traffic was terrible getting to the Church.  So after Sacrament Meeting we decided to go a different way down to the stake center.  We hit construction traffic that way also, and were worried about making the meeting.  However, the GPS got us to a freeway and we entered the stake center at just the right time to catch the stake presidency counselor between meetings.  It turned out he not only signed the documents but wanted to review the challenges we were having.

He invited us to a meeting with the bishops and branch presidents this Wednesday.  Well, we were so excited you could have knocked us over with a feather.  Also, we had been thinking and praying about how to get all the certificates and diplomas to the unit leaders in time for their graduation programs in their sacrament meetings.  The wards and branches are so spread out in this stake, it was going to be a real challenge.  So we feel the Lord make it possible for us to accomplish some significant progress with the work in this stake.  The Stake Presidency cares greatly about the youth and young adults; it was just taking them some time to figure out how to have confidence in how we can help.  

We are so grateful the Lord’s Hand in this work.

What a beautiful people, and what a beautiful place South Africa is!

What a beautiful, hopeful people we have been assigned to work with! As we get ready for "graduation" and talk with teachers, we continually find a humble spirit and a desire to serve the Lord in them. They love their students, and are giving them a wonderful gift of understanding and confidence and faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is an amazing thing to talk with them one-on-one and feel the love they have for the Gospel and their students. They are hopeful when their physical circumstances are less favorable than we could imagine, but their hearts are focused on their love of our Savior and what they can do to follow Him and serve Him. The work we have to do is such a joy, and we are so thankful to have been invited to serve here.

Most days we have been quite busy with visiting classes and Church leaders, as well as spending a good deal of time with record keeping. That is the one break the teachers have here in relation to Utah Seminary and Institute...they turn their attendance, assignments, etc. over to us, and we record it. One of the Stakes is considering asking the teachers to do their own record keeping starting with the new academic year in January. It would be wonderful if that could happen, but we will see. We are starting to get requests to substitute for teachers who are unavailable at their class time. We are really looking forward to do some teaching!

The Black Name Tag is still doing its magic, magnetic thing! Many times as we go to stores we will have people ask about the Church. Some are sincerely looking for a church to "attend", and others have a church and would like to have a gospel "discussion" with us. Usually the latter is very friendly, and we will make a point of being in their store again when they may be there in order to talk with them again. It is interesting that most of the inquisitive people are African. It seems like many of the "European" individuals are more set in their ways, and less interested.

Well, that's the report from here. No pictures from the above activities, but we have had some wonderful "P days" which we will share pictures of.

Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens are not far from where we live. We visited them a number of times when we were here before, and love the natural beauty as well as the feeling of total security in the wide open spaces.

Lynn has decided that we need this thatched roof enclosure in our area he is developing out back of our house.
 We just have to figure out what to tell our neighbors when the winds  blow and the straw goes flying!

As for me, I am trying to work out a way to send this wonderful mahogany bench home!

The new fitness are has been added when we were there last. As you can see from the picture below,
they are serious about everyone becoming fitter!

This beautiful waterfall is a truly dramatic spot in nature! When we were here
before we watched parent eagles teaching their young to fly. We did see their
nests, but no flying school going on that day.

This last "Pday" we took a bit longer trip to Pilanesberg National Park. It was really a great day to see animals! At first we thought it was a giraffe convention, but, no, it must be an elephant convention, as well. We also caught a glimpse of some lions afar off sleeping under a tree.

Who has the right to the road here?

The zebras were having a party, too!

It was so sad...Some of the giraffes found a giraffe that had died somehow.
It was interesting to see how interested they were in it. 

This little guy just had to pose for us!

  Of course, we have tons more pictures, but suffice it to say it was one of our best ever wildlife viewing days. Lynn has taken some tips from Johnnie, our favorite game drive guide, and likes to predict that they are headed for the water. If we can follow them, he is usually correct!

Okay, the last entry in the beauties of this land. This is the perfect time to see the lovely Jacaranda trees, which are a popular site here. These pictures were taken just around the corner from our cottage. I love their beauty, but the nostalgia element is no doubt the strongest emotion. When I was growing up we had Jacaranda trees around the cul de sac where my parents' home was. We complained a lot about having to clean the street when all of the purple flowers had dropped, but we did love the sight when they bloomed. It is so hot and dry here right now that Jacaranda season will be very short this year.

Recycling, Animal Viewing, and Gardening in S.A.

One interesting, but sad, item about the way things are around here is the "recycling program."  What happens is the day the garbage is placed out on the curb, men come and go through the garbage cans looking for plastic, cardboard, etc. that can be recycled. This can be very gross going (through the garbage.) They put the recycling items in a bag on a cart they pull around. We had to replace our toaster (it was working but ever so feebly) so we just took the old one out to a guy that was going through the garbage. He was so thankful and very nice.  It was in the original box, and he asked, incredibly, "Does it really work ?" The next week we happened to be out on garbage day and he brought us some keys he found in the garbage.  Evidently our landlords had put them in the garbage and he wanted to make sure they should be there.  So you can guess this is not the best job to have and it is quite sad that people need to do things like this in order to make some money.

On a lighter note, we did make it to the Lion Park.  This is where you can drive through the Lions' area. On a darker note, this is where the lady rolled down her car window  and was killed by a white lion.  They have always given warnings and told you to keep your windows up, but now, in fact,  they put a sticker tape on your windows so you won't roll them down.  We had a great time and as you can see in the picture, the Lions were fed so they didn't want to eat us that day. (Well, we kept our windows up, just in case).

One thing that I never expected us to do here, was to set up a little garden. There was a container on our patio area and we thought it looked pretty sad without any plantings. We discovered a beautiful garden shop last week, and purchased flowers, herbs, tomatoes and peppers to plant. In the end it all worked out pretty well (as you will see in the pictures), but it was quite an adventure to do the planting.  We set the plants out in a flower bed by our cottage with the intention of planting them in the next few days. We went inside, and when we walked out to go to our car, we noticed that the plants were missing.

We did a bit more exploring and saw little piles of dark rich potting soil around the corner, and then some of the plastic containers we had bought the plants in. Just a bit more looking and we found plants strewn throughout the yard. Well, you probably guessed it by now...the dogs that live at our landlords' place had discovered a new game. We think they liked the crinkle of the plastic, but whatever, we thought they had really ruined our new plants. I am always reluctant to shake young plants before planting, but these dogs did it with sheer abandon and joy, and the result was some pretty nice starts once they were planted. After planting them, we put Irish Spring soap shavings around on the patio, and the dogs have watched the planter a lot (see picture),but haven't gotten near it.

It's a good thing! We really did like those dogs, but got pretty angry at them for awhile. They've been forgiven by now, as long as they maintain good behavior. There must be a parable somewhere in there, but for now, we are just happy to think of the fruit of our labors in a couple months.

What good little innocent guard dogs!

We're loving the work and the life here! The only place we might rather be is home...but that will come quickly, the way time is flying now. We know we're here for a purpose and that we and those at home will receive unmeasured blessings through our service.