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.