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!