"Uyakwazi ukushayela imoto Debi?" (Zulu for "Can you drive a car, Debi") "Yebo!"‏

February 23, 2010 This was a week of firsts for me. I had my first driving lesson on Saturday, and I must say that Lynn was quite patient. I feel quite a bit more confident now, but he has me convinced to hug the middle line, which is nerve wracking. I guess a couple of times I was almost on the sidewalk on the left hand side…oh well, there really weren’t any pedestrians! I’m a far cry from being ready to drive in traffic! I also taught my first “piano” lesson on the keyboard Sunday. I had one little student who is about the age of Rachel and Eliza. Her name is Josephine and she didn’t get started with the group of 4 a year ago, and has tried to catch up, but needs the individual attention. She is certainly eager, and really trying hard. After her lesson she introduced me to her older sister, and then about an hour later the sister asked if she could have lessons, too. Then, a young lady who was just baptized asked if she could join the class. I am now trying to get another keyboard to be able to use. It’s pretty amazing to see how excited they are. The plan is that they learn enough to play in church, and also commit to teach others. I’m trying a second angle: Josephine is giving me lessons in Zulu pronunciation, in that I still can’t quite pronounce her last name…it has one of those clicks in it! It’s pretty fun! Our support group seems to be going well. One of the members really made some tough commitments last week, and has been so honest in analyzing his challenges. We feel that he is making wonderful progress. He works for the U.S. government, and will be working in Virginia the next couple of weeks, but liked the idea of our keeping in touch with him while he is gone. Lynn sent him a text today…he and Morgan seem to relate really well. I think that Lynn’s experiences as a Bishop and mine as a counselor help to make us a good team in working with these people. Work in the area office keeps bringing new assignments and challenges. We are preparing to teach our first “Basic Computer Training” class to new missionaries and employees in the building. We’ve developed an outline which includes training interspersed with cartoons and videos. It is a day-long class with pizza for lunch, and we’re attempting to make it as painless as possible. We’ll see how we survive in team teaching! We’ve been called to work in the temple on Saturday mornings. We have to be at the temple at 6 am and the shift ends at 12:30. We worked last Saturday for the first time, and loved it. It adds a new dimension to our work here, and we are happy about it. It does mean that we need to change our Preparation day to Monday in order to get things done and be able to do any field trips. Yesterday we went to the Lion Park which is about 45 minutes away from our flat. We fed giraffes and drove through the lion camps. We had some young lions follow our car a short distance after we photographed them. We also saw zebras that we could reach out of the car and touch, and quite a few other African animals and birds. (See pictures and video/the lion in the video winked at me!). It was a really nice morning and the weather was beautiful. (dmw)

Yebo! ("Yes" in Zulu)

Happy Valentines’ Day Everyone!

Yes, they do celebrate Valentine’s Day in Africa. We celebrated a couple days early combining it with a follow-up anniversary dinner last Thursday. We did go out on our anniversary to an Italian restaurant. It was nice but quite basic, so when another couple invited us to celebrate their anniversary with them, we decided to do it again. We ate at Chiefs Boma buffet. They have wonderful dishes – salads, vegetables such as squash, pumpkin, etc. cooked quite uniquely. The desserts such as cheesecake, cakes, and custard dishes were really good (too good)! There was quite a variety of rice, potatoes, etc. For the meat, you could choose from some prepared dishes or select the meat you wanted and they cooked it right on the grill. They had quite the meat. We had things like ostrich, impala, warthog, and a skewer of what they call the big five (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and buffalo). They had traditional African drummers and the setting was just beautiful. The buffet was very reasonably priced so I’m sure we’ll go back again.

On our preparation day, we went to an African craft market. They all know who we are and some of them are pretty aggressive sales people. Negotiating is the custom. It’s hard to negotiate with these people because we want to get a fair price, but we also know that they really are quite poor. As we drive around there are lots of people on the street at the robots (traffic lights) walking by to sell you things, collect any trash, or just try and entertain you for a donation. It’s hard knowing how to handle these, because most of them are really in need, but it’s also somewhat risky rolling down your window, because there are some thieves and robbers out there.

We are quite busy at the area office. We are really seeing where we can help improve a number of the processes to save time and money. We are preparing for a stake conference in one of the suburbs called Roodepoort. They will have a visiting General Authority of the Church and they want to broadcast the meetings from Roodeport to Gabarone, Botswana. Very, very few people will be able to attend from Botswana (4 hours away) and another area that is about 2 hours away. The staff has a web casting solution they are going to try. Something like that would be quite straight forward in the US, but here it’s a different story. Lynn’s main assignment is to work with the stake leaders to understand their needs for conferences and other meetings and then see how to apply the technology to those needs. It’s going to be very interesting.

We are continuing our work with the addiction recovery group. We had another participant last Friday who is quite dedicated. He lives about an hour away. Debi is doing great working with them. Our hearts go out to these people as they work to overcome their challenges. It’s interesting how both of us have had some experiences with people like these—Debi at the school, and Lynn when a Bishop. However, this is new to us and we really need the Lord’s help in doing this. It is quite challenging. The local Church leaders we’re working with have also indicated that they want Debi to help in a couple other areas, so we’ll be learning how to do that.

A most unusual thing happened to one of the missionaries here. His name is Elder Gary Packer. He is actually our District Leader. One of his assignments is to represent the Church at the Condominium Association (The call it the Body Corporate) for Duke’s Court where we live. At the last meeting, a 70 year old lady really was quite disruptive, as she evidently has been in the past. They called security to remove her. In the process of her leaving she fell down. A few days later she filed assault charges and the police came at 5 am to arrest the president of the association and then the next day Elder Packer was arrested and hauled off to jail. Elder Packer described the jail as a room about the size of a small living room, with concrete floors. There were 16 men in the jail and 12 mats. The odor, etc. was really bad. He spent about 9 hours in jail and then was able to post bond. The next day they went to the judge. Fortunately there is video of the meeting and lots of witnesses so the judge indicated there was insufficient evidence for the charge. While in the jail Elder Packer talked with the other inmates. He taught them the Plan of Salvation and to sing “I am a Child of God”. He said they all wanted to pray with him before he left. What a way to handle a difficult situation! It’s a great blessing that the case is dismissed because Elder and Sister Packer are scheduled to go home in two weeks. He will then be coming back in July to be a mission president in DR Congo. The Lord is in charge of this work and somehow things seem to work out.

Once again, our hearts are full as we come home from Church. There was a baptism for a sister today and everyone is so kind and cheerful. We are really loving these people. Debi is starting to help with music lessons. I’m going to be helping the leaders, but the Bishop is so busy, that we haven’t had a chance to define the specifics yet.

VISIT TO LION RHINO RESERVE January 30, 2010

Sala kahle (Zulu for "Stay well"

February 9, 2010

We’re doing fine. Both still healthy and glad to be here doing the work. It seems that each day we become a bit more oriented to the specific purposes we are here for. We are picking up the knowledge we need to support the IT work, and Lynn is studying to be able to work on the main project Elder Koelliker has him here for. He can tell you more about it as it progresses, but basically it involves working with technology to broadcast conferences and leadership meetings, etc., to outlying church buildings. This is a quite different project from what it would be in the U.S.! We could really witness the need this week as it was our Stake Conference, and many of the members could not attend because of lack of transportation. Few of them own cars, I think we’ve told you, and public transportation is a luxury some are unable to budget for.

It has been a pretty big shopping week for us. I’ve had a lot of fun and Elder Warr has been a good sport. We were told that the place to buy curtains for our kitchen and bathroom was “Oriental Plaza”. It was an adventure to travel to, as are most places at this point, but once there we realized that all of the glossy advertisements were somewhat misleading. We knew that it was a “mecca” of sales for the Indian segment of SA society, but we had no idea what that meant. It is divided into “bazaar” areas, selling everything under the sun (and much of it is outside, under the sun)! Hunting for curtains, we probably found 30-40 curtain shops, some of which hosted on-the-spot drapery seamstresses. We did find approximately what I had wanted for curtains at a very cheap price. We had no opportunity to compare prices, however, as the Indian lady at “Lucky Nook” where we found them explained that she was closing shop in a ½ hour to attend church, as were the rest of the merchants (it was Friday at 12:00 noon), so we’d best believe her that they were a good deal. Anyway, now we have lovely sunflower curtains in the kitchen and will hang the others when we find rods. The only downside was that I had nightmares of being kidnapped by mid Easterners that night.

On Saturday morning a “seasoned” couple took us to breakfast and shopping at a little village where there is a nut and flower shop, a meat market, a fruit and vegetable shop, a wonderful bakery, to name a few. It really felt like Disneyland for gourmets, and we came home with lots of treasures for very few Rands. There are so many things that are hard to find here for cooking, and I was looking for specific salad ingredients for a new salad I wanted to make, and I found everything I needed…it was like a minor miracle, and really cheered me up. It’s funny how my perspective and appreciation of small things is changing!

Stake Conference Saturday afternoon and Sunday was amazing. Many travelled there at a good deal of sacrifice. The congregation at both meetings was probably at least 75% black. The people who saw us from our ward in Tembisa were so excited to greet us. They had to travel about 10 miles, most of them in “combes”, the public taxis that are more like vans. There was a meeting before the general Sunday morning meeting for investigators and new members. In it the Stake President gave those attending a white rose from his garden, and talked about tending their testimonies like roses. In the general meeting he asked the new members (less than a year) and investigators to stand and wave their roses….there were 20-30 who proudly stood. It was really a sweet feeling to see their happiness.

Stake Conference was also a good opportunity for us to spend time talking with the young missionaries. There are currently no young sister missionaries in the Johannesburg mission, but the elders are great and love to compare notes with us “seniors”.

We’ve had quite a bit of rain in this warm, wet time of year. They say there’s been more rain than in many years past. It does seem to be moving to a drier, sunnier pattern, and the countryside is green and beautiful. We plan to do some sort of adventure on Saturday…there is so much to explore! (dmw)

OUR FLAT

MTC PICTURES

Hamba kahle (Zulu for "Go Well")

We’re getting pretty well settled in. There are still a few things to do in our flat, but things are coming along. We’ve found our favorite place to shop for groceries and incidentals. It’s another mall about 5 kilometers away. The mall across the street is good, but this other one has a Pic n Pay Hyper. For those of you who we haven’t explained this, Pic n Pay is the largest grocery chain in South Africa. A “Hyper” is like a super Target or heaven forbid Super WalMart. We’ve found a number or other malls so we’re now ready to look for some of the more open markets that we hear are quite good.
We were able to have a real “diversion” activity yesterday. We went with another couple to the Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve. It’s about 50-60 kilometers out of town. It was really nice to be in the country and enjoy the scenery and peace. For most of the reserve you drive through the countryside to see the animals. This reserve has rhinos, lions, cheetahs, zebras, wart hogs, wildebeests, lots of birds, lots or “antelope”, type animals, wild dogs, and others. The countryside is grassy rolling hills and covers quite a large area. We’ve attached a couple of pictures. They also have an area of some animals that are caged. Notice the picture of Debi with some 4-5 month old lion cubs. She had to be careful, but they do allow people (under supervision) to go in with the cubs. It was nice to spend a little time relaxing.
Our schedule is starting to get quite full. In fact, the temple president asked us if we would like to spend an afternoon or evening as temple workers. We would love to so we’ll see if we can work it out. We met with one of the Stake Presidents who is coordinating a social services committee for the entire greater Johannesburg area. He was really pleased that Debi would be available to assist with a number of things.He would like Debi to help put together some training and help for a group of 6-8 people who are providing family counseling services. Also, he asked if we could put together some basic training on listening skills and general counseling for Bishops. Then, it turns out they have an addiction recovery support group where the facilitator/trainer just had back surgery. So we went to the session Friday evening and Debi will be helping with that until the sister returns in a few months. I have basically been trying to understand how the area office technical group functions and provide support in a number of areas. Right now I’m thinking we can do a number of things to help with their processes. Elder Koelliker, the area president, also asked me to see what we could do to provide a video link for a stake conference. The conference will originate in Roodepoort, a suburb about 40 kilometers away. However, they would like to provide live viewing in Gabarone, Bortswana. So that will be really interesting. We may need to go to Gabarone the weekend of the conference (Maybe we can look up the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency).
Again, we just love interacting with the local people here. There was a group of about 12 people who came to the temple from Malawi. To get here they had to ride a bus for 32 hours. When they got to the border of South Africa, it turned out 4 of the people had some type of provisional visa and could not come the rest of the way. We talked to the spouses of two of the people. It was kind of sad because they were planning to be sealed in the temple. Although they were disappointed, they were very grateful to be at the temple. I suppose it took a significant sacrifice for them to come.
I’m still amazed how many people ask us about they read our name tags. We bought some rugs at a “home” store and the cashier was asking us some questions as we were paying for them. Each time I come back from Church, I have a whole range of emotions from gratitude, respect, love, and empathy for these wonderful people. We’re learning that it is quite an adjustment to relate to the people. The culture is quite different. However, they are so gracious. Today was fast and testimony meeting. The people bore such sweet humble testimonies of the gospel of Jesus Christ and of their love for the Lord. (jlw)