Week 12 - Aug 17th - 23rd, 2014

Sunday, August 17th - Saturday, August 23rd

Wonderful Sabbath day of rest and worship!  We have been busy and working hard enough that we are enjoying our Sabbath day more and more and more.  It is both spiritually and physically refreshing and rejuvenating to us, love it.  Today the Bishopric sustained us as YSA advisor couple so we are excited to work together in our 'spare' time serving and getting to know the YSA's in the Roodepoort ward.  Hopefully we'll be able to make a difference in some lives among them and feel of their enthusiastic spirit and zest for life here in S. Africa.

Monday we, Melanie and I did some furniture and appliance deliveries with the truck and trailer.  We had a full load, and some good help loading and unloading the stuff on each of the six stops.  It was fun to have Melanie along with me and to meet a few more of the Elders on their 'home' turf (without the threat of flat inspections).

Last stop, trailer mostly empty!

P-Day deliveries happy Elders!

P-day mixed garb early morning.

Happy for a bookcase and a soccer ball on P-day.

The fridge stopped here with some other things!  Happy P-day Elders.

Our last stop, these Elders had two extra study desks so on the trailer they go for a trip back to my storage garage!

We had a wonderful and very tasty Swiss cheese fondue dinner tonight.  We found some at a grocery store and bought a couple.  It tasted as good as I can remember, yummmmm!  It was great.

One of our favorite non-meat dinners of all time, Yummmm this was an excellent way to end a couple of days this week.

Tuesday evening we took a senior couple to the airport, the Hunt's.  They have finished their 18 months here and are heading home after a side trip to Dubai to see their son and his family.  Very nice people who worked doing MLS (Member Leadership Support) in a town about 4 hours east of Joburg called Nelspruit.  They drove themselves in to the Mission office in a car, but we literally had to take my truck, Nissan with a small crew cab, and we filled the back of it totally full.   They also shipped some stuff home in boxes.  Bet they had to pay a bundle in extra airline charges so the plane could get off the ground, ha!

Wednesday we had a couple of interesting encounters.  The first was with a Jewish man at the post office.  Good chat with him and he was very friendly.  I asked him if he was a Christian and he said no, he was Jewish.  I said well hello my Jewish brother I've got a pass-along card just for you.  He took it and seemed interested in what us 'Americans' are doing here with missionary work.

The second was with a Buddhist nun from whom we are going to rent a flat to put some Elders in behind her home.  She was a Methodist for sixty years she said.  She was very friendly to us and we sat down and visited in her living room for quite a while.  She said she converted because she really is smitten by reincarnation and felt a connection to the Buddhist monk she met.  That was a good jumping off point for some conversation about the Plan of Salvation and the pre-existence and post-mortal life.  Not much progress, but we established a very good relationship with her.

We got another new senior couple in today, the Scott's, very nice and personable people with whom we connected easily and quickly to help make them feel welcome and comfortable here.  We sort of took them under our wing for the next few days until the President and his wife take them back up to Nelspruit where they will replace the Hunt's.  They are both retired from law enforcement from California and it is their second mission.  Their first was to New York Manhattan a few years ago, great enthusiastic couple.  

Got to turn the tables on the President's wife, Sister Dunn always taking pictures for her blog.  I got this special one for our blog.

Sister Dunn.  Not sure if she has a cell phone cover for each of her outfits, but I couldn't pass this up.  My hat and her good nature and beautiful smile made it even more special.

Melanie's shopping was light this week.  My week was really quite busy with paying rent and utilities and working out some lease renewals and getting a new lease for the senior's in Nelspruit.

Friday I took Melanie to and from her hair appointment, she still won't drive any further than from the mission office across the street to our flat, but maybe sometime she'll get brave enough to go somewhere she feels comfortable with.  It is a bit scary and intimidating to those who haven't had the experience of driving wrong and among some crazy and aggressive drivers, just like home I suppose.

The mission office construction work continues now with the 'paving' one brick paver at a time outside our offices.

Paving crew.  No knee-pads, no gloves, just hard, hard labor for them each and every day.

Some Elders got mugged and their phone was stolen.  This was the fourth incident since we've been here a short time.  Anyway then I have to get the line blocked and replace their phone.  I have quite an inventory of new phones that I set up, charge up, and get a SIM card activated so they were actually back in business late the same evening.  Best turnaround yet for me as I learn more about how to get phone stuff done too.

Saturday after some office work I had to get done and some chores at the flat that Melanie got done we did our weekly shopping.  Our landlord finally came over tonight and repaired our internet set-up which got fried a week ago when some lightning hit our flat and sizzled it out of commission.  It has been a little more challenging this week not having the convenience of the internet in our flat.  We are glad to have it restored finally.

And, to wrap up another great week, Melanie fixed the second fondue dinner (I sneaked another one into the cart, yummmm!).  So long for this week.   God bless any who endure reading all of this.  Serving the Lord on a mission is truly a dream come true for us!