Week 18 - Sep 28th - Oct 4th, 2014 - Start of Month 5

Sunday, September 28th to Saturday, October 4th

Sunday we attended a baptism for Jennie Cooke a woman who has been working as an interior decorator on many Church and Temple housing projects for about 20 years.  Melanie and I went with the AP's to see her on a teaching appointment a few weeks ago and today she was baptized and confirmed.  There were about a hundred people in attendance to support her, she's so happy!  We were happy too because our young guard we've been working with, Mike attended the baptism with us.

Monday we took the Allreds with us to get a flat ready to close on the 30th.  Sadly, even with notice and reminders, the Elders had not done much in the way of preparing or moving anything (they were just going up one floor to another flat in the same complex).  So, it was a lot of hard work for the four of us.  We did get both sets of Elders going though and they hefted the heavy stuff while we, especially Melanie and Sister Allred, cleaned the flat.  Unfortunately we see some showers that look much worse than this before picture and not too many that can be cleaned up this much as in the after picture.

When Pres. Dunn heard about how it went he wasn't happy and told us never to do such hard deep cleaning again, just make the Elders do it.  Works good in theory, now somehow we'll have to see how to get it to happen in practice.

Tuesday Melanie and I took the keys to the agent.  The flat is about an hour's drive north of here on the way to Pretoria.  We took many pictures of the flat after we prepared it to turn back.  It looked better than when we first got it.  We took the time for a nice lunch at a new mall that was close by, enjoyed the lunch break which we don't normally take.

Wednesday Melanie finally drove off by herself and on her own to do some shopping.  She did well, so well in fact that on Friday she drove herself quite a ways further up to her hair appointment too.  Now she's mobile she will be even more happy to get around and away from the office occasionally.

It's common to see beautiful displays of food in the grocery stores.  Labor is so cheap here it seems like they have 3 or 4 times as many workers to stock, straighten and clean the stores.

Thursday was a regular day in the office but it was spruced up a little bit with some birthday celebrations and treats in my honor.  Shared with the Elders and the guards and gardener, Mike the guard said he wanted to attend church with us next Sunday, we're happy to be able to help him along.   Melanie and I even took another lunch break, you know the jingle "You deserve a break today, at ....."  

On top of all of this she even made my favorite breakfast, creamed eggs over toast as well as mac and cheese for a light dinner, yummm!  I can't remember eating three meals in a day since we arrived here.  Also enjoyed some Elders calling and singing to me and video calls with Jeremy and Wendy along with some great emails and facebook wishes from all of the kids, grandkids and friends.  A great day it was in Africa!

Friday Melanie and I were invited to attend and assist in teaching a segment of the Soweto District meeting about tracting and street contacting.  It was good to meet with the 12 Elders and fun to participate with them in their weekly District meeting.  All of the Districts have lessons on the same topics mission-wide each week.

In the afternoon Melanie needed some mission supplies so we went to lunch a third time this week, unheard of for us, and then shopped at the warehouse Makro, which is part of the Walmart chain sort of like Sam's.

A happy missionary with a new hairdo.

Finished up the week with chores, laundry, and flat cleaning.  Melanie does most of the work but I try to help by doing the dishes and vacuuming.  Sadly, the vacuum broke down after I was part way done and spent a half an hour trying to clean and fix it.  Guess we'll have to get a new one.

Helped some Elders get a bed for one of our YSA boys later this afternoon.  Sort of a wild ride out toward Soweto in the bakke with the trailer but it was nice to help them out.

YSA Chris, his Aunt's guy and Elder Nicotra

The Aunt, Elder Xalabile with the others.

Chris was so happy to get something to sleep on.  He said he would just clean them up.  He walks about two miles to church.