Week 47 - April 19th - 25th, 2015

Sunday, April 19th  Saturday, April 25th, 2015

The best way to start a week of all, a baptism.  This is Koekie Ramaru.  We have been with the Elders on about 4-5 teaching appointments with her.   She will be a wonderful addition to the group and to the RS.  She is a school teacher at an elementary school.   Her son, Matshediso, was baptized last fall and is a deacon.  Her husband, Edwin, has not yet been taught but is on everyone's goal list for the Elder's, especially Koekie's.  She also has a 2-year old daughter that stays with her mother during the week while she teaches.  This is very common here for mothers of very young children.

Elder Dye, Edwin Ramaru, Matshediso, Koekie, Thini Maja (a neighbor and RM who baptized her), and Elder Roberts.

Lunch at the local Chinese place 'Yummy's' after District meeting with our terrific Elders.  (L-R after Melanie, Elders Henderson, England, Roberts, SLC, Dye, Idaho, Lybe, ?, Olson, SLC, and Delahoy, Australia.

On to our regular weekly BB activity at the area court (which is the only outdoor court we know of in the greater metro area of 1 million + people, guess BB isn't too popular here, yet).  We have a really lot of young kids show up, this week over 30.  We had a lot of fun with them.   When the young Elders show up some of them have started running right up to them to greet them and give them '5'.

This little guy doesn't speak English but he's learned to say 'good boy' mimicking me when I tell him he's good.

Last but not least, the deceptions of this day and age continue to challenge us if we are not observant and obedient.  Do not be fooled!

Week 46 - April 12th-18th, 2015

Sunday, April 12th to Saturday, April 18th, 2015

Mark Molepo ordained a Priest following his baptism a week ago.

Group Council meeting was enlightening to help Melanie and I understand how we can better support these Leaders in their duties and responsibilities.

Good little laundry down the street did eight shirts within one day for less than $5 total on p-day.

Driving test for new Elder Roberts so he can 'assist' Elder Dye with the driving duties.   He did great so we took them for a pizza lunch.  Elders are hungry types, they each polished off two small pizzas apiece.

Power outages due to 'load shedding' by the electric utility because of the lack of infrastructure.  Alternating areas are shut off for two-hour periods at random times, really fun, especially at shower time since we have electric water heaters.

Some great visits with Seshego members and leaders this week.   These people are wonderful!

Another fun BB activity, cut short by some rain but the boys loved it anyway and the littlest boy of all won the prize BB!

Helped our young Elders with a very good service project for a new 'father-led family' they have started teaching.   Hard work, a lot of progress.  Great results, plus they attended church the next day!

A great finish to our week with our visit to Jimmy Letsoalo, our quadriplegic brother.   Some fun and stories as well, he is a special brother and friend to us now.

Guess I couldn't pass up this South African version of 'outdoor facilities with its exterior plumbing!  Way cool, but someone could come along and surprise you...

Week 45 - April 5th - 11th, 2015

Easter Sunday, April 5th to Saturday, April 11th, 2015

Although this is Easter Sunday, we hold church at our group until DVD's can be prepared for our members to watch together.   This will be two sessions per Sunday beginning on April 19th and will continue every other week.   Sort of delayed, but we've caught much of the info already and have been able to listen by computer to a few of the talks as well.   A great General Conference!

Anyway, back to Easter.   We enjoyed the weekend visit of Ben and Jill from the Area.   We had a great time for these few days both at the Seshego township and around the area to a couple of other fun places.   They are winding down now in their last three months.   We were happy they could come up and enjoy some of the Seshego members and people with us!  And a very nice Easter dinner Melanie prepared for us and the Elders.

A first time event hardly worth mentioning, but I did have to have a tire repaired, seems like I picked up a nail somehow and it took a few days of slow leaks and getting to an open shop after the Easter weekend to get it repaired finally.   We are thankful so much to have reliable transportation while we're here on our mission.

We had a special 'payday' trip to Joburg to the temple this week.   We were able to join our group mission leader, Thabong, while he received his temple endowment.   It was great to be with him.   He had also prepared the names of his deceased mother and her parents so they all have now been blessed with the temple ordinances and covenants.   He was so happy, as were we.   It was our privilege to teach him the temple preparation lessons over the last month.

And as usual we got to finish up our week with our Saturday visit to Jimmy at the care center.  He is such a blessing to us, we love him.

Week 44 - March 29th - April 4th, 2015 - Start of month 11

Sunday, March 29th - Saturday, April 4th, 2015

This week started off with a most cherished missionary event, of our dear Molepo family, Mark, 21 was baptized.  

Mark Molepo with Elders De La Cruz and Dye.

He is the son of Joyce, one of three member sisters who are a strength to our little Seshego group.   Mark is studying mechanical engineering.  His Aunt Gwen gave a talk at his baptism and told him and us all how proud she was that in a year or so he would be the first missionary from their family!   There's an objective along with the strong family support.   Mark's mother Joyce was baptized last September and soon Melanie and I will be teaching her the Temple preparation lessons.  This is a wonderful family, we are growing very close to them.

L-R:  Navin, our 16 yr-old investigator, Joyce, Mark's mother, Elder De La Cruz, Mark, Elder Dye, Wilmer, Mark's cousin, Gwen, Mark's Aunt.

We bid a fond farewell to our Elder De La Cruz and welcomed Elder Roberts to the Seshego area with this week's transfers.   Elder Dye is such a good trainer and experienced Elder.

Melanie and I helped with a member service project raking, shoveling, clearing debris and junk.  Us and the YM Pres that organized it had a good time working hard.

This being the start of April and Easter week we jumped in with a special street contacting effort to promote the Savior through the Church's 'He Lives' media efforts.   It was terrific!

At the end of the week we were happy to have the Jones' come up for an Easter weekend visit from Joburg.  We took them to the area, to a family birthday party, to see Jimmy, our quadriplegic member, to Tzaneen, where we saw the most amazing gathering of Zion Christian Church members, hundreds of thousands, and to our Easter sacrament meeting at Seshego where they were called upon to share their testimonies with our group.   A great time together.

Called Moria

Just a portion of thousands of buses and tents, etc.

Big giant fields packed bumper to bumper with buses.

Millions to flock to Moria this Easter

News April 1, 2015 Millions to flock to Moria this Easter2015-04-01T13:37:46+00:00Community 

Polokwane – More than 10 million pilgrims are expected to descend on Limpopo ahead of the Easter weekend. The pilgrims are mainly from neighbouring provinces and neighbouring countries.

Millions of pilgrims are expected in Moria to attend the annual Easter church service.

“Easter weekend church services are zealously attended and members use whatever mode of transport they can find to get to Moria. Some come by foot, others by car, bicycle, bus, car and taxi. This does pose a traffic congestion challenge and through the intersection we are hoping to make it easy for traffic to flow while at the same time enhancing safety,” said SANRAL’s spokesperson Vusi Mona.

Besides the traffic from all over the country as well as from neighbouring countries heading to Zion City in Moria, thousands of people,  mainly economic migrants and holiday makers, also make their way through Limpopo over this weekend.

As a result, the major arterial routes and ports of entry become congested. This impact has particularly been felt on the R71 going to Moria, which experiences extra-ordinary traffic during the Easter period when the Zion Christian Church and St Engenas Christian Church members converge at Moria in what is the biggest Christian gathering in South Africa.