February 28-Mar 5, 2016

We got an early start to our Sabbath Day because we had to go to Madadeni and pick up the Branch President, and a young couple we are working with. Then we drove them to Newcastle in time for 9:00am church and to meet with the 1^st counselor there to begin the paper work for their marriage. He will be marrying them in a few weeks. I think I have mentioned before that in South Africa a person has to take a class in order to qualify to marry people. The counselor in Newcastle has that qualification.

We went to the cottage meeting on Monday and were told there are plans in the works for the rental of a school room for the meeting and possibly move to become a group or a branch. The difference between a group and a cottage meeting is that a group meets on Sunday and can bless and pass the Sacrament. The Mission President told the Madadeni missionaries that they are working on it. Things don’t always move as fast as we would like but we will be patient.

We celebrated Elder Larsen’s birthday on Monday at Family Home Evening. He is a leap year baby. For the lesson we took turns picking our favorite hymns and singing them and talking about them. It made for a very spiritual meeting.

Transfers are coming up so we had to do boarding and car checks. Not my favorite job. We had a short transfer this time (5 weeks instead of 6 weeks).   Most of the boardings looked pretty good. They all need a shower scrubbing lesson though.

We went out to the school to hand out some more of the sustainable hygiene kits. It went well, the girls are excited about them. Then Elder Hind had several hours of District Meeting in the evening.

Learning to use the hygiene kits.

Thursday we went to try and find chairs for our boarding. We have been needing them for some time now but we haven’t had time to do much looking. We didn’t have any luck. I guess we need to keep looking. We had appointment to teach but it was cancelled.

Look familiar?

Woolworths is not a five and dime. It is a very nice clothing store

Here is a familiar name

Couldn't find any chairs here

We went out with the Madadeni 2 elders and had some wonderful visits. The missionaries had given one women the Restoration pamphlet to read last week. This week they asked her what she had learned. She told us she didn’t know much about God or Jesus Christ but in this booklet she had learned about God – that he was her loving Heavenly Father. She was so pleased with that bit of knowledge that it warmed all of our hearts.

We had dinner at Sister Mati’s house, it was great as usual.

We went to another funeral on Saturday. It was for President Nkosi's niece. We didn't know her but we went to support President Nkosi and his family. The funeral was held in a big tent in his yard. We have been to five funerals so far but we have known only one of the deceased. 

Lunch after the funeral

Some of the sisters

Elder Hind with one of President Nkosi's granddaughters.

This was transfer week. The elders gathered at our house to get the news. We are getting pretty good at guessing who is going and who is staying. Elder Weiler and Elder Tshuma are leaving us. We will miss them but they are excited to be moving on and are really happy with their new assignments.

Madadeni

Madadeni children