March 13-19, 2016

We drove to Ezakheni Branch this Sunday (about 120ks from here). The district Primary Presidency wanted to go to observe and train the primary leaders there. Elder Hind volunteered to drive them. It gave us a chance to visit with the members. We don’t get down there often. Of course they asked us to speak. We are getting better at speaking without any preparation. They have a huge primary in this branch. It is mostly children and youth. They have seven missionaries serving from that branch.

Ezakheni Branch

District Primary Presidency

We needed a new dryer so on Monday Elder Hind took the Madadeni elders to help him pick up a dryer from a nearby shop. We knew we would be needing another dryer soon because our old one was very noisy and we also had to use a pair of pliers to turn it off and on. It finally just stopped working. It was pretty old.  We still have not found dining room chairs for our boarding yet. We have looked in several furniture shops and even second hand shops and haven’t found anything nice, affordable and that would go with the table.

Family Home Evening

We were finally notified that the furniture for the new Osizweni chapel was being delivered so we headed out there to see what was going on. They got all kinds of new things, computer, printer, TV, microphone, tables and chairs (lots of chairs) chalkboards, bulletin boards, framed pictures and even toilet paper.  The branch president and his counselor were out there also. They were excited to see all the new stuff. This is going to make their life so much easier. They can meet whenever they want to (don’t have to clear it with the school), the chapel and classrooms will always be clean and they can store things there instead of having to take stuff home all the time. The church physical facilities manager was there and he asked us to take all the electronics home with us until they improve the security there. That will be a challenge. I hope they don’t get robbed of all their nice new things.

Furniture for the Osizweni Speed Space

Lots of chairs. Lots and lots of chairs. 130 for the chapel and a bunch for each classroom.

It will be nice for the church to finally have a presence in Osizweni
 and a place for the members to call home.

One day we drove to Madadeni to pick up our engaged couple we are teaching. They needed a ride into Newcastle to pick up their wedding rings. They were so excited and happy.

That looks like a big stone in that ring but the ring cost less than a hundred dollars
so we are sure it is not a real diamond. And we didn't have the poor taste to ask.

After picking up the rings we were walking to our car when I noticed we were passing a furniture store. We decided to check it out because we were still looking for chairs for our dining room. We actually found some chairs that would work for us. They don’t match our table but they will look good with it. They are big and sturdy and we need that because we live near our missionaries and they are at our house on a regular basis. We also have Family Home Evening at our house every week.  Those little wobbly chairs we had before were just not safe.

The chair seats look pink and gold in these pictures
 but they are actuallylight brown and gold.
The box in the corner is the electric piano/organ we are storing for Osizweni
 until they get more security.

This week we passed our one year mark. Time has just flown by and it seems to be going faster all the time. We have not been homesick, I guess we are just too busy. We feel so blessed to be serving a mission. And we are happy to be serving here among these wonderful people. We are having fun!