May 1- 7, 2016

We went to church at Madadeni 1 and then after Sacrament Meeting Elder Hind and I went our separate ways. I needed to stay at church and teach the Young Women. He wanted to go out to Osizweni and observe some baptisms. We have been hard at work getting ready for these baptisms. There were 5 of them. They didn’t have enough baptismal clothes in the right sizes so I have been sewing for the last two weeks and Elder Hind has been mending the portable font that they use out there. He didn’t bring the camera so we don’t have pictures of it set up but we do have a picture of him mending the font with bicycle tube patches.

They found a few more holes during the last baptism so he will be doing this again.

We had to pack up Elder Hind’s drum and some of our other treasures because we are sending them home in the Zackrison’s container. It will take the container two months to get home by ship. It is nice because we don’t have to figure out how to get them home and we don’t have to pay anything. The Zackrison’s have a home in Provo so we won’t have any problem picking our things up when we get back. But is sad because our house looks bare without some of the things we have collected.

Elder Hind sitting next to our boxed up drum. Our chicken sign is behind him.
They will leave with the Zackrisons and will be home before us.

We had Zone Training Meeting on Wednesday and then we drove to Durban for a Multi Zone Conference on Thursday. It made for a busy week.

While we were waiting for Zone Training Meeting to start I heard some beautiful music coming from the Primary room. When I looked in there was Elder Cook playing the piano and Elder Harper singing. They were practicing “The Holy City”. I love that song and I haven’t heard it performed in many years. I begged them to let me get them a spot on the program of the Multi Zone Conference. Elder Cook was up for it but Elder Harper didn’t feel ready yet. I made them promise to perform it at church soon. Transfers are not far away and they both could be gone before I know it.

Elder Cook playing the piano and Elder Harper singing The Holy City

I made lunch for the zone this time. I decided to make chili dogs for them. It is coming on winter here so it was a good choice. They enjoyed it. We had chips and fruit with chili dogs and I served milk tarts (a vanilla custard pie) with chocolate syrup for dessert. I have to make brownies for the Zone Conference on Thursday so I didn’t want to bake another dessert and milk tarts are cheap.

We had a good meeting. We played a fun game where we had to guess each other’s first name it was pretty funny.

Eating chili dogs after Zone Training Meeting.

After the meeting we had to run home, bake brownies and pack for our trip to Durban.

On Thursday morning we got up early and headed to Durban. All the missionaries are going. Some of them went down Wednesday night but we are spending Thursday night in Durban. We got to the church in plenty of time. The conference was held in the Berea Chapel. It is the oldest LDS chapel in Durban. It reminds me of some of the older chapels in Salt Lake.

The Berea Chapel 

Since President and Sister Zackrison are going home there was a bit of nostalgia in the meeting. President keeps telling the missionaries they are the greatest generation of missionaries the world has ever seen. I can tell he loves them. We love them too. We are so blessed to be on this mission. We are amazed at all the wonderful people we associate with and all the spiritual experiences we have had. We love the Lord. We know this is His church and His work.

Elder Weiler and Elder Fransen
They used to be in our zone now they are companions in Umlasi

How many elders does it take to change the batteries in the chapel clock?
Answer: Five- 4 big ones and one little one.

Pizza! Missionaries favorite food.

Newcastle Zone - right now it is the biggest zone in the mission

We spent the night at Huntley House. Jane, the owner, has seen us so many times she greets us with a hug and a kiss. When senior couples come to South Africa they spend their first night at Jane's. We try to stay there every time we go to Durban. In the morning we headed to Victoria Streetmarket to do a little shopping. I say a little shopping but we have around 48 people in our immediate family so we have to do serious shopping when we can.

When we finished at Victoria Streetmarket we headed home. We stopped near Howick at the Piggley Wiggley. In spite of its homely name it is an upscale country shopping area. A little like Gardener’s Village in West Jordan. Couldn’t find anything we wanted there. We stopped at another shop that was called Treasures and Trash. We saw a lot of things we liked but don’t know how we would get them home. We did buy an old book. We got home early in the evening all safe and sound.

On our way home

On Saturday we went to a District Training for the Northern part of our district. Elder Hind trained the branch presidencies and I trained the Young Women’s leaders.

We do so many unusual and interesting things in the course of a week. We never know what each day will bring. We love our mission!