June 19-25

We attended church in Ladysmith this week. We are still doing branch conferences. President Mashago and President Nkosi drove down with us. It was Father’s Day and Elder Hind spoke about the importance of families and the responsibilities of a father and a mother. Then he was asked at the last minute to teach a 45-minute lesson in a combined adult class. So he taught a lesson using Doctrine and Covenants Section 88. He is a pro.

After the meeting the Primary passed out little gifts to all the fathers. The Primary had colored little cards to go on the packages. In the package was a small towel and some candy. It was perfect because Elder Hind always takes a small towel with him when he runs in the morning.

Elder Hind with his Father's Day gift and some of the children in Ladysmith

We went to Madadeni for our cottage meeting. Attendance is down right now because it is cold and dark in the evening and people are reluctant to walk a long ways.  We had a good Family Home Evening. There were lots of people there because it is in Newcastle and more people have cars and most don’t have to walk so far. We had a lesson about filling people’s buckets. When we say nice things we put drops in their buckets and our buckets. But when we are unkind we take drops out. We discussed the importance of the words we use. We also took pictures with two of our missionaries who are going home in a couple of days.

Elder Jena

Elder Kaitoo

I told Elder Hind that I felt a cold coming on. Sure enough I woke up Tuesday morning with a cold. We still managed to take a Dundee missionary to the doctor in Ladysmith and then drove back to Dundee to drop off the missionaries and teach our Seminary and Institute classes.

Missionaries

The sun is setting when we drive home from Dundee. 

By Wednesday I was feeling terrible and I hadn’t been sleeping well. Elder Hind went to DDM without me and took care of some other meetings and responsibilities while I just schlepped around the house all day. He ran to the store to buy me some medicine and then he made me a cup of lemon rooibos. He even put a little lemon wedge on the edge of the mug. Sigh! Bless his heart.

By Thursday I was feeling a little more human so we were able to take care of some things and run some errands. By Friday I was almost back to normal. We drove to Ezakheni to pick up a visa application for a young man who has been called to Angola. He will fly to Brazil to attend the MTC there. And then fly back to Africa for his mission. They speak Portuguese in Angola.

Then we drove to Dundee to teach our classes. Love, love, love teaching these kids.

Passing out treats after class