August 14-20, 2016

President Thompson left Durban early Sunday morning in order to be in Osizweni in time for their 9am Sacrament meeting. He called for a sustaining vote for some prospective elders and then ordained them after the meeting.

Then he followed us to Madadeni to participate in the installation of a new Branch Presidency. After doing all that he headed back to Durban because he had more meetings there. That is dedication. I know the branches were happy to have him come.

Madadeni Branch 1 presidency

On Monday the elders had a Zone Activity. They wanted to hike in the Drakensburg. So we met them at the Monk’s Cowl trail head. Elder Hind hiked with them and I stayed back at the lodge with a good book. I am too slow to hike with a bunch of energetic young men and I had done part of this hike before.

On Tuesday, Elder Hind hobbled around most of the day. He really paid the price for trying to keep up with those guys. However, he took comfort in the fact that most of them were hobbling around too.

We had to say good bye to Elder Adams. He has been a great Zone Leader but now has been asked to be an AP.

We had to teach our Seminary and Institute classes on Tuesday and then we drove to Ladysmith to meet the new senior couple there. They are the Rhodes and they are going to be great missionaries. We love them already. We took them to dinner and we talked our heads off for about 3 hours. It is good to have someone to share the load.

We had boarding checks this week. Yuck! I am sorry but some of these missionaries are little piggys.
We met the Rhodes at a missionary boarding so we could walk them through their first boarding check. When we got there the missionaries had made us sandwiches and a drink. They had soft music playing and candle light. They even had little paper umbrellas in the drinks. So cute and funny. On top of that the apartment was very clean.  Elder Diehl and Elder Baumgartner rock! We felt bad because we didn’t take a picture.

We taught our last Seminary and Institute classes on Friday. The Rhodes came so we could show them what to do and turn the classes over to them. After class the kids insisted on sharing their testimonies and saying nice things about us. We love them! It is hard to say good-bye.

We did Mormon Helping Hands on Saturday. We went to the Senior Center in Madadeni and cleaned the inside and pulled weeds in their garden outside. We had a great turn out and it was a lot of fun. The day started out a cool and it rained slightly but as the morning wore on it got warmer and sunny.

In the afternoon we went to the missionary boarding two doors down from us and did some cleaning outside and in the storage room attached to the garage. This boarding has been getting junkier and junkier. We wanted to get together with all the missionaries to clean it but we haven’t been able to schedule it. So today, since we were still in our service clothes, we decided to do it all by ourselves. We bagged up about 10 bags of trash and put it out for the garbage men. There is still some junk there that will have to loaded in a bakkie and taken to the dump. But it looks a whole lot better! We came home and took showers to wash off the plague and hantra virus. Just kidding, but it felt like it was a possibility.

We ended the day with transfer news. The mission is short of missionaries so they are closing the Newcastle area for one transfer. So we are losing those two missionaries. The Zone Leaders have always been the Osizweni missionaries but now the Zone Leaders will be the Dundee missionaries. They have changed the boundaries of the zone to include some other districts. We don't know what all the changes are but we will probably find out soon. This is what happens when you get a new Mission President.