August 21 -27

Another busy Sunday. We needed to be in Newcastle Branch so Elder Hind could bless some twin babies.  He had planned to bless both babies but another branch member wanted to do one so he just blessed Taffy, the little girl.

Taffy and Bonzo's blessing day

After Newcastle Branch we went out Madadeni and attended Branch 1. Then we went to visit President Nkosi who has been released from the hospital. He is still very weak and still has some problems but he looks better than he did. After visiting him we went to the Cottage Meeting and then we finally were able to go home.

One of the children at the cottage meeting.

We had to say good bye to both of our Newcastle missionaries. They have closed their area. They have been working hard to clean their boarding because it will be empty for at least six weeks. We had to go and do more cleaning after they left. Over the years a lot of junk gets left behind by the missionaries and it just piles up. Elder Hind took a couple of loads to the dump and we put a dozen garbage bags out for the garbage men.

Elder Knight

Elder Opiyo

We have been working on a lot of missionary recommendations. As part of his mission presidency duties Elder Hind interviews them and signs their papers. I check their papers to make sure they have everything and then we send them to the area. The area nearly always finds something wrong so we have to contact the prospective missionary and get more information. It is taking up a lot of our time right now.

We take a lot of sunset pictures but this is the sunrise on the way to
 Durban Thursday morning

Elder Hind needed to go to Mission Presidency meeting in Durban this week. We got up early in the morning in order to be at the Mission Office by 10:00am. The meeting lasted a long time. While Elder Hind was in his meeting, Sister Hind wrote two talks, sent a couple of emails and wrote some blog posts. After the meeting we had a late lunch with President Thompson and then started home. We were not looking forward to the long drive. When we passed through Pinetown we decided to call the Stevensons. They were happy to hear from us and invited us to spend the night. We hadn’t packed for overnight but spent the night anyway.

We have stayed with them several times now and so their boarding is starting to feel like home. We took them to dinner at a restaurant called “The Big Fish” and had the best salmon we have ever tasted. It was amazing!  We enjoyed the Stevenson’s hospitality that night and then drove home refreshed the next day.

Sister and Elder Stevenson
They will be going home in November
They are from California but sold their house before going on mission and
are planning on buying a house in Utah Valley

Our bedroom at the Stevenson's boarding

On our way home we stopped to take a picture of this beautiful mosque in Ladysmith

On Saturday there was a Newcastle District Relief Society Activity. It was very well planned and presented. They had people from the Board of Health speaking on dementia, and HIV. They had a police woman talk and people from the Legal Aid Society give presentations. They even had a local department store come and talk about bras and how to measure for proper fit.

They asked me to talk about my South Africa experiences. I felt a little like I was giving my homecoming talk. They served a nice lunch and decorated the tables nicely. It was a great activity.

 

Can't end without a sunset picture