Happenings of the Week 12 - 18 January

This has been a “count our many blessings” week as well as a “pull out our hair” week! Our office chairs are pretty much full conformed to our body shapes as we have had a steady flow of phone calls and computer messages from panic stricken students realizing they need loans “now now”. It is always a happy day when we can sign loan papers, which we did with Andiswa, along with presenting an orientation on the PEF program to perspective students. The missionary couples supporting some of the units in this mission are going to be a great help to us as we need access to buildings and helping hands with some administrative work. After our loan signing in Umlazi BB, we had lunch with Elder and Sister Johnson at RJ's Steak, Ribs and Funhouse. Seeing this name reminded us of our good friend, RJ Schramm in Ridgecrest. Wednesday is “all you can eat ribs” and they were fantastic, but messy. As we finished, the waiter brought individual bowls of warm water to wash our hands with. From our table we could overlook the Indian Ocean where the wind was blowing fairly hard, causing the water to be very choppy.

16 January - Elder and Sister Markum fetched us about 7:30 am to begin our 7 hour journey to the Kingdom of Swaziland. As you reach the outskirts of Durban, the landscape changes dramatically from housing to agricultural. Miles upon miles of sugar cane growing and every so often, we would see a huge cluster of trees surrounding a large home in the middle of the cane fields. Soon we felt as if we were back in Florida, as we passed miles upon miles of row pines, only they aren't pines here. The process is the same though, plant a certain variety of tree in rows, let them grow about 10 years, harvest the trees, strip the foliage, pack the logs on trucks and send them off. In Florida, we knew the paper manufacturing plant was the final stop, but here we are not certain. Swaziland is an independent country headed by a monarchy with a democratically elected Senate and Assembly. Our passports will get a good workout between South Africa and Swaziland, as you cross the border, which we will need to do many times in the next 16 months. Each individual fills a small sheet of paper with personal information and automobile license plate number and what is the nature of the visit. Then you join the queue (line), which was very long, to gain approval to cross the border and get your passport stamped first by South Africa immigration and then by Swaziland immigration This process is repeated as you return the South Africa. Once safely across, no hangups, our next stop was a potty and gas break along with a visit to a craft mall (outdoor area) with rows of stalls displaying bead work, wood carvings, baskets and produce. The wonderful fragrance of ripe pineapples permeated the entire area, along with bananas and other fruits and veggies. Further down the road, had a first as far as roadblocks go- a cow was standing in the middle of the narrow two lane road doing his business and we just had to wait! Our eyes were always on the alert for cattle wandering along the side of the road, since they think they own the road and would cause great damage to our car if we hit them. Another first for dinner - Chinese food. Interesting thought of a Chinese restaurant run by Africans! No eggrolls or fried shrimp, but still hit the spot. Our mission president's wife can hardly wait to come back to Swaziland to get her Chinese food fix. We are learning in Africa that we need to develop much patience and go with the flow a little better. Sat down at 5:45 pm and it was nearly 7:30 before we were served and there was only one other couple in the restaurant. The couples, Markum,Wilson and Mickelsen shared an evening of good food and conversation. After eating, drove over to Elder and Sister Wilson's boarding to visit and meet Jumbo, one of three Great Dane guard dogs around the property. Sitting in the car, Jumbo came over to the window and we were eyeball to eyeball! Lucky for us, Jumbo loves Sister Wilson and she intervened.

17 Jan
Since this visit to Swazi is multiple days, we have reservations in a hotel that can pretty much compete with many in the US. It has air conditioning, which was muchly appreciated and a huge swimming pool that looked very inviting. There has only been rain in the area for the past several days, and we must have brought the sunshine with us from South Africa-thought we were going to melt by the end of our day. Hard to describe the emotions we felt as we met with 16 students throughout the day at the beautiful church building in Mbabane. Our visit was combined with district auxiliary training meetings and a seminary and institute workshop, with the hope it would save an additional transport costs since many of those interested in PEF loans, have multiple church callings and needed to be at the meetings. As we drive into the parking lots of actual Church built meetinghouses, you notice the small parking areas. In the districts, there are few members with their own transport – usually it is your feet or maybe a kombi(form of taxi-like a VW bus). We started at ten with 3 students and soon Justice had to leave, not saying anything about returning. About 2, he came back to the classroom and wanted to pick back up where he had left off. In talking with him, we found that he had had to be to work and during his lunch break had run back up to the church (quite a distance from the fast-food place he works),hoping we would still be there. Again during our orientation, he kept looking at his cell phone (no watch) to see how much longer he could stay before running back to work. We are sure there are similar stories among the other students who just kept coming during the day. There is such a need and they are so humble about asking for help. Four other missionary couples from different parts of the mission had been asked to assist in the Auxiliary Training meeting, so it was fun to share a dinner meal together at “The House of Fire”. Sitting outdoors to eat our dinner we could look over the dark earth in the freshly plowed fields and watch the sunset-beautiful and so peaceful.

18 Jan - Our hotel reservation includes a full English breakfast, similar to what we found at the hotel in Johannesburg, only on a grander scale. Basically this was our meal for the day, other than a few leftover snacks from the drive up. Attended church in the Manzini Branch, another beautiful building the Church has built. Sandy played the piano keyboard for them and the branch president expressed much appreciation to have the music in their service. He indicated that a sister was trying to learn without much success. Our American wards could take a lesson from these wonderful, reverent saints . Again the talks were well prepared, being taken predominantly from the scriptures, talking about the last days and given sometimes without any notes-not even hand written. The closing prayer was in the native language and very quiet, so we just waited for something that sounded like Jesus Christ to say amen! Leaving Ezlulweni to return to Durban, we passed a signboard with these words “Already missing you, come back soon”. In two weeks time, we will be back and look forward to renewing friendships with these faithful young people.

Count your blessings, name them one by one. Each of you are counted among our many blessings. Lots of love from South Africa to each of you.

Elder (Dad, Papa, Arlo) and Sister (Mom, Grandma, Sandy)