Happening of the week 22-28 February

Sunday, just as we crossed over into South Africa from Swaziland, we received a phone call from Patriarch Courtney. It was wonderful to hear his gentle, but enthusiastic voice and to learn that he had four blessings for Sandy to transcribe. Late Monday morning, we called to set a meeting time since our landline had been finally fixed after waiting many days-thank heavens for cell phones, but they aren't much use when we need to fax documents. It seems like so long, and it has been nearly two months, since there have been blessings to transcribe. Patriarch called it the toll of the holidays! As we visited after downloading the blessings, he shared with us that he and his wife Margaret, were taking one of their single daughters to Johannesburg Temple to receive her endowments on the 27th. We wished them well and headed over to Griesemers for our FHE which was a great discusion on four chapters in Isaiah. Tuesday, after finishing some office work, we drove up the coast to Richard's Bay, with plans to meet two girls and sign loan document, plus we hoped to talk with several others about their progress with their loan applications. Turned out only one girl came, but it was good to help her. The Pier's came to the chapel to meet us for lunch, but had to wait since our young lady had needed to come later than planned. Sister Pier shared with us that she was needing to have an additional small procedure done in connection with her previous hernia surgery the next day and asked for Arlo to assist Elder Pier, in giving her a Priesthood blessing. For lunch, we decided to drive out to the harbor and have lunch at our favorite Thai restaurant. Both of us ordered the Thai sweet and sour, which was new to us (at least the Thai part), just fantastic sweet and sour with a kick! The weather was gorgeous, blue skies and a slight breeze so we dined on the patio overlooking the boat harbor and enjoyed each others company before heading off to finish our respective days. Our Wednesday morning had been planned to see two KwaMashu PEF students and sign their loans papers, but as usual something always happens and only one was able to be there, coming nearly two hours late! Had to hurry over to the dentist, where we had appointments for cleaning and general exams. Fatima, the dental hygenist, used an small electric tool (totally new to us - we only know the hand tools that scrape and poke) which sprayed a great deal of water everywhere as it worked, to clean our teeth. She handed us a towel and said, "You get your teeth cleaned and a face wash as well!" Our front bumper that had just been repaired (watermelon incident) had started to work loose, so Thursday morning, we took it over to the panelbeater shop, where Elder Johnson came to fetch us back to the mission office. Since President Mann was gone doing interviews and skills training, we set up shop in the upstairs office so Sandy could transcribe blessings and Arlo took care of miscellaneous PEF paperwork. Early in the afternoon, the Johnson's came upstairs and asked if we wanted to go and share some lunch, which worked out great for Sandy, since she wouldn't have to cook dinner that night! Friday morning, we finished up the boarding inspections for the elders which is always a fun time for us to visit with these fantastic young men. They all need to work a little harder to keep their boardings clean and tidy, but we were pleasantly surprised that they took the suggestions to heart from our previous visit. Flat Stanley is still visiting with us, so we made some time to go over to Moses Mabhida Soccer Stadium and snap a few pictures for his journal.
The skies have opened up periodically over the past few days and given us some rain and breezes. As the rain falls, usually our temperatures do also, so we don't complain too much (maybe just a little), when the rain makes our hair go frizzy! Talked with our two granddaughters, Kynlee and Jaidyn, in Orem and heard about the double birthday celebration since these two sisters share the same birthday. Jonathan SKYPEd us from the Netherlands where he is on business for 10 days.
Started our Sunday morning visiting KwaMashu to sign loan documents with Sibusiso and he is so excited to begin his welding school course. Then we made our way over to the Berea chapel to help one of our PEF students, at least that is what we thought when we left. Turns out that we had a new young man interested in the PEF process, two prior PEF students with questions and others just needing to relay some information to us. For most visits we make, it sure would be nice if we had extra hands in order to more effectively use the time and because Sunday visits with our kids save them transport money since they are already coming into church.

We did not take any new pictures to share this week, so thought we would share some views of Durban from our photo collection that we have not previously posted.

Durban harbor showing the pleasure boats of the Point Yacht Club and the Royal Natal Yacht Club - photo taken from Roma's Revolving Restaurant 32 stories up.

One of the beaches near downtown Durban. The white building complex on the right is a casino. This photo and the two that follow were taken from the viewing platform on top of the newly completed soccer stadium built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Durban Country Club - one of many golf courses in the area.

ABSA Stadium - home of the Sharks - local professional rugby team. The three big sports in South Africa are Soccer, Rugby and Cricket.