Steep learning curves ahead

Our first Sunday in South Africa was quite a memorable experience.  We woke to a cold and rainy day and headed off to Church in the Country ot Lesotho.  Lesotho is only 14 kilometers away, but you have to go through two border crossings to get there.  First you clear the South African side (you go into a building, they stamp your passports) and then you drive across a bridge and get to the Lesotho border crossing.  Here you go inside a building, fill out a form, they look at it, stamp your passport, then you get back in your car and drive to a booth where you pay 30 Rand and then you can enter their country.  Sunday morning this was a fairly expeditious matter as it was not very busy.  Everyone was still in bed asleep at 8:00 AM.  We arrived at the Maseru chapel just before the meeting began.  It was a wonderful Sacrament service, good talks (of which we could mostly understand), they would occasionally break into Suto (their african language) and then go back to speaking English.  The chapel was mostly warm with electric heaters, but the people come bundled in their traditional wool blankets either wrapped around their shoulders or their waists and pinned in place.  These blankets are heavy wool, in beautiful colors with beautiful patterns woven in.  I will get some pictures and send in another blog.  The women all wear hats - I am sure to help them keep warm.  The singing is something memorable.  Their voices are beautiful and blend in a beautiful harmony that is different from that written in the hymn book, but pure and true.  I hope I can sometime record it so you can enjoy hearing it too.

After Sacrament meeting we met with President Monesa and discussed how we can help the Branch.  There was approximately 100 people there once Sacrament was over.  We went to the gospel Essentials class where the class was taught in English with occasional coments and answered questions in Suto.  President Von Stetton told us on Tuesday evening when he came to visit that we were to be sure that the gospel is taught in English, to ensure that the gospel principals are being taught and understood correctly.

Relief Society and Priesthood ended 25 and 15 minutes late respectively (no one was in a hurry to leave) and we were warmly welcomed and greeted with hugs and well wishes.  We both have a very hard time pronouncing and remembering their names as they are so very different.  This will be a challenge for us.

We drove one set of missionaries back to their flat once church was over.  To get to their flat you drive off the main road onto a dirt road, then onto a dirt lane, then onto a dirt track.  This is very bumpy and rutted and is surrounded by cows, sheep, chickens, ducks, children etc.  Everyone's back yard has a garden in it where vegetables are grown and most of the homes have a satellite dish attached to the roof.  They don't always have enough to eat, but they do have a TV in their home and a cell phone attached to their hand.  Air time is pre purchased here.

Once we dropped the elders home we headed back to the border.  What a mass of humanity.  There were cars, trucks, taxis, people everywhere.  It was backed way up to get through the first side and it was a longer wait to get to the other side.  Once we finally got to the South African side we had to stand in a very long line to go in to get our passports stamped.  After standing in line for at least a half hour a customs official came and said anyone with a visa or who was South African could just go through.  We gratefully got back in the car and headed the 14 K's home.  We were cold, hungry and tired once we finally got back to our flat.

Monday morning we headed with renewed vigor to Phuthaditjaba to meet the Elders there. We finally chucked the GPS as it was leading us on a merry chase and just used the map.  We drove through Golden Gate Park a national Park with the best roads we have driven on in South Africa.  We saw a zebra, springbok, fox, and baboons.  We finally reached the town and called the elders.  They told us to meet them at the mall.  We took a wrong turn and ended up in a small market that was so crowded with booths, cars, trucks and people.  There were booths selling fresh meat (sheep heads, hooves, parts you name it), used clothes, vegetables, fruits, hair salons (a shack with a chair) with someone braiding peoples hair in tight corn braids of every design imaginable.  We finally got out of there and where we were supposed to be. We met the elders, bought some pizza and took it back to their apartment where we shared lunch.  Their circumstances were quite humble in their flat, they need some work done to it.  They had run out of electricity to heat their flat and so we had to give them some money to get more electricity to stay warm. We got home with an uneventful ride home and fell exhausted into bed.

Tuesday morning we headed to Bethlehem.  We were quite confidant of ourselves that day as we had driven from Bethlehem on our way to Ladybrand.  We met the Elders at their flat and and learned that they were quite a United Nations in and of themselves.  One elder was from Madagascar, one from Kenya,one  from Zimbabwe and one from Utah.  They were all fine elders and we enjoyed getting to know them as we shared lunch at a Chinese restaurant around the corner.  It was pretty tasty, and the Elder from Madagascar ate his lunch, his companions left overs and one other elders left overs.  He was a skinny thing but obviously had hollow legs.  We left them with cookies and headed on our way home.  This was the sky that evening as we drove back home.

Wednesday morning we headed back into Lesotho (across the dreaded border) and met the Elders at the church to get our telephone situation straightened out.  We have to have a cell phone for South Africa and a cell phone for Lesotho. (roaming charges are too expensive to use the same one in both countries).  Unfortunately it did not work that way for us and we ended up having to buy a new cell phone on Friday for Lesotho.  We met the Branch President for Masianokeng branch at the church and discussed what he would like us to do for them.  He wants me to teach some branch members to play the piano and lead the music as they have no music people in their branch.  They have a new branch building called a "speed-up" which is a bunch of portable trailers put together to form a meeting house.  They are very happy to have their own building as they were meeting in an old rented butchery.  They will be hosting an open house in August where they will invite the community, government leaders and others to learn about the church and see their new facility.  We will be heading to church there tomorrow to meet the branch. We also met with the mission president and he informed us he wanted us to find a new apartment situation for the Maseru elders.  This will be a real challenge and we are going to have to receive divine direction to get this one fulfilled.  Here are some pictures of the Zone leaders in Maseru, Elder Ashaba and Elder Signorelli.  Elder Ashaba is from Ughanda and in getting to know him we discovered that he was ordained to the Melchezedik Priesthood by an Elder that we met in the MTC, Elder and Sister Nye.  A few years ago the Nye's served a mission in Ughanda and got to know him. Elder Ashaba was disowned by his family when he joined the church and he has not seen them since.  He has been on his own since he was a young man of about 18.  He is an obedient, serious, hardworking missionary and sets a great example for all the other missionaries.  It makes me realize how much we take our membership in this great church for granted.

This is in front of the Maseru chapel

Thursday we met with Elder and Sister Shumway.  It was such an informative day for us, we learned much.  Elder Shumway is a counselor to the Mission President, but lives in Bloemfontein (about two hours away).  They are from Idaho Falls and they know your Aunt Mary Kay Britt.  We were blessed with many miracles that day as we headed back into Lesotho to get our 6 month Visa to expedite our visits into and out of that country.  They knew where to go, who to see and how to get it done as expeditiously as possible.  We also went to the power and water office buildings to find out who to deal with to get those bills paid each month for the church buildings in the country of Lesotho.  By this time in the week, we have broken out the GPS we brought from home (thanks for your help in getting that purchased Spencer) inserted the South African Chip and we are programing it with all the locations we have to visit on a regular basis.  It is working much better and life is pretty good.  It was nice to meet another missionary couple and spend some time with them.  We drove out to Masianokeng to see where the elders live there, again down a dirt road, onto a dirt lane and onto a dirt track.  We didn't get home till about supper time as everything dealing with civic workers takes a long time.  We fed the Shumways supper and sent them on their two hour ride back home.

Friday we left bright and early and took goodies to the Masianokeng elders, saw their very tidy apartment and left them blond brownies and headed up to Leirebe to meet with the elders there.  It was a delightful drive through the country side of Lesotho.  Leirebe is at the northern tip of the country of Lesotho and the church there is very small - only a group.  The two elders there had been without water for a week.  For some unkown reason all the water in Leirebe had been off except for an occasional hour or two during the day.  However by Friday it has been restored again.  We saw where the rented Church building is in Leirebe and look forward to going back up to meet with them in a few weeks  They are having a "Helping Hands" day in Leirebe on August 4th.  We will be up there to help them clean up the whole town of Leirebe - a big undertaking believe me.  We took the elders to lunch (pizza again at a lovely hotel).  The elders get to choose where they want to go and what they want to eat.  We ordered plenty so they could take a couple of pizzas home to keep them fed for a day or two.  We left them with blond brownies and headed back home.  We crossed the border at a different crossing this time.  It was much quicker than if we had driven back to our usual crossing and fought the terrible crowds that would be there on a Friday evening.  Here are a couple of pictures of the food stands on the sides of the roads as you leave the country.

So ends week our first full week in our assigned area.  We feel we have made great strides in meeting the Elders, getting to know our area and learning about some of our responsibilities.  Last night I received a call from an Elder up in Phuthaditjhaba about 9:00 PM.  He has a tooth ache and has had it for over a week.  Sister Von Stetten our mission presidents wife told him to call me and to get me to make him a dentist appointment to have it looked at.  Not knowing who to call, as we would have to take him to the town of Bethlehem for the appointment, I made several calls to people to find a recommended dentist.  This morning I was able to make an appointment for next week and will have to head up there to take him and see that it gets taken care of.  I will be taking up birthday cake as three elders in our area have had birthdays in the last two weeks.  Sister Shumway told me she didn't realize that she had been called on a CES mission (cooking every second) but it seemed to her that that is what she ends up doing.  I am beginning to understand how she feels.

We are busy, happy and doing well.  The Lord is definitely directing our work and we feel great gratitude to be able to do His bidding.  We are very crooked sticks, but we hope that the Lord can straighten us out and put us to good use.  We love you all, and pray for you night and morning.  We feel the effect of your prayers for us and express our gratitude.
Love
Us

The 30 hour Trip

On June 18th we managed to get Jolayne up at 5:45 AM (truly we did) to take us to the Salt Lake airport for our flight to Durban South Africa.  We are very grateful for Jolayne's supreme sacrifice.  We arrived in plenty of time to get checked in and to find our gate to await our flight.  The first leg of our flight took us to Atlanta, Georgia.  While awaiting our 7:30 flight to Johannesburg we went to Chiles for Lunch.  We sat next to a young man who was sitting alone eating his lunch.  He started a conversation with us and mentioned that he lived in Provo.  He is doing a practicum out East and has to travel back and forth from time to time.  We had a nice visit and then he left.  When we finished our lunch we asked for our bill and the waitress said that the young man next to us took care of our bill.  Let me tell you, this little badge that we wear is a little bit of magic.  While we were walking through the Atlanta airport another young couple stopped us and asked us where we were heading on our mission.  The young man had just graduated from dental school and the young woman was a return missionary.  They were taking a little vacation.  Again the badge is an invitation for conversation.
While we were sitting in the airport trying to use our computer (no internet connection) to call and wish Ike a happy birthday we purchased a prepaid phone card.  We used a public phone to try to call, but every phone we tried would not work.  We called Keola, and we could hear Kaleo on the phone but he couldn't hear us.  We tried every phone we could find, but none would work.  A young man watching us, asked if we wanted to use his cell phone.  Again our badge was magic.  We used his phone but could not get hold of anybody.  It was just not meant to be I guess.
Then began our very long 15 hour flight to Johannesburg.  Sitting next to me was a preacher from Zimbabwe.  He had been over to a funeral and was just returning home.  We had an interesting conversation.  We did not talk religion. 

The mission president and his wife, President and Sister Von Stetten met us at the airport that night and took us to the bed and breakfast that we would stay at for the next three nights. This is the bed and breakfast where we stayed and this woman was the owner of the "Little Haven", her name was Grace Rawlings.  In visiting with her the next morning we learned that she was the Gospel Doctrine Teacher for Mark Smiths investigators when he served his mission over 40 years ago in Durban, ZA.  What a small world.  We e-mailed Mark and he sent a picture of he and Diane, which we forwarded to Grace. 
The next morning the office couple, the Olsen's picked us up bright and early and took us to the Mission office where they got some needed information from us so we could get a JP Morgan credit card and a bunch of other informatiion and then they took us out to lunch at a huge mall in Durban where we picked up a few essential items.  After lunch they took us back to the church where we picked up our Baaki, and then it was Wayne's turn to drive.  Remember this is on the left side of the road, in a huge busy city, narrow roads, lots of traffic and a standard transmission.  They gave us a GPS with the address of Grace's B& B in it and sent us on our way.  We drove round and round and round with the GPS going crazy "recalculating", "recalculating", "recalculating".  I just wanted to close my eyes it was so scarry.  We didn't know which was not working, the GPS or the operator (me).  After much prayer and way after dark, we finally made it back to the B&B where we had about 3 hours sleep and then spent the rest of the night looking at the ceiling.  Our internal clocks were completely turned around.

Needless to say, we were ready in plenty of time for the PEF mission couple to pick us up to take us for some sight seeing.  The Gundersons from Bend Oregon were a delight and we spent a fun morning with them. As you can see we went to the beach and watched them make these fabulous sand sculptures, we went to see the stadium that you want to jump off of Rod, and we went to a little area where they had an aquarium and some touristey shops.  After a great lunch at the wharf, we went back to meet with the President for a few hours to find out about our area and assignments.  Elder Olsen was kind enough to take our GPS out to see if it was the fault of the operator or the GPS that we could not make it work.  He came back a while later and said he couldn't make it work either and the President asked him if the antena was up?  We didn't even realize it had an antena.  Once the antena was up it worked just fine.  We then followed the president to the Mission home for a lovely supper with he and his wife.  He asked us what we had done that morning and we mentioned that we had been by the stadium where our son wanted to bungee jump off the top.  I casually mentioned that I too wanted to jump with him.  He gave me a very sly smile and said "you son is welcome to jump if he wants."  End of subject.  Sorry Rod, I tried.
The next morning, we were up and out of Durban by 8:00 AM and made our way to the township of Ladybrand.  We stopped off in Bethlehem to pick up a few groceries.  In the grocery store, again that little magic badge brought a young man (about 14 or 15) and his mother up to us.  They asked us where we were from and if we called each other brother and sister.  We said yes we are all brothers and sisters in the gospel.  They asked us some questions about the church, which we answered.  They said their husband/father was working in Illinois (farming) and that they had just come back from visiting him.  They were trying to find a way to move to America.  They left and a few minutes later the son came back and asked us if we had a cell phone, we told him yes and he phoned us so that we would have his number in our cell phone in case we got into any trouble and needed help.  What a sweet little family.
We arrived about 4:00 in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day getting unpacked and familiar with our "flat".  We think we will be very comfortable here and it is starting to feel like home.   This morning we were up and getting ready for the day when the power went off.  It was off for a few hours and then came back on.  In visiting with our neighbor we learned that this is not an uncommon occurance.  The zone leaders came over from Lesotho this morning and introduced themselves to us.  After visiting for a bit they showed us how to cross the border into the country of Lesotho.  This is quite an experience.  Next week we will apply for a visa so we can expedite this experience.  It can take as little as 15 minutes or as long as 3 hours to cross this border.  They showed us where the church building is (we will go to church there tomorrow AM) and then we took them for lunch.  It has rained on and off all day with some thunder and lightening.  We are looking forward to meeting the Branch President tomorrow and the Branch members. 
We love you all and hope you are all doing well.  Keep us in your prayers.
Love Elder and Sister Holt

A bitter sweet moment

 This was our last day at the MTC.  Here we stand before a map of the world looking towards the room where we have been fed and edified by our leaders and trainers.  Behind us is the adventure that awaits us far across the world.

In this picture we are reminding ourselves of where we are going, what we will be doing and the gospel message we will teach.  How grateful we are for this opportunity.   Thank you to all the family members who are helping us with responsibilities we are leaving behind, by taking over them for us.  We could not have gone without your willingness to fill in for us.  I am reminded of something my mother told me years ago as she and Dad were in the MTC preparing to go to the Las Vegas Nevada mission.  She told us what a wonderful time she and Dad had there, what a spiritual experience it was.  Mother, you were so right.  You almost hate to leave this special place and return to the world.  However, real life must prevail and so we will venture out and do the things we have been called and set apart to do.  I am so grateful for the wonderful companion I will have the opportunity to serve with for the next 18 months.
We love you all
Elder and Sister Holt

Elder and Sister Holt are now in the MTC.  We have thoroughly enjoyed our first few days at the MTC.  It has been a lot of hard work, studying, learning, being pushed out of our comfort zone doing role playing, preparing discussions to present to "investigators" while being filmed and critiqued by our teachers.  But it has also been a spiritual feast.  The spirit is so strong here at the MTC, the devotional Tuesday night was a highlight.

We have so enjoyed meeting other senior couples who are preparing to go out to all parts of the world to serve our Heavenly Father.

On Monday afternoon as we were enjoying our lunch in the cafeteria a young handsome elder came up to the table we were sitting at.  I looked up at him and smiled.  He smiled back and then I realized that it was Elder JJ Taylor.  He was supposed to have already been gone to Bangelor, India.  However he is still awaiting his VISA and so he will be here for a few more days till they reassign him or his Visa arrives, whichever comes first.  This picture was taken Wednesday afternoon, the 2nd time we ran into him. 

We have such mixed feelings about leaving the MTC on Friday.  We will be sad to leave this little bubble, but we are so excited to get to South Africa to start doing what we have been called to do.  We love our Heavenly Father and the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We feel so priviledged to be able to share the gospel message with the people in South Africa.  Thanks for your prayers and thoughts.
Love
Elder and Sister Holt