Count Your Many Blessings

Bakki picnic lunch

Elder Shaw enjoying his lunch

This week has been a week filled with "CES" moments. (cooking every second).  We bought a mixer that I could make at least a single batch of roll dough in and so I have spent a lot of time in the kitchen making rolls, orange rolls, etc. etc.  We finally were invited to the Maseru districts ZDM (zone leaders development meeting).  I was invited to give the spiritual thought and of course I was invited to provide goodies.  We had homemade rolls, sandwich fixings and orange rolls for desert plus juice.  The Elders coming from Leribe brought the back of their bakki filled with fresh snow from their mountains and after the meeting the elders had a great snowball fight.

The dreaded snowball fight

Wednesday morning we headed up to Phuthaditijhaba for their DDM. We loaded the coolers with the same fare as the day before for Maseru's Elders, which meant I had to make another batch of rolls.  We found out when we got there that they were doing a service project for a lady in a community just outside of Phuda that was in a desperate situation.  She was not a member of the church but somehow the branch President had found out about her need from a social worker in the community.  The mother of this family had three children of her own and three children that were orphans that she was caring for.  She had no running water, no electricity, no outhouse and her house was falling down around her.  The social worker came in and took all of the children out of the home for their safety except the baby.  A group of saints from the branch, the elders, the branch president and some other workers spent the day helping her get her house cleaned up, her yard cleaned up, her house remudded, a window that would open and close put in her home, and a few other things done in hopes that she could get her children returned to her.

This is the mother whose home the branch, Elders and President were helping.  That's her baby on her back.

This is a wheelbarrel full of mud, cow manure and water.  She is covering the entire outside of the house with this mixture.  It will dry and make the house impervious to the weather.  She smooths it with her hand and makes the home look like it has been beautifully finished.

The woman on my left is the social worker who is heading this project.  Her name in Afrikanse means "Forgiveness".  I could not say her name in Afrikanse.  She is 24 years old and has just finished University.

These elders wearing the yellow vests are from Phuda and are carrying garbage from the yard trying to make the yard safer and cleaner for the children. You can see the woman's bed and belongings in the yard. They will be put back in the house once they have finished their work.

The silver container in front of the bucket is a metal container divided into three compartments and holds the household flour, cornmeal, and rice. These are the families food staples.  She has no stove and cooks on an open fire. These women have been scrubbing it clean. The metal keeps out bugs, rodents and other undesirables.  By the time the women finished cleaning it, it was just like new.

 This woman's situation was made considerably better at the close of the day, but still she lives in unbelievably humble circumstances.  It made me realize how grateful we need to be for all we have been blessed with.

Later that afternoon we travelled to Leribe where I taught a piano lesson to two elders and another young man from the Leribe "group", so that the "group" would have music for their Sunday services. They have a ways to go yet, but were pretty quick learners.

Elder Manning, Elder Gideme and Solomon getting their first piano lesson.

Wednesday, as we were traveling to Phuda we got a call from Elder Peterson who is the area Humanitarian leader, based in Johannesburg.  There is a community in the State of Lesotho that had a storm hit it two weeks ago and it took the roofs off of houses and destroyed other houses.  These people (about 400 of them) have been living in the elements without anything.  Elder Peterson asked us to do some research on purchasing blankets, which the church would provide for this community, thus at least giving them something warm.  They also want us to get hygiene kits put together for them.  We spent almost all day on Thursday making arrangements for the store to be able to do a transfer payment from the church's account to the stores account.  Things move very slowly in Africa. We will be delivering the blankets this Tuesday when Elder and Sister Peterson come from Johannesburg.  They will come to our house for supper Monday night.  We are looking forward to meeting them.  They will purchase all the materials for the hygiene kits, leave them at our house and we will have them put together on Saturday with the Maseru young men's young women's group,and then deliver them the following week.

Friday evening we had Elder and Sister Shumway (Councillor in the mission Presidency) and Elder and Sister Wyatt (CES missionaries) come and have supper with us.  Then on Saturday morning we took them into Lesotho and attended Seminary and Institute in Maseru and Masianokeng as they didn't know the way to the chapels.  It was amazing to watch the young people in Maseru just fill in when the Institute teacher didn't show up and one of the students stood up and took over the class.  He taught an amazing lesson, the spirit was so strong and the youth just filled in and participated and it was an amazing class.  The youth have strong testimonies and I am just so amazed at their knowledge of the gospel and the scriptures.

Sister Wyatt, Sister Shumway, Sister Holt in our living room.

Elder Wyatt, Elder Shumway and the handsome man is Elder Holt, in our living room

We went to a very nice little restaurant called "Living Life" for lunch on Friday, with these people.  This restaurant is owned by an Afrikanse woman who employs natives of South Africa and she teaches them to work either in her restaurant cooking, waitressing or whatever.  She also has a very cute little gift shop where she has natives make lovely items to sell in the shop.  Not the usual tourist trap stuff but lovely items beautifully presented.  This gives these natives a chance to learn to work and make a living.  When you come to Ladybrand we will take you there for lunch.

On Saturday evening we were invited to the Cadribo's for dinner.  This is an LDS couple that lives in Ladybrand, but they attend and help the group out in Leribe as they are a very small group and the Cadribo's add Priesthood and leadership strength.  They served us a very delicious meal and we had a wonderful evening getting to know them.

Now, this is almost the end of this weeks blog.  I will add our "scene of the week".  This is a photo taken on the road to Golden Gate National Park.  Also, this beautiful butterfly was found in front of the Elders flat in Phuda.  Dad took this picture and I think it is a stunningly beautiful butterfly.

Beautiful South African butterfly

Scene from road on Golden Gate Park Road

We want you to know that the Lord is continuing to bless us with the things we need to help these beautiful people of South Africa.  This mission has certainly put us out of our comfort zone and we rely daily on the blessings of our Heavenly Father.  Everytime we drive into Lesotho we feel like our lives are put in jeopardy.  It is like playing "dodge-em" cars on their roads.  But we continue to be blessed.  Please remember us in your prayers - we need them.  We love you all and remember you in our prayers numerous times throughout everyday.
Love Elder and Sister Holt