The week of August 12th was Zone conference here on the coast and in Newcastle. It hit me kind of hard that this could be the last zone conference of our mission, depending when President Zackrison holds his next series of zone conferences and when we actually go home. It was just about a year ago that we attended our very first zone conference.
Zone conference is a busy time for us as we are in charge of getting the lunch ordered, set up, served and cleaned up. They always have pizza, fresh fruit and then brownies, cookies, etc. for desert. Elder and Sister Cluster, the couple on the far right, came and helped us. They are the Employment and PEF couple serving in Durban right now. President and the AP's put on a great zone conference and I think the Elders felt motivated and encouraged to recommit themselves to moving the work forward. President has an ability to let the Elder's know that he loves them and is concerned for their welfare.
This is Elder Dutson. Elder Duston served in Phuta the first few months of our mission. He will go home in October, having completed his mission. He has been a good hard working Elder. I did not realize it when I first met him, but his mother died just a few months before he came in the mission field. He told me that his Father has just remarried and so when he goes home he will have a new Mother and a step brother.
These are some pretty "GQ" missionaries. The middle three Elders will go home September 3rd and Elder Gideme on the far left will go home in November. Elder Luddington, Zsembery and Condie have been good elders and are currently serving as Zone Leaders. They will leave a big hole in the leadership pool once they go home.
I do believe that spring (summer) has arrived. I was told by a native Durban resident on Thursday that winter is over and summer is officially here. It was 29 degrees on Thursday afternoon. As Wayne was busy rescuing Elders etc. I got to walk to and from work that day at lunch time. It was a beautiful day for a walk and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am afraid however, that as summer gets more firmly entrenched that it is going to get very very warm and humid.
Saturday, August 18th was "Helping Hands" day. We went to Stanger and gave our helping hands to the Elders there and put up curtain rods and curtains for their flat. It had been painted a few months ago and nobody had put the curtains and rods back up. It took us all morning to get that done. As we pulled into Stanger, on the way to the Elders flat we saw this site - this is a church group called "the Zionists". Their church is outside. This is a field that is encircled with white painted rocks. This is their "temple" or church. It was quite interesting to watch. Some of their members were inside the circle and some were left outside the circle. They sang, and had someone speak.
Once we got back to Durban, Wayne got a call that some Elder's had locked their car keys in the car, would he please bring the extra set and help them out. So he went all the way out to Mpumalanga and rescued them. This is their church building. It is a beautiful church building out in the middle of a field in a township.
These cows were right next to the church building, enjoying a lunch of somebodies garbage. You can see part of the township in the background.
This Mpumalanga Ward took on quite a huge "helping Hands" project. They knew of a brother and sister who live in the township who have lost both their parents. They are not members of the church. Their house was in a terrible state, so the ward decided to help them out. They painted the outside and inside of the house. They did repairs to things that were falling apart.
In order to paint the inside they had to take all of their belongings outside in the yard. This is a ward member and his child. They all came and worked hard all day on the project. They also were working on getting a good fence surrounding the house.
These are three Elders who were assigned to do the outside clean up work. Elder Luddington, Elder Whiting and the Bishop worked hard making the yard look good as well.
This is a Relief Society Sister, who was fixing and hanging curtains in the freshly painted room. The ward members worked so hard to help these two young people have a nicer place to live. The ward was having a great time serving their community, working and playing together.
This week has been a sore trial to Wayne. He has had to deal with three accidents. This was the worst one however. Three Elders were headed to a DDM and the one elder was driving a little too fast on this windie dirt road to get to the church. The back end skidded and he applied the brakes, skidded and promptly rolled the car. There were many miracles that day. The Lord was looking out for those Elders and no one was hurt. Teddy, the man who looks after all of our cars, just "happened" to be in the office when I got the call about this accident. He was not going to come into the office, but he said "I just had the feeling I needed to come in" and so he was there and able to accompany Wayne to the scene of the accident, to get the tow truck there and get it towed in for repairs. The young man who was driving the car, has been having some health issues and has been seeing a Dr. for the last month. The Dr. had him on some medication and sees him on a regular basis. Right after the accident happened, Dr. Wilford just "happened" to call him to see how he was doing (having no idea he had been involved in an accident) and was then able to talk to the ambulance attendant and tell him what medication he had him on. They had to take this Elder to the hospital because after the accident he went into shock and was non responsive, he could not talk or move. However, in the end no one was hurt, and they all went home later that afternoon. All three elders were wearing their seat belts - another miracle.
Wayne has had all kinds of problems with the Elder's telephones, and had been struggling with the area office and the telephone company to get them worked out. We had to run out to Richard's Bay one morning this week to take passports to an Elder who has no VISA and so he will have to leave the country (go into Swazi) and then come back into the country and then get a 30 day stamp and then apply for a VISA. It seems that between all the accidents and incident reports, stolen bikes, purchasing new bikes, telephones lost, stolen, or broken, lost keys, insurance forms and on and on, Wayne is getting very ready to walk away from this "fun".
We do have a lot of fun right outside our window however, and Saturday morning there was the "troup" of monkeys visiting us. We fed them apples and bananas and they do enjoy the treats. There are moms and dads and some cute little babies that come to visit us. As we were watching them, Spencer happened to face time us and we were able to show Ike and Josh the monkeys antics. Josh wanted to know if we could bring one home to him, but when I told him they were very "naughty" he decided maybe it wasn't a very good idea.
Now for the family update.....
Rod and Jenn played the lead role in their Stake "legacy" experience. They spent 4 days with their Stake's youth and leaders enacting the history of the restoration of the gospel. They did a great job and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Many lives were touched and testimonies strengthened as they learned about the trials that the saints experienced as they were persecuted for standing up for what they knew to be right and true. Rod was tarred and feathered, remained unbeaten at the "stick pull" and then ultimately martyred, among many other experiences. These are the only two pictures that we have seen so far and we are looking forward to a blow by blow accounting of the experience.
Rod ( brother joseph) with Brother Darby playing Orson Pratt (I think)
Rod and Jenn got home and worked for a week and then headed with their family to Waterton for a great time going for ice cream, fishing, swimming and hiking. Jen's brother's family joined them up there for the week and they had a great time together. Inge went up as well for a couple of days and they had so much fun with her.
Of course, a good trip to Waterton would not be complete without a good bear sighting. I guess the bears are plentiful in Waterton this year. This is the Moma bear and I guess she had two cubs as well. They found her on the side of the road going up to Red Rock Canyon.
School has started once again for the Colorado kids. This is Kalani's last year of High School and Keola has joined with Mealii and Kalani at the High School. Le'olani is keeping Michelle company for a little longer at Platte River.
The California Holt's are all checked out and ready to head back to school as well. Josh is finally able to go with all the rest of them to school as he is now in Kindeergarten - cause he is 5 years old you know.
Ike had his first dance instruction night at Young Men's and Young Women's. However, it was only line dancing - so he didn't even get to dance with a girl. It will come soon enough Ike!
We are so grateful for family and friends who continue to keep in touch with us, updating us on happenings in their lives. We were grateful to hear from Ed & Leann that they have been blessed with some miracles with Leann's health challenges and that she is continuing to improve and feel better. Thanks for the e-mail Ed.
The Lord continues to watch over us and bless us everyday. We feel blessed to be able to serve in this beautiful country. We feel grateful for the people that we serve with in the branches, wards and stake. The members here have a love of the gospel and strong testimonies. We love to rub shoulders with them Sundays and feel loved and accepted by them. We will miss them when it is time to return home. We continue to get e-mails from our friends in Lesotho and miss them dearly.
Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers on our behalf. Until next time.....
The Holt's
No comments:
Post a Comment