March 20, 2016

         Hello again everyone!  Hope your all doing well.  I am at Jeffery's Bay with Grandpa.  We were 

asked by the Stake to go to another Ward and do some family history training with their High Priests.

It is half way to Jeffery's Bay so, we are staying the night since it is our P-day tomorrow.      

This is a picture of our District after our District Meeting on Friday March 11th.  Most of the Elders have started a new work out routine and were wanting to show off their muscles so Grandpa had to join in.  Most of them gave me their Parents phone numbers so I could call their Moms.  I am excited to do it because I know how much I loved talking to people that were with my boys on their missions.

                       

                           On Tuesday last week , March 15th we went to a rescue center for animals,

mostly penguins and some birds.  It is a non profit place and is about ten min from where we

live.  I LOVE penguins so I think they will be seeing a lot of us there.    The tour guy saw me

laughing at them and he said "You can't watch penguins and be mad."  They make me smile

and I just love watching them.  Check out the blue eyes on those birds.  They look like they are

painted on.  They were such  bright blue and they don't look real.  

Sunday Mar 6, 2016

     Hello everyone,  it is Sunday evening March 6th.  We are trying to update this weekly or at least every other.  I  hear the grandkids like it and also Kent and Alice have responded.  This is a picture 

of the big rhino we saw last Tuesday. We went to an animal park about a half hour from where we live.  It costs about 4 dollars to drive around by yourself, and you can stay all day.  It was very fun and amazing to see all the big animals up so close.  This rhino got a little to close for grandpas comfort zone when it turned around after I took this picture.  It was close enough that I could have reached out and touched it.  Grandpa rolled up my window real fast. 

          There were a lot of wonderful Zebras.  I love them and the Rhinos.  There was a young Rhino also but he was a little hard to see in the picture.

                        The rhinos feet are real big, but in this picture they look small next to his 

                    very big body.

                           This is a picture of grandpa going across a bridge to an area where you can
                     sometimes see monkeys.  We didn't see any that day.  We have heard of a place,
                      not very far away, that we plan to go to.  They told us you see them along the
                     road as you drive.

   
     This is a group of kids from one of the more humble areas.  We go there and take their pictures.
   They love to get their pictures taken.  None of them are members of the church yet but we hope
    to change that soon.

         Last Thursday was zone conference and we always go out with the other senior couples from our Zone and also President and Sister Merrill.  They are the couple sitting by me.  She is almost a year younger than me and he is 62.  They are from Arizona but have lived all over.  It was also Stake
Conference this weekend so they stayed here all weekend.  We were able to spend Friday evening
with them and it was nice to have a little one on one time.  We  went out to dinner again and also
went with all of the senior couples again Saturday night after the adult meeting.  The next Stake conference is August 21st and I will turn 60. It has been a lot of meetings but they have been good
and we have learned a lot and met a lot of new people.  They are all very friendly and kind.

                           Saturday morning two of the senior couples came out to see where we live,
                      and to go to the beach .  This little lizard is the smallest one I've ever seen and
                      he did not want to get off of my chair.  If you look close you can see how nice
                      the sand is at blue water bay.  It takes two or three minutes to get there from our
                      house depending on if you hit the light green or not.

                   
                           This is Elder Dangerfield and he is from the Isle Of Man.  He was amazed
                      that I had heard of it and that I knew of some of the people there because,
                      my brother Don had served there on his mission.  We were about to go into
                      our Saturday Evening Stake Meeting for adults.  This is our Stake house and
                      it is about 20 min from our house.

                           This darling little boy is about one and his name is Aluncedo.  He is our

                     Branch President, President Zitshu's son.  He was sitting with us during Stake

                     Conference.  He is a very sweet baby.   

                           Well, that is our last couple of weeks, when we take the kids pictures we 

                      print them and put them in envelopes with pass along cards.  We have had a dad

                      text that he was interested in the video and the missionaries took it to him.

                      They asked him how he heard about it and he told them that a lady was at the 

                       park taking pictures of the kids and that was how he got the pass along card.

                      They are now teaching them.  :]

                       Each day is a new great experience, we hope you are all doing well.  We love

                       the work but miss you all very much.   Lots of Love and thanks for the prayers.

                            We will send more soon.

                 Hello, friends and family,

                        We hope your all doing well.  Here are some of our pictures of

                 the last week or so.

                                      This is a picture from monday night the 22nd of Feb.  We

                                   had a family home evening with these two sisters from the

                                   branch.  Their mother went in her bedroom because she isn't

                                   active.  Xolani, the young man in the brown jacket is about

                                   done with his papers to turn in for a mission.  He gave the

                                   lesson from a conf. talk called "All Is Well" about the pio-

                                   neers.  He did a great job and was explaining to the sisters

                                   that the pioneers had to go so far and "they had to go by feet".

                                   That was his way of saying they walked. :)    

                                 Our new Elders are Elder Slade and Elder Heninger.  We 

                                brought Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner and I can tell

                                you that the side dishes did not look like the ones at home.

                                I was full so didn't have to eat any of it. :)  These two girls

                                take turns leading the music for Sacrament each week and

                                have pretty voices.

O

I

                      Oops,  Grandpa is gone and I am trying to update this by myself and 

                    thought I was putting in a picture from our trip to Jeffery's Bay last friday.

                    This picture was taken when we had been in South Africa for two days.

                     We are in Cape Town and that flat mountain behind us is a famous moun-

                     tain called "Table Mountain"  It usually has some clouds sitting on top of 

                     it and they call them its tablecloth.  The picture above this one is the one 

                     of Grandpa on the deck of our hotel room at Jeffery's Bay.  It is very pretty

                     there.  The room on the beach there is about $125.00, everything over

                      here is much cheaper than at home .

     These kids are beautiful and amazing!!!  They get so excited when they see our car

  

coming to the
little park by their houses.  Last week after we took the first group of pictures back to
them we had them in envelopes with pass along cards and the next day one of their Dads
texted for the free video and the Elders took it to him and asked him how he heard
about the video.  He told them some lady was at the park taking pictures of the kids.
When his son came home with the picture he saw the card and texted about the video.
yea yea yea ,  They are now teaching their family and we are taking lots more pic-
tures.

     The other picture is Grandpa with Elder Si'ufanua and Elder Mmotong the night be-

fore they were transferred.  Elder Mmotong requested chicken fajitas again.  They had

both never had them before I made them the first time for them.  He asked for the recipe.

We feel blessed to have gotten to know them.  Elder Si'ufanua and Grandpa had been

having a contest to see who could lose the most weight by transfers and Elder Si'ufanua

won and was very excited .  

    Headed to the Air Port for transfers.  This is our side yard .  We feel blessed.

Most people in our complex don't have much of a yard.  If you look close at the 

wall you can see the broken glass on top and the electric fence.  The unfinished 

house in the background is typical, I am not sure if builders run out of money or

are waiting for a buyer or what.  

                        Here are some rhinos we saw at a animal park we went to in January.

                      There are only these two in the park and we had been driving around 

                       all day seeing lots of other animals but couldn't find them.  Just as we

                       were heading back for the dinner they were sighted heading for this

                        watering hole.   Made our day.   They are huge and always stay to-

                       gether, 

                        I guess this is all for now, thanks for all the love and support.  We love

                        and miss everyone and wish you could be here with us.  We love be-

                        ing full time missionaries.    Love Elder and Sister Smith  

Feb 13, 2016

       February 13th, 2016    Happy Valentines Day!!!!!
 
     Hello,  we have had some great experiences that we want to share.  Today Elder Smith took
Sister Olaphant (Primary President), her counselor, and I to the Stake Primary Training Meeting
which is held once a year. (Whether they need it or not) .   Sister Olaphant has been a member for
thirteen months and had never been to primary in her life, when she was called to be the President,
to start the new year.  When we went to visit her on Jan. 17th just after we arrived in Port Elizabeth,
she started asking questions about Primary.  She had two manuals, a few small pictures, no music or
piano, one counselor, and one room for Primary with at least 17 children.  When we told her we could print her a sharing time manual for the year and that we would help her do music by bringing
in a keyboard and doing a sharing time for her, she was so happy.   She said, "I have been praying
for help but I didn't know you would come so fast."  I told her most people would not have the
faith to accept a call to be Pres. of an organization that they knew nothing about.  She told me" I
could never tell the Branch Pres. no.  It tells us in the scriptures it is as if our Savior is sitting
there asking me."  Everything they heard and learned today was new to them.

Afterward Elder Smith took us all out to eat at a small cafe bakery near the Stake House.  They were so appreciative and I am pretty certain the counselor had never eaten at a restaurant in her life.  I am calling her the counselor because I am not sure what her name is and I know I can't pronounce it.  She had left early this morning in order to catch a bus into town because of mis communication she didn't know she could have ridden with us.  When the bus dropped her off she had to catch a taxi to take her up by the Stake House where we picked her up.  She had very, very little money and no food with her.
She had never been to a Stake Meeting before and she had no idea that she would get a ride home
or when she would get home after .  She used what little money they had to pay for transportation
to the Stake Meeting.  It is about 25 miles away.

These ladies are such incredible examples to me. I am humbled everytime I am around them or think about there amazing faith and how they are so willing to sacrifice their time and pretty much all they have for the church.  Sister Olaphant does not have a car and it takes her at least an hour to walk to church and she gets there a half hour or more early each Sunday to get the primary room ready.  Most weeks she also walks there on Saturdays to help clean the school rooms where we have our church.
At first she called us both" Elders Smith."  We explained to her that I was Sister Smith.  She is a
widow with two sons, one is a member preparing for a mission and her oldest son is not a member.


     





These are some kids who we saw after teaching the boy in our car a lesson.  The one in the car is
named Christopher.  He saw us go to a house and waited for us to come out and then came over
to our car and told us he was a member of the church.  He has lived with his father for the last two
years in Motherwell, and didn't know there was a church here.  He has been a member for four years
and he came to live in the shed behind his dads house to go to school here.
    He told us he has missed the Church and was so happy to hear that there is a Branch here.  We hope he will make it to Church tomorrow,  he lives about ten miles from where we meet for Church.
They told us our Branch needs three more Melchzideck Priesthood holders to become a ward and
the Church is trying to aquire land to build a chapel here.

    This is Sister Olaphant and I at her house a couple of weeks ago.  She is beautiful.


A group of kids swarmed me when they saw I was taking pictures.  I really got into trouble
when I pulled out a box of crackers from the car.  They are all starving and loved the crackers.
Elder Smith had to watch from the car because we can't leave the car unattended.

Monday Feb 8, 2016

       Hi -  Today is Pday for the elders and we are the MotherWell Elders only transportation till transfers on the 17th so we took them into Walmer to E-mail and then took our district to lunch for
Trent's Birthday.  Wish you could have been here Trenton.  They are a great group of Elders.  We really enjoy them and ask them lots of questions.   We learn alot about the areas and places in the mission from them and when we have district meetings we learn alot about the gospel and teaching.
     The tall Elder holding the sign is Elder Heninger from Salt Lake and his Aunt used to be in our ward in Snow Canyon.
      HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRENT,   we love and miss you all but are doing great and being blessed.

Feb 4, 2016 - Page from Strengthening Marriages Manual

Here is a page from the Strengthening Marriages manual.  Our branch president, President Zitshu, asked us to teach these lessons in the homes of about 10 members.

We think this is a great resource for any of you that would like to help yourselves and your marriages.  The church sure blesses us with incredible resource material.

Here are some pictures from the last few days.

Below is our senior couples dinner Tue, Feb 2, 2016, with President and Sister Merrill.

President and Sister Merrill at Zone Training at the Port Elizabeth Stakehouse. Wed, Feb 3, 2016

The young elders in our zone with President and Sister Merrill.  Our Motherwell Elders are Elder Mmotong (far left) and Elder Si Ufanua (just behind Pres Merrill - He is from American Samoa).

Branch Activity, Game Park, Kids Dancing in the Street

Our beach has only been a branch for a few years here in Motherwell .   Most members are recent converts .

These cute primary girls told me they love Sunday's and they couldn't wait to come and have us teach them another new primary song.  

Our new little buddy. When he hit the ball in baseball he would jump up and down with his fists in the air just like our grandson Brigham. 

Zebra at Addo Elephant Park

We have a great video of these kids dancing in the street but haven't figured out how to send videos yet. 

District meeting in Port Elizabeth .