May 23, 2016

            Hello everyone,  We were blessed to have the Wall's come and visit over Mother's Day weekend.  We went to some of our favorite  places and here are some of the pictures we took with them.

                             I was right next to this monkey and he was just busy eating and didn't
                      care.

          It was fun watching the girls be brave enough to pet some of the birds.  when we were at the bird sanctuary.

           This ones color was so vibrant it was amazing

                           This thing was like a grasshopper, but huge. With lots of other thing on it that the grasshoppers back home don't have. It was as long as the width of my foot and they are pretty wide.

            Two Grandpas walking the Kenton on Sea beach together and catching up on things.

                                Thought my grandkids would like to see that Grandma's neck and back are feeling better so I was able to have fun doing cartwheels at the beach while we were there.

           It was a little cool and windy that day but better than we expected because here is was like the second week of November for you.   We had a great time with them.

            Our first District Meeting with the new Elders in our District.  I was trying to get Elder Ezom to move over to get in the picture better , but it looks like we are holding hands. (not).   Elder Johnson that lives by us and works with us in Motherwell has his arm on his new companions shoulder, Elder Mumba who is new and from Zambia.  The third Elder from the Left is the first Elder from Mexico to come to South Africa and he is new also.  He is Elder Hernandez.

         P-day for the happy Elders.

                            This is the Wonci family and about half of the family are members.  This little girl will turn six the same day that I turn 60 so we are going to celebrate together that week sometime because our birthday is on a Sunday this year.  Her mom is next to her and she almost died last year when she got TB.  She takes about 15 pills a day for 18 months and has lost about 40 lbs but we are thankful that she is on the mend.

                           This is a picture from a place we drove to last week,  it is Knysna.  We were only there for a few hours so hope to go again sometime.  It is a little over three hours away from where we live.  Because we have fewer missionaries than they used to have we don't have any missionaries serving there right now.

                            Last Saturday Sister Mashiqa got baptised.  She is the mom of the boys who got baptised last month.  We are working with the Dad now.  He is a great guy but has a drinking problem like most of the Males in Motherwell.

           This is part of our Motherwell primary.  We try and learn a new song most weeks.  The little girl in the back thought she needed to stand by Elder Smith and help him with the music that he plays off his phone for us because we don't have a piano.

          This was Sister Makoba's first week at Church and she loved it.  We are teaching them with the Elders.  They have a 16 year old son and a daughter at college as well.  She said she could feel the love in Relief Society.

                           This is Elder Johnson's flat .  We got a call last month at about 6am on a Sunday morning to see if we knew how to shut off the water that was spraying out of a leak from the water heater .  They are up in the attic and it had busted a hole in the ceiling.  They have hot water now but the ceiling still isn't fixed.  Waiting on the insurance company.
                           

              Hello from South Africa!  Happy Mother's Day to everyone.  We love you all and hope all the ladies in our lives have a great day and get pampered and feel very appreciated and loved.   The video above of the pigs is for our son Trent who loves pigs.  He gets it from his mom. 

             These cute boys were out playing in the area that we are starting to work more in,  The Church has bought property near here to eventually build a chapel in Motherwell.   They were excited about the oranges we had for them and the picture of Jesus to give to their moms, from the pass along cards.
 

                         This is a" momma " from Motherwell.  The streets have lots of stores like hers for people to come buy things and they sit out on those plastic tubs all day.
Whenever we take their pictures and bring them back to them they look at the pictures and say "beautiful".  Most don't have any pictures of themselves and so they are very happy when we take them.  It is fun to see how happy it makes them, and how grateful they are.  Very get very humbled everytime we are in Motherwell.


               Most people in motherwell don't have cars.  Especially not ones that look like that one in the back ground.  We have 156 people in the Motherwell branch and I think we have four families that have cars.

            I took this picture because their are a lot of fields in Motherwell and this is a typical one.  I don't think it is illegal to throw trash on the ground because it is everywhere and there are usually people going through it and cows out eating in the fields and garbages.

                        You see lots of kids out playing in the streets with tires.  They always wave at us and are surprised to see white people.  Some think we are albino's because they haven't seen white people before but have seen some black people who are albinos.  The kids are usually very happy and have big smiles on their faces.  He does look shocked to see us and then very surprised when we wanted to take his pictures.

          These were hanging all over from a sea shell shop that we went to in St. Francis Bay.   It is a beautiful area .

                       This is our branch mission leader and we were going to our weekly meeting talk about the week and who was taught or visited.  He has his call to go on a mission the first week of June and will be a great missionary .   His name is Milhali and it is very difficult to pronounce.  It was a beautiful day last week.  It is getting cooler here as were are going into winter, but it was probably about 75 and a rare day with no wind.  We love those days!

                         Last Saturday all us Sr. couples met in Port Alfred where Bro. and Sister Kjar stay.  We met there because they stay in a big place that has room for all of us.  It was a good-bye dinner for the Stapley's.  They leave June 28th.  and will have been here for two years.  She is in the pink sweater, and they are from Arizona.  We have have five more Sr. couples in our mission but we are the ones on the Eastern Cape.  Two couples work in the office in Capetown so we don't see them .  Cape town is about like going from our house in Layton to Vegas so we will just be there when we fly out and we stayed there for two days when we flew in.

          This is a picture I took yesterday of a family we are teaching with Elder Slade and Elder Johnson.  His wife had to work Sunday but he came to Church and he was very touched by the testimony of the kids from Primary and that they could go up front and speak like they did.  He had tears in his eyes as he was telling us what a special experience it was for him to see that.  They are a close family and loved the lesson that we taught about Temples, and families being sealed forever.
           Elder Slade is getting transferred on Wednesday.  He came out in Nov. on his mission and has been here since then.  We will miss him.

                       This picture is Elder Johnson talking to his Mom last night for Mother's Day.  She will be out of the US on Sunday so he was able to call her early before she left.   We have a direct line so he and Elder Slade came and used our phone while we were at Branch Council Meeting.   It is a great day when Moms get to talk to their Missionaries.    We love you all and appreciate the prayers and love.
Will send more pictures soon, have a great week.