THE SEM (Seminary)

One of the first things we worked on when we arrived was to get the seminary going.  This branch if full of kids between 12 to 18.  There is also a large group of Young Single Adults.
We love these kids. They really deserve better than they get.  Every time I am around them the age old question of why were we so lucky to be born where we were and for our children  blessed with every needful thing (not wanted thing).  But, we and most of you reading this blog have been blessed beyond measure.  
These youth are faithful and full of enthusiasm for the gospel. Why are their circumstances so different from out own.  There was a 4 week school break.  Usually, there is no seminary on school breaks.  I was pretty excited to have a few weeks off.  But, it didn't happen.  They begged for seminary.

English class on Saturdays, then seminary, Young Single Adults,  and then church on Sundays makes for a long week-end.  We drive 40 minutes each way.  We leave at 10:00 ish on Saturdays and get home at 6:00 pm or later.  Then Sundays up at 6:00 to be there by 8:15 then we arrive back home about 3:00 pm.  Sometimes it is later.  But, in seminary and church there is such a great spirit and I feel blessed to partake of it. 


The following pictures are of Seminary.  We have an average of 16 kids every week.  And they are lively.   We have a 45 to 60 min lesson, then treats, games, or movies.



Elder Hunt giving one of his famous tests. 
The tests are hard and the students love them.  They take them pretty seriously!











Biksesha (white Shirt) and Sandile, getting ready for a smart little comment.  Biksesha goes for the laugh. He is afraid of Sister Hunt.  We have had several come to Marian Meeting about not disrupting the other students.

 

One of the greatest Smiles.   Peace has been baptized since we have been here. A good boy, but will needs a lot of support.  His dad passed a year ago and mom is overwhelmed working a construction job to support the family.  His sister, Tandega  (below in the hot pink tee shirt) is taking the discussions now.  But, not understanding English is a large barrier for her.

They work hard in seminary. After 5 months, I think they have finally figured out how to find information in the Bible Dictionary and the Topical Guide.  When we first started only one, maybe two had any idea of how to get information.

Subisio and Thabang are great young men.  They both talk about going on a mission.  Thabang will be a great church leader one day.   Education here is not good and the opportunity for kids to go to higher education is difficult.  But, if any of these kids can make it, this kid can.  The rest of his family are non-members, so his motivation is very self driven.




Celebrating Birthdays is a must.  I don't think much happens to recognize their birthday so we have cake, ice cream and a little gift. ( I will be poor from the mission) about one to two times a month.  This day was Stephany's Birthday.  She is cute. She thinks she is a model and she reminds me of some of these high maintenance American girls.  Lerato (12) sitting to the right, idolizes Miss Stephany.

Dansile (in the light and dark blue stripe) is one solid girl.  She knows the scriptures,  she acts on them and is definitely one of the more stable girls.  She and her mom are fairly new converts.  They live in a one room appt. with one bed, no chairs, everything they own is in there.  But, they are great people.

 

At every seminary we play games.  They love it.  And they are really funny.  It takes them a while to get the game, but then every man is on their own.   If anyone can find a doctor that can fix Brilliant's legs (in the blue shirt) I will give up my dream of a face lift to get it done.,  He is awesome.  Jim, the son in law, checked it out and it doesn't seem promising.  But, what an awesome young man (21 ish).  He had rickets as a baby.

 

 

We feel very blessed by these youth.  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Them!

A TOUCH OF HOME

Last week our friends from home came for a visit.  It was so awesome.  And it was well...almost like being home.  They were on their way home from the yearly service project they do with Mothers Without Boarder in Zambia.  We feel so bless that they took the time at the end of their trip to spend a few days with us.  They were tired after their hard work.  Since living in South Africa I have come to appreciate the nine or ten years they have been doing this work.  The conditions they work in are even more primitive than where we do our work.  I have great admiration for the work that is done.

We did a whirlwind tour of sight seeing. The first day we went to the Panorama Drive.  It is a famous drive through some beautiful country.  The next day we did a day in our township.  The people they met loved them and keep asking about them.  And for the last two days we went to Kruger for a little Safari.  Since I posted pictures before these are just the more interesting things we saw on our journeys.

Mac Mac Pools

These are crystal clear pools and beautiful. Could  be great for a dip, but we did not try it.  I think it would against the rules.  It is holiday time here.  Kids are out of school for three weeks.  So it was a busy time with tourists.

The views all over Africa  are amazing.  When we first came in March it was late summer and the grasses were so high it was difficult to see beyond the road sides, but it was lush and green.  Now it is winter here and the grasses are brown and have died down, this creates a burning a frenzy I will talk about later.

The next stop was Mac Mac Falls and I have included pictures of those in an earlier blog.

Gods Window

God's Window is a famous South African tourist attraction that is known around the world.  You can see for ever, as far as your eyes will let you.  It is beautiful 





Burkes Potholes

 Hi Christy and Robert,  Standing  on the bridge crossing the gorge.  This place reminds me of Zions, but not nearly as beautiful as Zions.   The Pot Holes are interesting as the water bubbles around them.   The water is blue, blue and very clear. This is the dry season.  In the summer when the rains come the water is higher.

Grasshop

 

Grasshop is an interesting little village.  It has an African Silk Farm.  They grow the worms, then cocoons, then spin the silk, then weave beautiful products they sale in a little store. The merchandise is beautiful and all kinds of textures that I did not know you could use silk to make.  This is Christy with the little lady that weaves.

Kruger Game Park

 This was our second trip to Kruger.  It has been a bit different each time. Here are Bob, Robert, and Christy climbing a big rock hill. They are looking out over a river area for animals!

This guy is their personal body guard.  Note the gun.  He is making sure they are not attacked by a LION!  I really don't know what the deal was with him, but he was there with his gun and spy glasses.  His clothes looked like he worked for the park, but it looked like he was riding a bike.  There are very specific rules about not getting out of your car while in the park except in designated areas that are completely fenced.

This was our first elephant encounter.  The last time we went there were tons of giraffes.  This time it was elephants.  The elephants seemed more aggressive and on three occasions during the trip some large males came toward the car in a not too happy manner.  This guy was not going to let us pass.  He would start going into the bush, then turn around and start coming toward us.  The are known to attack cars and tip them over.  We just kept backing up for a while.  One of the safari guides mentioned that elephants eat 18 hours out of every day.

Zebra are the most beautiful.  Their markings seem so perfect. 

This was the real find.  Cats are very difficult to see.  In the summer months almost impossible because of the high grasses.  This time we saw several lions at a distance so I will not mark them off my list.  But, it was exciting to see this leopard.  They are difficult to find in the bush.  They are fast and stay a distance from the road.   It was pretty fun seeing this one.  He was in a tree eating some small animal.  I still have a cheetah and lions on my list.

We saw a number of baby elephants.  Those moms would nudge them right along.  We did see one much smaller than this, but there was not a good picture because the baby kept walking in and out of the moms legs.

Warthogs are the ugliest.  Noticed the burned area.  In the winter all people do is burn grass and bushes.  In three months this area with be filled in and you will never know it was burned.

This Rhino was a rarity. It is a white Rhino and we saw two on this little trip.  One was in our own car and one was while we were on the early morning safari car.  These Rhino are  very large.  Almost hard to believe.  It is the same with the Hippos below.  These guys were huge, not like what you see in the zoo!

Note the birds on the Hippo. Most of the larger animals have birds riding on them.  I guess it is the chain of life.....but, they are on the necks of giraffes etc.  What a free ride in life!

Lots of water buffalo!



A late night safari ride (cold and hard to see animals, not sure it was worth it)  But, we did see these hyenas. They were difficult to see but I took the pictures. They are seriously creepy, but I think I have been biased by the "Lion King" play / movie. 



We got up at 5:00 am to go on this 3 hour early morning ride.  It wasn't my thing.  Bob Hunt and Christy snooooooooozed.  I froze and we didn't see very many animals.  I have decided  Safari Bob finds more animals for us driving his little mission car.

We stayed in these little house with thatched roofs.  They were an event.  These compounds are surrounded by high fences so the animals can get in.  We did see another leopard as we walked from the restaurant.  It was across the river, but fairly close.  It was too dark to get a good picture.

This bird was amazing.  It was  small and the yellow and blue feathers were iridescent.  It was about the size of parakeet.  

Blazing Inferno

This picture is typical of how it looks along all the road sides.  In winter they burn all the dry weeds down.   People here also burn most of their own garbage.  The garbage piles up, they will have a big fire.  The skies are hazy from all the smoke.  I was surprised that even in Kruger they had been burning.



If you drive at night you see these fires at the side of the road where they are burning.  It is amazing to me that they do not burn down the world.  It is seriously interesting that these fires do not get out  control.  Anyway, it is pretty smoky here.  The Hills are alive with smoke signals!

Then it was off of Johannesburg to the  airport.  I will say that after dropping them off

I shed a tear or two.  All my kids had bets that I would be on the plan with Christy!

"Oh Ye of Little Faith"



MISSION MEDITATIONS

THE MISSION

The mission has stirred lots of thoughts over the past four months.  There are constant highs and lows.  We love our experience, but it has not been without a number of frustrations. 
I have come to the conclusion that every parent that sends out a missionary needs to plan to serve a mission themselves one day.  You will gain a  true appreciation for your child's sacrifice during the two years they served!  I am so thankful for these four and the fact that they served honorably.      
                                                                                                            Wade  Italy

Adam Sacramento
                                          Jim Korea

 
                                                      Reid NYC-London

As I watch our young Elders and how hard they work and the many disappointments they face, I often think of the darlings above. 
I know each of my missionaries are better people, dads, workers, because of their commitment.

Even though we have lots fewer restrictions, we are often frustrated by the desire to move the gospel forward here and the reluctance of local leadership to change how they have been doing things.  In some ways it is a different kind of church here, but there are also lots of similarities.
.

HOMELESS WITHOUT A CHURCH (building)

I have mentioned before, we meet in a school.  The new missionary plan will not work here.  I don't think many people will walk by and want to come in so they can see where we meet.  It will be difficult for the Elders in this area to do missionary work via internet. They have no accessible internet or equipment.

Not having a church building really hit home a few weeks ago.  The first counselor in the branch presidency passed away.  It was not expected.  He was taken to a hospital near our home.  Someone called Elder Hunt and he went down and gave him a blessing before we went to Seminary.  On the way home from Seminary we stopped to visit him at about 6:00 pm.  It was obvious  he was very ill.  The nurse reassured us that he would be fine but his blood oxygen levels were in the low 60's.  He basically drown from the water on his lungs.  It was interesting to me because they were making no attempt to drain the water from his lungs.  At any rate he died several hours after we were there.
Several members were sad because there was not a church for the funeral. I am going to add some picture of what it is like have an open air event.

The night before the funeral, the funeral directors brought a big tent and put it up right in front of their home in the middle of the street.  It completely blocked the street.

They also brought the body to the house.  Elder and I were there to take some food (that was another story).  I went to talk to the wife and I was leaning on this thing.  I looked down and it was the casket.  They bring it the night before so everyone in the family can view the person  the night before and in the morning before the funeral. The funeral was at 7:00 a.m.   We got up at 5:00 am to get there.  I was still dark when we arrived, but there were lots of people (several hundred and the tent held maybe 30 to 40ish).  People were lining up and down the streets.



The following two pictures are of some of the mourners. The funeral itself was conducted by the Elders Quorum President. The out line was pretty traditionally LDS,  However, every time there was a break, someone in the audience would start singing, then everyone would join in and sway.  It was really kind of neat.     At the end it was announced that Elder Hunt would give the closing prayer...a surprise!
 

 From the time of the death to the funeral the widow was covered with a blanket as a shroud.  She and her grannies, mother, aunties all stayed in the house sitting and laying on the floor,  All furniture was moved from the house so everyone could fit.  
During the funeral the widow sat on a woven mat on the ground next to the casket. Her granny sat next to her.  She grew up with her granny which is common here.  Although her mother was there it was the granny that comforted her and was with her constantly.             

 Toward the end of the funeral several young men and women passed a collection plate for money for the widow and family.

 

After the funeral everyone gets in their car and drives to the cemetery with lights flashing etc.  They also rent a big two length bus to drive people to the funeral since many people do not have cars.     

 



The funeral director in the hat.  She was all about business.  She would take the frames supporting the casket and just throw them around like they were nothing.  Watching her gave me a smile.  In the background is President Mashego the Elders Quorum President.

 
 

The Grannies helping the widow to the car.  Note that she still has the blanket covering all of her,

It is off to the cemetery,  It was a 6 mile drive with flashing lights etc.  The cemeteries here are interesting.  This one is nicer than most, but notice it really is dirt and weeds.  The singing and chanting continued during the whole time. There were some practices at the cemetery that were different for me. 

 
After the dedication of the grave the casket is lowered into the ground with everyone there,  There was some weeping and wailing at that time.   After, the family and some men friends of the deceased fill the grave in while everyone watches,  They are singing during the process.

The mourners are walking back down the mountain to their cars.  As we were leaving the cemetery there were four other funerals backed up waiting to come into the cemetery. They only allowed one at a time.  Remember this funeral started at 7:00 am.  This process will go on all day.  There is a high death rate here,  Mpumalanga Providence has the highest % of aids in South Africa.  There are many deaths weekly related to it.  People are pretty hush, hush about it to avoid stigmas. I think this death was one of those, 

Members of our branch waking down the hill.

 

Just remember if there is not a church building, they will put up a tent for you with a dirt floor.  It works just fine.

 

Pray for this little branch to get a church building!