First Week in Johannesburg

Martha feels like June Cleaver with her skirt,
pearls, and apron in the kitchen in our flat

We're approaching the end of our first week in Joburg. We arrived here Monday night (Feb. 2nd) and stayed two nights, Monday and Tuesday, with another senior couple, the Bartons, in their flat. Elder Barton is the Area Medical Advisor, a former Ob/Gyn in Rexburg, Idaho, and they have become very good friends of ours. He and Bob work very closely together. The Bartons' apartment is right across the hall from ours and they have a 2-bedroom 2-bathroom unit, so we took over their second bedroom and bathroom until the Heatons moved out and their/our apartment was cleaned. We have gotten to know several couples here and really enjoy all of them.

A cleaning crew of three people immaculately cleaned our apartment for over 12 hours on Wednesday and did an amazingly thorough job, including deep-cleaning the carpets. We slept in our own new flat Wednesday night, before the carpet was completely dry, and were pleasantly surprised with how clean everything looked and felt. We've taken the past three days to unpack, get organized, shop and get settled into our new digs.

Bob has been plenty busy with missionary situations, which are strictly confidential so won't be covered on the blog, but he has been able to work from home. So we have been able to do a lot together, and when the phone rings Bob has to drop everything and get the issues resolved.

We have a shopping mall right across the street, the Killarney Mall, that has about 90 stores, including three grocery store options, and we spent about an hour and R3,000 ($300) on groceries at Pick 'n Pay on Friday. Saturday we went to the larger Rosebank Mall, about 15 minutes away, and bought things we needed for the flat, including some fun African things, a new shower curtain and all new bedding and pillows for our king-size bed.

Our king-size bad and new bedding in the master bedroom

Today (Sunday) we went with the Bartons to their assigned ward, the Munsieville Ward, in a township about an hour's drive away, as we haven't received our ward assignment yet. We will probably receive our ward/branch assignment on Monday, along with Martha's office assignment, as we have a meeting with the Area President, Elder Carl B. Cook.

The Munsieville Ward is in the Roodeport Stake, not far from the Missionary Training Center and Johannesburg Mission Office, and they meet in a double-wide trailer, using four single-wide trailers for classrooms with porta-potties across from the "chapel" on the other side of a beautifully paved courtyard/square bounded by the trailers.



Munsieville Ward Chapel
from Courtyard

Munsieville Ward Courtyard
looking toward baptism font
(blue tank) and restrooms
 

Sister Egan's new friend, who stayed right with
her and sat on her lap during Relief Society

As we parked the car, a familiar face, Elder Khumbulani Mdletshe of the Seventy, came up to me and said, "President, are you back?" I told him about our new assignment, and he seemed very pleased. He was in charge of the Church Education System for the Area when I was in Cape Town and we had hosted him at the mission home. I had also run into him at General Conference in Salt Lake a couple of years ago. He was sustained an Area Seventy at General Conference last April and was visiting and presiding at the Munsieville Ward today. He delivered a wonderful message on gratitude and the Savior, tying together and summing up the talks given by the Relief Society President (34-year old convert) on Jesus Christ and His Atonement and the Elders Quorum President on Gratitude. All three sermons were wonderful and included outstanding, touching testimonies. There were about 75 in attendance, in a chapel that has seating for about 125 with nice carpet and chairs, paneled walls and wall fans. We were among the five white faces in the congregation, all missionaries.

The full-time elders there were Elder Brown from Ghana and Elder Yates from Sandy, Utah, and they had a baptism after the 3-hour block of meetings of a lady whose sister and brother-in-law had referred her to the missionaries and fellowshipped her into the church. The outdoor baptism font can be seen as the blue tank near the restrooms (porta-potties) in the courtyard photo. When the new convert came out of the font, she was just glowing with the Spirit, and she bore a beautiful testimony. It was a sacred way to end our first week and start out a new week.