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| Pretoria South Africa Stake Center, site of the historic Stake Conference on 28 June 2015 |
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| Some of the 1,500+ members that attended the special stake conference in Pretoria where the stake was split, three new wards were formed, 5 new bishops sustained, and mission boundaries were realigned |
Today is Bob's fifth birthday in South Africa! He landed in Cape Town on this day ten years ago, and his fourth birthday in South Africa was the day he and Kathy packed up to leave Cape Town to return home from their 3-year stint as mission president and wife.
Our Area President, Elder Carl B. Cook of the Seventy, invited us to attend an historic stake conference today in Pretoria, about 30 minutes north of Johannesburg. He said he felt we needed to be there. We arrived more than 20 minutes early and found the parking lot completely full and cars parked all up and down the adjacent streets on both sides. And when we walked into the chapel, we found it completely full to overflowing. People were being seated in overflow rooms elsewhere in the building. We were greeted by Wade Baldwin, one of our SACTM RM's who resides in Pretoria, and he couldn't help us find a seat in the chapel or cultural hall. Everything was taken.
Elder Cook noticed we were looking for a seat in the chapel and came down and escorted us to sit on the stand, next to an Area Seventy, Jaques Van Reenen, and his wife, on the front row of the stand, along with Elder & Sister Cook, Elder Chatora of the Seventy and his wife, and two mission presidents, President Dunn of the Johannesburg Mission and President Merrill of the Botswana/Namibia Mission and their wives.
There was a wonderful spirit there, a standing room only crowd of over 1,500 saints throughout the building, closed circuit TV being broadcast everywhere and an outstanding stake choir providing beautiful prelude music. President Shawn Boshoff of the Pretoria Stake, a local attorney who handles most of the Church's issues with missionaries, conducted the conference. The congregation appeared to be very close to 50% black and 50% white, in a stake that had historically always had white leadership.
Elder Chatora, who is also the temple recorder, conducted the stake business, which consisted of announcing that two branches have become wards and sustaining the two new bishops, then splitting off parts of the Pretoria 1st and 2nd Wards into a new Montana Ward and sustaining new bishops in all three of those wards, and finally splitting the Pretoria South Africa Stake into two stakes, forming the new Mabopane (mah-bo-PAH-nay) Stake with a totally new all-black stake presidency. President Boshoff was retained as president of the Pretoria Stake, but two new counselors were called, both black. Elder Chatora handled the business very appropriately, and the new ward and stake boundaries were projected, as all the speakers had been, on a giant screen in the front of the chapel and two large flat screen TV's in the cultural hall, as well as other rooms in the building, and, for all we know, maybe in other buildings as well. Members of the branches and wards, and finally the two stakes, were asked to stand up unit by unit to do the sustainings of officers in each.
It was a great birthday present to Bob to see Wade Baldwin, one of our returned Cape Town missionaries stand and be sustained as the new bishop of the Pretoria 2nd Ward. We visited with him and his wife and their young son and baby daughter afterward and had our photo taken.
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| Wade Baldwin, new bishop of the Pretoria 2nd Ward, and his wife, one of Bob's Cape Town missionaries 7-8 years ago |
The stake business took over a half-hour, and it was followed by Elder Cook announcing the mission business, a surprise to everyone present including the full-time missionaries who were there. He announced that all the missionaries who were present, serving in the Pretoria Stake plus the new Mabopane Stake, as well as the missionaries who were invited to attend from the Tzaneen Distrcit, were now all transferred from the South Africa Johannesburg Mission to the Botswana/Namibia Mission, effective Wednesday, 1 July! He said that the Johannesburg Mission has about 160 elders and the Botswana/Namibia Mission is down to just 13! This transfer of 45 missionaries changes those complements to 115 in the Johannesburg Mission and 58 in Botswana/Namibia. This change has been in the works for a few months, but had been kept very much under wraps until this morning. There were a lot of startled missionaries in the congregation. President and Sister Dunn wept openly throughout the rest hymn.
The new stake presidency and the new stake president's wife spoke before the break (standing rest hymn), and the new counselors to President Boshoff spoke after the break, followed by the two mission presidents and their wives, who were very effective, then Sister and Elder Chatora and Sister and Elder Cook took the remaining time.
Elder Cook's closing remarks about adapting to change were powerful and effective. He used as his text the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy and Joshua, using the example of the Israelites transitioning to a new prophet, Joshua, after being led 40 years by Moses. It was especially effective because the new stake president of the Mabopane Stake's first name is Joshua.
The scriptures he focused on were Joshua 1:2,5-7: "Arise and go...As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee," etc.He said Joshua probably wondered if the people would follow him, and v. 16 says, "And they answered Joshua, saying, All that thou commandest us we will do." President Cook's message was: Whether you have a new bishop, a new stake president or a new mission president, and many of you have all three, know that each of these leaders is called of God, and you follow them as you did their predecessors. He also said t6hat, according to the handbook, there would need to be 56 new callings made in the new stake (high council, executive secretary and clerks, stake auxiliary presidencies, etc.) and all the new wards would need to be fully staffed, so he asked everyone to be prepared to receive callings that may be beyond their comfort zones and experience levels, and he assured them the Lord would qualify them if they accepted new callings with faith. He was especially sensitive to the young missionaries who are suddenly in another mission and told them there would be a separate meeting for them 15 minutes after the conference.
In the missionary meeting, Elder Cook announced the opening hymn as "Improve the Shining Moments," but the organist played the introduction to, "If You Could Hie to Kolob." The director and organist were in on the scheme, and we all followed the director singing the words to "Improve the Shining Moments" to the tune of "If You Could Hie to Kolob." Although the hymn got off to a shaky start, by the second verse everyone was together, and the final three verses were powerful.
Elder Cook called on me to offer the invocation, then he asked the missionaries what they thought of the opening hymn. Responses ranged from, "The organist played the wrong hymn," to "We didn't really know what was happening at first, but we ultimately all got together and it all worked out in the end." Elder Cook then used this as an object lesson to demonstrate how change affects us. It can be confusing and uncomfortable at first, but if we go forward with the plan and follow our leaders, it will all work out beautifully.
The Dunns tearfully addressed us, comparing their weeping as when they send their sons off on missions, not of sadness but of joy for the great blessings ahead, but also for the void they feel because they love them so, and they shared that their sons both had mission changes partway through their missions that were a great blessing. President Dunn's message was, "You've been upgraded!" And the Wilsons graciously, joyfully, and tearfully, accepted the missionaries into their mission, saying they hadn't seen this many missionaries together in their two years of service. President Cook skillfully answered several very tough questions from the elders and had me chime in with my remarks, based on my experience, before we closed and took a group photo of all the affected missionaries, 37 young elders and four senior couples.
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| The Wilsons, Cooks, Chatoras and Dunns (center front) with the 37 elders and 4 senior couples who transfer from the South Africa Johannesburg Mission to the Botswana/Namibia Mission, effective 1 July 2015 |
We came home and enjoyed telephone and FaceTime calls with family and a delicious kingklip birthday meal with roasted potatoes and broccoli by candlelight and the traditional Egan chocolate pudding cake for dessert. And Martha presented Bob with a couple of new dressy sweaters for his birthday. Bob received birthday greetings on Facebook and email from over 50 family members, missionaries and friends around the world, and we thank everyone who expressed birthday greetings.
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| Kingklip birthday dinner |
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| Chocolate birthday cake |
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| With Sbongile Zanele Grootboom (Sister Nophali) |
It was a hard week for Martha, as she came down with some nasty African bug on Monday that lasted until Friday. She hadn't been able to keep a meal down until our best-steak-ever Chateaubriand dinner at the Cattle Baron Steak Ranch in Centurion last night, and she's been fine all day today. She missed meeting another of Bob's RM's from Cape Town, Sister Nophali Grootboom who was here visiting the temple with her husband and two kids (ages 5 and 2) and missed her temple shift Friday. Bob was able to perform another live sealing Friday for a beautiful couple from Swaziland.
Now we're beginning another week and our 6th month of our mission in Johannesburg.
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