Welcoming New Mission Presidents and the 4th of July in Africa

With Joseph Mofokeng, returned Cape Town missionary from 2006, in front of the Johannesburg Temple

This week consisted of more reunions with SACTM missionaries, welcoming new mission presidents to Africa, and an American 4^th of July barbecue in Africa! 

On Monday, Bob was greeted with a call from Joseph Mofokeng, one of his beloved Cape Town missionaries who wanted to get together with us and talk. We scheduled a lunch meeting for noon on Tuesday, and as we entered the reception area to meet him, another of Bob’s Cape Town missionaries, Juan van der Merwe happened to be standing there getting a drink of water. He asked, “So are you on a mission here again?” and was very surprised that Bob called him by name, since he only served under Bob two months, back in 2005. He’s working for his dad’s panel beating (body shop) company that has a contract with the Area to repair damage to church-owned vehicles. 

With Joseph Mofokeng and Juan van der Merwe, Cape Town RMs

We had a great visit with Joseph over lunch at Mike’s Kitchen, as he poured out his heart to us about his divorce and subsequent struggles. But his testimony is intact, and he really needed someone to talk with. Martha’s life experiences were particularly helpful to him. What a great man he is, and we felt he left very rejuvenated and committed.

New mission presidents start “on or about July 1,” and we have eight new mission presidents in Africa, four in each area. The area presidency here in Johannesburg invited us to join them to greet the new presidents Tuesday, 30 June, at the airport, as the four couples all flew in together on the same itinerary from Salt Lake City, spent the night at the Airport Intercontinental Hotel, and flew to their missions in the following morning, 1 July.  It turned out to be a most interesting experience.

The couples are the Footes from Reno, Nevada on their way to Madagascar, the Baehrels from France to the DR Congo, the Kochs from Brazil to Mozambique, and the Mkhabelas from South Africa to Zimbabwe. 

Thankfully, the couples all arrived safely, and even landed a little early. But the “fun” was with the luggage.  The first word was that their luggage had been lost.  Happily it wasn’t lost in the sense of being sent to China or somewhere by mistake.  Two of the couples’ bags had been checked by some well-meaning ticket agent in SLC to their “final” destinations.  So the luggage was not there at the baggage claim, but rather off somewhere in a holding place for the flights to Swaziland or Harare.  The couples wanted their luggage to do some adjusting and to have a change of clothes, so they requested the bags be retrieved.  That ended up taking several hours. 

Meanwhile, our team was there patiently waiting and staying true to the faith.  We arrived at 4:30, the same time the Cooks and Ellises arrived, and stayed diligent until the very end.  After a wait of an hour and a half, one couple made it out where we could greet them.  The Footes from Nevada, on their way to Madagascar, were first at about 6:00 pm, and made it out in time to be greeted by the Cooks before they had to go board their flight home for their annual July leave.  They explained the luggage situation to us. The Footes have their son with them, a recently returned missionary from the France Lyon Mission.  Elder Ellis remarked, “Think of it:  your own baggage porter and French tutor!”  They were safely delivered to the hotel by Francois Nortje of the area staff for a blissful sleep. Francois had checked everyone in ahead of time and had their room keys in hand. 

Next, President Mkhabela (South African going to Zimbabwe) came out with their hand luggage to greet us, but also to meet up with their three great kids who had brought bags from home for final packing for Zimbabwe.  Wonderful Sister Mkhabela opted to stay back with the Baehrels and Kochs to help them through a difficult situation in a strange land.  Francois was able to return from helping the Footes in time to escort Elder Mkhabela to the hotel. 

The whole Mkhabela Family at the Johannesburg Airport



Elder Jackson Mkhabela and Sister Mkhabela
on their way to the Zimbabwe Harare Mission

Then the wait continued, for two more hours!  One thing we did to productively pass the time was to have a rousing game of new mission president family trivia, emceed by Elder Ellis!  These are four great families, and we reviewed and learned interesting things about them.  We found commonalities and differences among them.  The Egans and Sister Ellis were clearly the winners, and the Frischknechts were our correlation team on the sidelines to make sure we stayed in bounds.

The finale happened at about 8:00 pm (yes, that would be 3½ hours of waiting for us, and 3½ more hours of a stressful struggle for our new MP couples who had just finished a 17-hour flight, after a five day fire hose training in Provo)!

But the good news is that Sister Mkhabela, the Baehrels and the Kochs came out WITH THEIR BAGS.  The greeting was great, and we all escorted them to the hotel for some much needed rest.

Unfortunately, we got all the way to the parking garage to find out our parking ticket didn’t work in the machine, so we had to go back down four levels of escalators and stand in line to pay for the parking, extending our airport wait to four hours. We arrived back at our flat a half-hour later at 9:30.

Three other new African mission presidents arrived in Accra, Ghana at the same time, the Cosgraves from Highland, Utah to the Ghana Kumasi Mission, the Carlsons from Midway, Utah to the Liberia Monrovia Mission, and the Egukos from Lagos, Nigeria to the Nigeria Calabar Mission. A fourth couple, the Clawsons from Fairport, New York will arrive later to take over the Sierra Leone Freetown Mission, once the country is declared ebola-free. Which reminds me, Liberia was declared ebola-free once 42 days has passed since the last case, only for three more cases to come up this past week! So the Carlsons will be delayed for some time in Ghana.

Also this week, the senior couple missionaries planned a real American 4^th of July barbecue with American hamburgers and hot dogs, potato salad, corn on the cob, baked beans, apple pie, chocolate cake and patriotic singing. It was held in the Dukes Court courtyard, and there were 46 of us there, including a couple of South African couples, who seemed to enjoy the food but didn’t know the words to any of the songs. It was a beautiful day, temperature in the 70’s, and a fun, nostalgic time, bringing out emotions and a brief longing for home and family. 

Celebrating the 4th of July with other senior missionary couples at Dukes Court

The lawn extending from the courtyard at Dukes Court

 On Sunday, we had another great block of meetings with wonderful heart-felt, sincere testimonies, another very well-received gospel doctrine message taught by Bob and great Priesthood and Relief Society lessons. And Elder Walter Chatora of the Seventy, a Zimbabwean, addressed, inspired and entertained us with his life story at our monthly zone meeting in the Dukes Court lobby, with 25 senior couples in attendance. He came a long way from being born the 12^th child of a family in abject poverty in Zimbabwe to becoming a successful school teacher, businessman and now temple recorder and Area Seventy. 

The Mnguni family in the Protea Glen Branch. He is the
Elders Quorum President and she is 9 months pregnant
 (due n June) with 5 kids (only 3 shown) on Sunday, ready
for sacrament meeting to begin. She bore her testimony
and he taught the Priesthood lesson on home teaching.

We had to hold back some emotions this 4^th of July weekend as we followed the holiday outings enjoyed by our children and grandchildren at home, and sang our favorite patriotic songs while as far away geographically from America as possible, but we love our mission and are so happy to be companions here in Africa.