Family Fun Day and Feast of the Tabernacles

The Africa Southeast Area's First Annual Employee Family Fun Day at the Roodepoort Stake Center property,
next to the Joburg MTC on Saturday, 26 September. It was a beautiful sunny day and a tremendous turnout!

 

 

Our former Cape Town missionary, Werner
Heydenrych, was the chairman of the Family
Fun Day and is shown here with his family,
wife and daughter Clara




Martha with Jesse Arumagum and his beautiful daughters.
 Jesse is the physical facilities manager Martha works with.

Malvern Chitiyo let Martha hold his two-month old sleeping
daughter and came back to get her an hour later. This was the
3rd 2-month old baby Grandma Martha got to hold this week,
counting the two babies on Heritage Day Thursday. Malvern
is responsible for all the missionary vehicles in the Area.

They had a photo booth where anyone could put on props and
pose for a funny photo, as Jesse's girls are doing here.

We couldn't resist.

The Chitiyo Family

The food was a boerevors braai (hot dogs on the grill)
and potluck salads, everyone brought their favorite

There were lots of fun water games for the kids

Wayne & Tara Muller brought our dear friend Sister Bobbi Swanepoel
from Parys, about an hour southwest of Joburg. Bob knew Bobbi in
George, South Africa when he was mission president in 2005 - 2008.

Bobbi brought her best friend, 9-yr. old pug Louie

The commemoration of the annual Jewish Feast of the Tabernacles was kicked off on Sunday evening at Beit Emanuel, the Jewish temple and synagogue about three blocks from our flat on Oxford Road.

 

Rabbi Shaked of this "Progressive Jewish Synagogue," who had attended the 30th Anniversary celebration of our Johannesburg LDS Temple  at the Area Presidency's residence last week, invited the senior missionaries to participate.

 

There were about 30 senior missionaries who attended, almost as many as there were Jews present, it seemed. And we were the only ones dressed up in suits and ties. Everyone else, including the rabbi were dressed very casually.

 

There were many faiths represented - a Catholic priest was there with a youth group, a Catholic nun was there, and there were Anglicans, Dutch Reformed and other Protestants, several Hare Krishna in their robes, Hindus, and even a small group of Muslims.

 

We were handed prayer books as we entered and the men were offered yarmulkas to cover the

crown of our heads. We followed along in the prayer book, which opened from right to left and

had prayers in both Hebrew, Hebrew in Arabic letters, and in English. Some of the prayers

seemed quite familiar, as the English translation of the Torah reads much like our Old

Testament. Others were unique. Some were read in Hebrew, others recited aloud together

in English, and others were sung by the small "choir."

 

We quite liked the prayer that they use for interfaith meetings, such as this one was:

 

 

The choir was made up of seven beautiful voices, five women and two men, accompanied by their director at the electronic keyboard. Many of the tunes seemed straight out of "Fiddler on the Roof," some were slow and beautiful and others were very up-tempo and celebratory, accompanied by

serious hand-clapping.

 

After the prayer meeting, we were invited outdoors where a temporary "impermanent" tabernacle

had been constructed between the synagogue and the auditorium (more like a cultural hall with a 

stage). The "tabernacle"  representing the tabernacles which the children of Israel built during their

  40-year sojourn under Moses in the wilderness. They blessed wine and bread, which we had thought was a very Christian thing, and we had a tiny cup of wine (they had grape juice for their Mormon guests) and a torn piece of salted bread. Then we moved into the hall for the buffet dinner, which, according to the rabbi's wife, had to be vegetarian, because they don't have the facilities in the kitchen to appropriately and properly prepare kosher meats.

 

We left the crowd in the hall and ate our vegetarian "feast" with Elder and Sister Davis outdoors

in the temporary "tabernacle." This whole experience was beautiful and quite enlightening. We

left feeling that differences in religious beliefs should not divide us, they should bring us closer

together as we respect each other and each other's beliefs and enjoy our cultural differences.

 

Celebrating National African Heritage Day in Protea Glen, Soweto

With the Protea Glen Branch President, Thato Rabaholo and his wife Thozama at the branch Heritage Day activity

Martha visits with sisters at the Protea Glen Branch Heritage Day celebration in colorful traditional African attire

Thursday was a South African national holiday, African Heritage Day, and celebrations were held throughout the country. We had the day off work, and the Protea Glen Branch had an all-day branch activity and asked everyone to come in clothing that is traditional to their tribe, clan or nationality.

Sister Mnguni made Martha a Sotho tribal "seshoeshoe" dress (sounds like "shwayshway") and Bob a Nelson Mandela ceremonial presidential shirt so we wouldn't feel out of place, and she delivered them to our flat the night before. Branch members were pleasantly surprised to see us show up dressed in African heritage costumes.

With Sister Mnguni who provided us with our beautiful African clothing for R600 (about $48) so we would fit in at the party



Sister Rabaholo, the branch president's wife, puts Martha's
 head cover on her. She said, "This is hard because your hair
 is so soft.Our hair works like Velcro to hold it in place."

Martha's head wrap completed




Almost all the sisters wore native attire - Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Ndebele, Sotho, Swazi, etc.- chatting like birds on a wire

 

 

Sister Mbobo says something to make the sisters laugh

A close up of some amazing Zulu beadwork (left) and a native Swazi outfit (right)

Six sisters with Zulu heritage pose for a photo in their traditional Zulu attire with its intricate beadwork.
To be entitled to wear the Zulu beaded hat or the sheer shawl you must first be married.

Sister Egan joins in with the other sisters in anticipation of the cultural demonstrations

This is our friend Mohau, a returned missionary, branch
clerk and branch photographer extraordinaire

Sister Egan takes her "Brownies for a Crowd"
from the kitchen to the cultural hall table

Proud of his heritage with one foot still in the present




Branch President Rabaholo consults with his counselor, Brother
Mbobo prior to starting the program in the cultural hall

This boy obviously didn't get the memo
and came in less-than-traditional attire

Sister Mbobo, branch activity chairman, conducted the program, where everyone stood up and
danced, performed, or otherwise showed off their outfits and told about their tribe or nation,
what they like to do and eat, etc. whether they descend from Zulus, Xhosa, Tswana, Sotho,
Swazi, Ndebele or whatever. What a fascinating experience! She is in her Zulu royalty attire.



Sister Mnguni showed up a bit late with her
five children, including her 8 week old baby

Martha enjoyed hugging two 2-month old babies
at the branch activity - It's been too long since she
has held one of her grandchildren!

This Xhosa descendant is greeted by Sister Mnguni after her presentation and dance in her bright orange and face paint

Sister Mbobo the Younger paints her
daughter's face in the Xhosa tradition.

The finished product



The children joined in on the traditional festivities with Xhosa face painting

The food for the activity was traditional African food, and it wasn't our favorite! They served chicken feet and chicken heads and necks (all boiled), goat hooves, tripe and sour porridge, some very hot curry, among other treats, although the person who was supposed to bring the deep-fried mopane worms was a no show. Clearly the most popular item on the table was the traditional American dessert, chocolate fudge brownies, that Martha brought.

 

 



 



 

Martha wasn't even tempted to try her chicken foot that she is holding up by a toenail. As you can see, we tore Styrofoam containers in half to use as plates. And the kids loved the chicken feet and necks, as you can see here with Naomi Mnguni sucking the meat off a chicken foot and her sister Rachel devouring the chicken neck.