Spring Day Tea and Soweto Stake Conference

Spring Day Tea, 1 September 2015, hosted by the travel department - Nomthi, Sister Turnbow and Liz Burger

September 1st in South Africa is Spring Day, the traditional first day of Spring. They don't bother with the equinox dates like Americans do. For them, spring is September, October and November; summer is December, January and February; fall is March, April and May ; and winter is June, July and August. The area travel office, under the direction of Liz Burger, hosted a Spring Tea with lots of homemade goodies, savory and sweet, and the area employees and senior missionaries paraded in their most colorful spring attire through the area property and temple grounds at lunch time.

The next day, September 2nd, marked our 7-month mark as full-time missionaries, 11 more to go!

Saturday and Sunday was the Soweto Stake Conference, which was fantastic! All meetings were well attended and provided great spiritual uplift. Saturday's adult meeting was centered on the Sabbath day and how to use ward councils to improve Sabbath day observance. After the meeting, we met another of our SACTM RMs, Tshepo Maruping and his family for a delicious meal at Mike's Kitchen in Parktown. I work closely with his wife, Fezi, but we hadn't seen him or the kids until Saturday. What an incredible young family there are. So faithful and strong in the gospel!

We caught up with another of our SACTM missionaries, Tshepo Maruping, with his wife Fezi,
who works in the Area travel office, his 6-year old son Phoku and his 4-year old daughter Botle
at Mike's Kitchen, near the temple in Parktown, Johannesburg

 

We arrived at the Pimville building for the general stake confrerence session an hour early Sunday morning to get front row seats and were treated to an hour choir rehearsal by the wonderful Soweto Stake Choir. The sisters were dressed in traditional African dresses and head covers with beads and even face paint. We had to get some photos and some video... 

 

The colorful Soweto Stake Choir - Saturday evening they sang the closing
number "God Be With You Til We Meet Again" in Xhosa (with all the clicks)
and Sunday they sang "Onward Christian Soldiers" in Zulu and concluded
the meeting by singing "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" to the tune of
"A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief"

These three young sisters sat by us for stake conference

One little girl couldn't sit still

 

 

 

We were so impressed and felt so inspired by the music and the speakers at the conference, and the building was packed, including three overflow rooms with closed circuit TV. Sunday's theme was "Strengthening Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." Four newly called missionaries bore excellent testimonies, three elders and Sister Busisi Ngcobo from our branch, and our branch president was one of the main speakers.

After the conference, we visited with another of our SACTM RMs, Casey Baba and his wife Yonelani and little 11-month old boy, Sethu. Casey is the 42nd of our South Africa Cape Town missionaries we have been able to catch up with in our seven months here, and we have aggressive plans to get with another 25 before we return home.

With Casey Baba and his wife Yonelani and son Sethu after stake conference

A small subset of he crowd exiting the Pimville chapel following Soweto Stake Conference on Sunday