Picnic with the Pearls at the National Zoo and a Visit from an Apostle

We joined Bob's former AP Mark Pearl, his wife Genevere, son Daniel and daughter Juliette for a picnic in the
park Saturday at the South Africa National Zoo in Pretoria. Note Bob's "game day" Springbok rugby jersey. The
Boks lost "the rugby" to New Zealand 20-18 later that day in the Rugby World Cup semifinals from England.

Martha with Daniel as we wait for our rental golf cart. He told us he will be a lumber-
jack for Halloween and is so excited to "collect sweeties in a bahsket" (Trick or Treat),
which is something very new in South Africa and just starting to catch on here. We love
how he clearly enunciates every word in his cute South African accent. He loved us and
insisted on sitting with us on the back of the golf cart and holding onto our hands & arms

On Saturday morning early, we drove an hour's drive to Pretoria and met Bob's former Assistant mark Pearl and his family at the National Zoo, which was a wonderful break on a beautiful, sunny and summery day in a gorgeous setting. We got there early so we could rent a golf cart and finish seeing everything by lunch-time, before the sun was too hot and the kids too tired. Then we had a lovely picnic.

Mark grilled chicken and made fruit-ke-babs for the picnic without any assistance from Genevere

It was a beautiful morning in a beautiful setting at the National Zoo

Juliette was so comfortable on Martha's lap
that she fell sound asleep for about an hour

Sunday was the annual Primary program in the Protea Glen Branch, and it was also our day to host the two service missionaries who are working here at the Area Office doing Family History consulting and serving as ordinance workers in the temple. They live in temple patron housing and spend Sundays with a different senior couple each week. Elder Molema from Randberg, South Africa (just minutes away) has Aspergers Syndrome and ADHD and Elder Nyandoro from Zimbabwe has gone almost totally blind from an overuse of eye drops while a teenager. They are in their last week of their 3-month mini-mission.

The senior missionary couples hosted them for a "Farewell" Saturday afternoon braai (barbecue) in the Dukes Court courtyard, and we had the blessing of taking them to church with us Sunday morning and having them in our flat for dinner their last Sunday.

Elder Molema and Elder Nyandoro saying goodbye
to the senior couples in the Dukes Court courtyard

We have been to a lot of Primary programs over the years, with our children and grandchildren participating, but none were more memorable than this one was. All the children's voices seemed right on pitch on every song, and they all knew every word. Only one or two needed any assistance with their speaking parts, and every child closed their short part with "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen," or even "In the name of our loving Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ, Amen," etc.

36 children participated on the program and several of them had more than one speaking part, all memorized, and the boys all had on white shirts and black ties. 11-year old Thato Mnguni, one of Martha's piano students, announced all the speakers by name and each musical number, in groups of 4 or 5, after each song, and he was impressive. All the children were very much into the program and all the songs, and the chorister, a young single adult, didn't need any aids to help her.


Martha helps the primary prepare for the Sunday program

Our favorite numbers were the final song, "A Child's Prayer" with the boys singing the counter-melody to the girls' melody, in perfect harmony, and "Follow the Prophet," where each verse was sung as a duet by two children and they all joined in for the chorus, and they sang several verses we had never heard before. And they performed the songs beautifully without a piano, as there is no pianist in the ward.

36 Primary children participated in the program,
and all the boys had on white shirts and ties

Elder Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife are on a 10-day visit in Africa, along with Elder Hallstrom of the Presidency of Seventy and his wife, holding Area Reviews in both the Africa Southeast Area and the Africa West Area. They just got back from four days on the islands of Madagascar, La Reunion and Mauritius for a day and a half Area Review and a Devotional before leaving for West Africa for a Mission Presidents Seminar and Area Review in Ghana and a visit to Liberia.  It is their 5th visit to Africa in 10 years, and they purposely chose to visit places where they haven't been before and where the members haven't had an apostle visit for a long time.

On the stand at the devotional were the Bednars, David Frischknecht (Director of Temporal Affairs, who conducted). Elder and Sister Ellis  and Elder & Sister Hamilton of the Africa SE Area Presidency.

The devotional was held in a gigantic tent on the "White House" lawn for all Area missionary couples, all Area employees and spouses, while simultaneously Elder Hallstrom and his wife joined Elder and Sister Cook with all the temple missionaries and ordinance workers at the  "Gate House" for a devotional. The Devotional was an amazing spiritual experience for us. 

Elder Bednar's message was centered on being an agent who acts rather than an object to be acted upon and how moral agency is a great gift of God that distinguishes us from all God's other creations. Inspiration comes when we are acting, not waiting. We took lots of notes. He also opened it up for questions, and ended by talking about Africa and the beautiful simplicity of the gospel in the early pioneering (Nauvoo-like) days, and closed with an apostolic blessing.

We got there early and had front row seats, and Martha got to hold Malvern Chitiyo's baby girl again as we waited for the devotional to begin.

After the devotional, everyone got a chance to meet the Bednars and shake their hands.

Africa Standard Time and a Temple Reunion

With Cebo Tshetu at the Johannesburg Temple following his temple endowment

Elder Cebo Tshetu, son of our Cape Town Mission Home housekeeper Thirsly, who is at the Johannesburg
MTC learning Malagasy in preparation for a 2-year LDS mission in the Madagascar Antananarivo Mission

As we were returning home from dinner at Mike's Kitchen after our temple assignment on Friday night, we received a phone call from Sean Donnelly asking if we would be the speakers at a 5-stake Young Single Adult Fireside on Sunday (48 hours later) at the Centurion Stake Center. The speaker they had been advertising for several weeks (or months) was stuck in London, England and couldn't make it. Sean said we would be perfect for the assignment, and he knew from hearing us speak last month at the area devotional that we would have a message that could have a real impact on the lives of these young single adults. We told him we would do it. Then he said he expected 200 to 250 young single adults to attend.

We spent much of Saturday preparing, and showed up Sunday about 20 minutes early, because we had never been there before and didn't completely trust our GPS, and we went right to our seats on the stand. The fireside was to start at 5:00 and at 10 minutes to 5, there were 4 young people in the chapel. By 4:55 there were more than 10, and by 5:00 there were maybe 25 or 30 in attendance. After the opening hymn and prayer the chapel was half-full, and by the time we were introduced and Martha went to the podium there were 100 or more in the congregation. Then, by the time Bob got up to speak at about 5:35, there were well over 300 young single adults present! That's what we call AST (Africa Standard Time).

Martha spoke about listening to the promptings of the Spirit and centered her thoughts around her family's Hurricane Wilma experience in Cancun in 2005, and Bob spoke about the "Hot Hand" and D&C 90:24 on how to have all things work together for your good. It was a very satisfying experience to share our thoughts and feelings with those young people in a way that we felt they could identify with.

The following Tuesday we were able to attend a special 2:30 session at the Johannesburg Temple to accompany Elder Cebo Tshetu as he received his own endowment. Cebo is our Cape Town Mission Home housekeeper Thirsly's son, who is at the Johannesburg Misssionary Training Center learning Malagasy in preparation for a 2-year LDS mission in the Madagascar Antananarivo Mission. Bob met Cebo when he was 8 years old in 2005, and when Bob left South Africa in 2008, Cebo was 11 and preparing to receive the Priesthood.

The temple capacity is 24 patrons per session, but both the 2:30 and 3:00 sessions that day had 28 patrons (4 extra chairs brought in) and between the two sessions there were 30 new first-time endowments! More than half were missionaries, and all were black Africans. We were able to sit next to each other for the session, and Bob sat right next to Elder Tshetu and was able to help him as needed. We presented him with a missionary journal, and we took some photos out in front of the temple on a beautiful spring day, with the jacaranda trees in all their purple splendor.

What an amazing experience to be able to participate in. Cebo's mom was so grateful we could be there for him, and so were we!

Here are a few more photos of Johannesburg in the spring, with the jacarandas and bougainvilleas:

Johannesburg is truly a beautiful place, and we just love living here!!

Jacaranda Trees in Bloom and a Blooming Church in Africa!

There is nothing quite like springtime in Johannesburg and Pretoria, when the jacaranda trees begin to blossom in bright lavender. October (the April of the Southern Hemisphere) is when the magic begins to take place, and this past week was the very beginning. The purple leaves are starting to show up all over the city, and soon several streets in our neighborhood in Parktown and around the temple will be lined with jacaranda trees in full bloom. Here are some photos of the beginning of this spring transformation.

An interesting set of facts was presented by Elder Joseph Sitati of the First Quorum of Seventy from Kenya (Africa Southeast Area) to the "Black, White and Mormon" conference at the University of Utah recently. He said that since the revelation on Priesthood in 1978, which came on the heels of the end of colonialism in Africa, the Church in Africa has grown rapidly, almost exponentially, from 7,567 Mormons in Africa in 1978 to 448,887 by the end of last year, almost as many members as in all of Europe, with the highest new-member retention rate in the world. Another 45,000 African immigrants have joined the Church elsewhere, including more than 15,000 in the United States. In fact, over the past 5 years, more than 50 percent of the new Church members baptized in Europe are immigrants from Africa!

We spent most of our week this week working from home while waiting for the people from Vuma and Vox to install high-speed fibre Internet and services in the 14 flats at Dukes Court. But when we got out we really enjoyed the warm sunny weather and the beautiful jacaranda blossoms, like these at Rosebank Mall, just minutes north of our flat:

The following photos were taken on our commute to the office this morning on Oxford Rd.: 



More Piano Students, 3 New Apostles, Goodbye to Dear Friends and Hello to High-speed Fibre Optic Internet

Martha with three of her piano students after church on Sunday in Protea Glen, Soweto. Sipho Redebe is at the
keyboard and his buddy, Thato Mnguni, and his grandmother, Alicia Redebe, look on in awe.  Martha feels
like this entirely unexpected aspect of her mission may be the biggest lasting contribution she will make
toward building the Kingdom in Africa. Both boys in their second lesson are poised to pass right by
Sister Redebe, who has been taking lessons for six months now!

We thoroughly enjoyed watching Elder Scott's funeral and four sessions of a wonderful General Conference this past week from the comfort of our flat, including being able to sustain three new apostles of the Lord. Elder Dale G. Renlund, one of the new apostles, is the past Area President of the Africa Southeast Area here in Johannesburg, just 15 months ago, and everyone here knows him and loves him. We had dinner with him and his wife a year ago, in preparation for our mission here. We have BYU TV in our flat. So we watched the apostles' funerals live, and we watched both conference sessions live on Saturday and Sunday (at 6 pm and 10 pm). 

Our branch watches rebroadcasts of all the conferences sessions a week later, next weekend. They will rebroadcast the two Saturday sessions next Saturday at 9:00 and 11:30 am. Then next Sunday the men will watch the Priesthood rebroadcast at 9:00 am while the women watch the rebroadcast of the general women's meeting. The Sunday sessions will be rebroadcast next Sunday at 11:30 and 2:00.  So yesterday for us was our regular Fast Sunday, Bob taught the gospel doctrine class and Martha taught piano lessons after the block.

We joined 6 other couples for an early Thanksgiving turkey dinner with all the trimmings prior to the Saturday conference sessions. Martha baked the pies - a derby pie (pecan chocolate chip) and a Dutch Apple pie that proved very delicious, as did the entire American-style meal. 

 

Our closest friends here, Dr. Bruce and Sister Connie Barton (Area Medical Advisors), still in their fifties, had to go home from their mission a month early because of his health. He has a nodule on his lung that needs to be surgically removed and, if it proves malignant, he may lose the lower right lobe of his lung. Our prayers are with the Bartons.




Bruce & Connie Barton say their goodbyes to the senior
missionary couples the night before leaving for home

 

Here is a photo of one of Bob's Cape Town missionaries, Sfiso Maramela

who stopped by with his son Njubulo to thank Bob for a Priesthood blessing

he was given the week before. Quite a father to son resemblance!

Martha flanked by co-workers Jesse (right) and Cecil (left)-

Jesse Arumugam is the manager of physical facilities for all the area offices (3 locations) and missionary housing (delegated to Martha) and is Martha's contact and supervisor in her landlady duties. Cecil Wood is the full-time handyman who Jesse and Martha use to maintain the flats and everything in them. An interesting note: At home in the U.S., both these brethren would be considered "black" (African American), but here in Africa neither is considered black. Cecil is coloured (mixed race), a separate ethnic group here, and Jesse is considered Asian (Indian), also a separate ethnic group here. 

 

Much of this week, including all-day Thursday and Friday was spent at Dukes Court because of the installation of high-speed fibre optic Internet service into all our senior missionary flats. Only 9 of the 17 were installed on schedule, as the work was more complex and took longer than planned. And the signal has still not been received yet by those flats that are installed, so that work will continue, and we have to be available to let the installers into the flats. Once up and running, the 20 mbps service with a 300 GB data rate promises to be at least 5 times faster than our current service with 6 times the data rate for 20% less cost!

And, in the world of sports, the South African national rugby team, the Springboks, have rebounded from suffering "the biggest upset in Rugby history," a 34-32 loss to Japan in the opening game, to two straight blowout victories, and the only obstacle to making the quarterfinals of the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England is a win over the winless USA ruggers this Wednesday. Who do we cheer for?