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:
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