Ali Takes World's Highest Bungee Jump and We All Zip Through the Tsitsikamma Forest on the Garden Route

Lunch at Tsala above the Tsitsikamma Forest with Jon & Roz Mason

On Sunday the 24th, we drove the beautiful Garden Route through Mossel Bay, George, Wilderness and Knysna along the Indian Ocean coast to Plettenberg Bay where we spent two nights with Rosalind and John Mason, Bob's former counselor in the mission presidency. We enjoyed the Knysna Waterfront and Monkeyland and met the Masons for lunch at Tsala, a unique restaurant where we ate outdoors in the top of the Tsitsikamma Forest canopy.

  

Black & White Lemurs at Monkeyland



Ringtailed lemur at Monkeyland

Ali harnessed up and ready to face her fears on the
world's highest bungee jump pff the Bloukrans Bridge

On Tuesday we had breakfast with the Masons outdoors at the incredible Earth Café and embarked from there on a couple of very daring adventures on our way to Port Elizabeth - First, we stopped and watched bungee jumpers jump off the Bloukrans Bridge, the highest bungee jump in the world, and Ali said, "I have to do that!" and she did! The jump is over 200 meters, close to 680 feet straight down! She has a video DVD to show that she did it.

Then all three of us harnessed up at Stormsriver and took a Treetop Tour that consisted of ten different ziplines across the tops of 700-1000 year old trees throughout the Tsitsikamma Forest. We spent the night at the Courtyard Port Elizabeth, right on the Indian Ocean, after eating dinner at Old Austria.

Ready to embark upon the first of ten zip lines through the Tsitsikamma Forest

Then Wednesday was safari day, and we started in the morning with a 2-hour drive to a guided 4-hour safari at Pumba Game Reserve near Grahmstown, just the three of us and our ranger/guide Quinton in an open Range Rover safari vehicle. We saw several elephants, two white rhinos, a family of giraffes, herds of Nyala, kudu, red heartebeests and other antelope, zebras, wildebeests, warthogs, ostriches, and other fascinating animals and birds. The weather was perfect and the animals were out and active, making it a perfect safari. We had a very nice lunch at the lodge near the end of the safari, where we looked out upon zebras and warthogs at a waterhole below us.

Our safari vehicle at Pumba Private Game Reserve on the Eastern Cape

Our guide Quinton tells us about a warthog skull found near the road

Unfortunately, our time was quite limited at the Addo Elephant National Park in the afternoon because our brand new BMW rental car had a flat tire and didn't come with a spare! By the time Hertz was able to bring us a new wheel to swap out, all the way from Port Elizabeth, we had lost a couple of valuable hours of daylight, and the sun goes down at 5:30 here in late May. But we saw a herd of cape buffalo, one of the "Big 5" and several kudu at Addo and enjoyed a very beautiful sunset there.  We ended the day at the Port Elizabeth Boardwalk and one last night at the Courtyard Hotel. On Thursday we flew back to Johannesburg.

Protea Glem Ward Split



The Protea Glen Ward Choir gathers for a photo after their first and final
performance together as a ward choir at the sacrament meeting where the
ward was split. Sister Redebe is sitting on the front row, far left seat.

Today was an historic day in the Protea Glen area of Soweto and a very spiritual experience for us. The entire stake presidency visited our Protea Glen Ward today and split the ward basically in half. When we arrived at about 8:50 for the 9:00 sacrament meeting, after having missed just one week while we were traveling with Ali, we were pleasantly surprised, almost shocked, to see the choir seats completely full with our ward choir, with about 20 sisters all in red tops and black skirts and about 10 brethren all wearing red ties with their white shirts. They sang two hymns and performed them marvelously. It brought tears to our eyes, especially Martha’s.

It was barely three months ago that we met with the bishopric and the bishop said, “I want a choir.” He told us that Sister Redebe had been called as choir director, but she didn’t know how to lead music, couldn’t read music and never had a calling like this before. He asked Martha if she could teach Sister Redebe piano lessons and how to conduct music, and they had their first lesson that next Sunday.  We attended the ward’s first choir practice on Sunday, April 26^th, just over a month ago, and it was obvious there was a lot of work to be done. The choir has practiced Saturdays and Sundays for the past month, and what we witnessed today was truly amazing. Sister Redebe was in charge and the choir followed her. Her direction was beautiful and bordered on perfection. Very impressive, and very rewarding for Martha, needless to say. She felt as if her baby daughter had just taken her first step.

The stake president, President Thabo Lebethowa (Leh-BET-oh-wah) announced the ward boundary as Lenasia Road, which is the main thoroughfare running north and south down the middle of the ward, and he said everyone west of Lenasia would be in the new Glen Ridge Ward and everyone west of Lenasia would be in the new Protea Glen Branch. Bishop Qinisela would remain bishop, but of the new ward, and his first counselor, Thato Rabaholo would become the branch president of the new branch. The current second counselor would become first counselor to Bp. Qinisela and the ward clerk is the new first counselor in the branch presidency. No second counselors or clerks were sustained, nor were any other officers sustained in either unit. The new meeting schedule begins next Sunday with the Protea Glen Branch meeting at 9:00 and the Glen Ridge Ward at 11:00. We will be attending the Protea Glen Branch, along with Sister Redebe, the Buthelezis and others we have become close to, while the Nzimandes and others we love will be in the new ward.

President Lebethowa explained that the reason one unit is a branch and not a ward has nothing to do with size (both units have close to 500 members) but everything to do with the fact that there are not enough full-tithe paying Melchizedek Priesthood brethren in the branch. He said rather than waiting until there were, the presidency felt strongly that this division would provide impetus and motivation to the Priesthood bearers to commit to become fully active and worthy, and with half as many members to look after, the branch presidency could put twice the focus on each individual. He anticipates that the Protea Glen Branch could be a ward by the end of this year.

He said there are 21 major leadership positions in a ward, so now there will be twice as many, 42 leadership positions between the two units, positions that require a commitment to tithing worthiness.

He quickly reviewed how the Soweto stake has grown from one small Soweto Branch 15 years ago to a stake with eight units as of today, and he said more ward splits are forthcoming. He said there are nearly 1,000 members in Protea Glen, enough for four wards if everyone were active, and prophesied that there would be a Protea Glen Stake within 3 to 5 years, and said he fully expects 4 to 6 stakes in Soweto in the next 10 years! He then said, "As you can see, they already have the stake choir!" His focus was on the need for all members of both units to go out and find and gather in the lost sheep, “You know who they are! You know where they live!” They need to understand how needed they are and what great friends they have in the Church.

President Lebothowa and his two new counselors were very impressive in their remarks and testimonies, and the bishop and new branch president and his wife bore humble testimonies as well. During the third hour, President Lebethowa laid out the details of the transition, that many new callings will be made this week and next, that everyone should maintain their callings until told otherwise, and he answered any questions. He also laid out the Stake Plan for 2015, emphasizing tithing and fast offerings, and family history and temple work.

Bob was called upon to give the benediction, then the president had us all gather in the back of the cultural hall for a group photo. There must have been 300 or more members present. And Sister Redebe took advantage of the moment and had the choir pose for photos as well.

All in all, it was a spiritual, historic and fun experience to be a part of, and we look forward to assisting President Rabaholo in whatever he needs us to do in support of the new Protea Glen Branch. When we were in the Johannesburg Temple for an endowment session Friday with Ali, the Rabaholos were patrons and served as the witness couple in our session, and we felt a special spirit from them. Now we know why they felt a need to be in the temple.

With Ali on Top of the Bottom of the World – Table Mountain and the Cape Peninsula

 

Ali and Martha on top of Table Mountain overlooking Cape Town and Table Bay

It was such a beautiful day in Cape Town when we flew in on Wednesday, 20 May, that as soon as we had checked in at the Peninsula Hotel, we went out and hopped on the red double decker hop-on hop-off city bus tour and took it first to the V&A Waterfront, where we found South African pizza for lunch, and then to the Cable Car ride to the top of Table Mountain, where we enjoyed the aerial view of Cape Town, the Cape peninsula, and the Atlantic Ocean and its beautiful bays, until sunset.

On Thursday, we continued our Cape Town city tour by hopping off at the Greenmarket Square African flea market for souvenir shopping and through the wine country to the World of Birds at Hout Bay where we spent an hour seeing the African birds of all kinds and sizes, including a talking crow, and spent almost two hours in the Monkey Jungle with dozens of friendly squirrel monkeys and two squirrels. The monkeys crawled all over us, especially Martha, whom they seemed to have a special affinity for. We ended our day at the largest and most elegant shopping mall in the southern hemisphere, Canal Walk at Century City, and had dinner at the Cattle Baron and enjoyed the flambéed chateaubriand steaks which by our taste are the best anywhere, followed by some Italian gelato.

Martha and Monkeys in the Monkey Jungle

 

Friday was our Cape Point tour through Muizenberg, Kalk Bay and Fish Hoek to Simonstown, where a colony of 2000 African penguins entertained us for a long time in their natural habitat, Boulders Beach on the Atlantic Ocean. There were mother penguins nesting on their eggs while their mates brought them more and more sticks for the nests and other mothers with furry, gray chicks recently born, who were still finding their way around the colony. From Simonstown, we made the drive out to Cape Point, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans come together, and we had our photo taken at the Cape of Good Hope and took the funicular and hike to the lighthouse at the point. As we drove, we saw a lone baboon at the side of the road having a snack. Bob said, “Where there is one baboon, there has to be a whole troop.” Just a short way up the road on the opposite side, we saw the rest of the troop – three more large adult baboons and seven very small monkey-size offspring who were running, jumping, wrestling and playing leapfrog right at the roadside as we parked and watched. We had a beautiful drive above Noordhook Beach, where we saw a couple galloping on horseback along the beautiful beach, and around the scenic road near the top of Chapman’s Peak, arriving at the lookout points over Hout Bay just about at sunset and returning home on Victoria Road around Camp’s Bay. Another perfect day, and we ended it back at the V&A Waterfront for an outdoor steak dinner at Balthazar’s and a ride on the gigantic Cape Wheel ferris wheel.

Ali and Martha with the penguins at Boulders Beach



Martha and blooming aloe plants at Cape Point lighthouse

Bob, Martha and Ali at the Cape of Good Hope, southwestern-most point of the African continent

We got up Saturday morning and drove two hours over the mountains via Sir Lowry’s Pass to the quaint whale-watching sea town of Hermanus, where we enjoyed the breathtaking views of the ocean from the rocky cliffs and met former Cape Town stake president Geoff Spires and his wife Angela for dinner overlooking the sea from the Lemon Butta restaurant and enjoyed baby kingklip, a delicacy from the local waters. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit with the Spires, who now reside in Hermanus in the same home with their two sons and six grandchildren. Our B&B Hotel, Misty Waves, was extremely elegant and gorgeous and very inexpensive. It was so nice, we had a very hard time getting Ali to leave her room to go to dinner. It was a real princess room, as shown in the photos, and the sea views were amazing.

Ali overlooking Hermanus Bay

At Hermanus Branch for church on Sunday with Angie and Geoff Spires, former Cape Town Stake President 9 years ago

Ali's room at Misty Waves B&B

Ali's cupcake under glass in her room at Misty Waves

We enjoyed Church at the Hermanus Branch on Sunday, meeting up with a lot of locals who Bob got to know when attending here 7-10 years ago as mission president. In those days, there were 10-20 attendees. These days they average close to 50 when everyone is in town and the McKinnons have all their grandchildren visiting. Winston McKinnon, who was the branch president in Hermanus for 7 years, is now the stake patriarch and his wife is the branch organist, taking over from his mother-in-law who just turned 100 years old and was there on the front row. President Spires took over as branch president when he moved back from England a few years ago. His son Adam is ward mission leader, his son Mark is Elders quorum president, and their wives, each with a baby and two older children, are involved with the auxiliaries. The meetings were excellent. Ali went into the Primary and loved working with the kids the last two hours. We took a photo in front of the “chapel” (actually a warehouse in the industrial part of town), then we were off on the Garden Route around the Cape.

 

Ali Joins Us for a Tour of Soweto and an Adventure with Elephants

  

We have just completed a remarkable two-week South Africa tour with our daughter Ali and have over 1,300 photos to prove how amazing the experience was, but we will only share a few here on the blog. Bob and Martha both had to continue working in their assignments, as missionaries don’t get vacations, and Bob, especially, had to put in lots of late evening hours in hotel lobbies addressing missionary issues with mission presidents, doctors, psychologists and general authorities, frustrated somewhat by shaky Internet service. But all in all, it was a pretty incredible couple of weeks. Here's a summary of the first few days in Johannesburg...

We moved into our new flat at Dukes Court, #410 on Thursday and Friday, 14-15 May, our first two days back from the states for Martha’s dad’s funeral, and Ali arrived the following day, Saturday, 16 May. Elder (Dr.) Barton and his wife were on the same flight, coming home from his dad’s funeral in Idaho, which was the same day as Martha’s dad’s. We took Ali directly to the Spur at Rosebank Mall for dinner and got her home to our new apartment to go to bed. She was exhausted. The day before, we had carried a mattress and bedding from one of the twin beds in the second bedroom of our former apartment on a trolley (shopping cart) and had it all set up for her on the floor in the lounge of our new flat. She slept very well through the night. Martha and I were finally feeling over our jetlag by then.

The next day was Sunday, and after breakfast Ali rode with us out to our Protea Glen Ward in Soweto and enjoyed meeting our friends there and all the Young Single Adults we meet with for Sunday School. She even brought a little doll for the Nzimande’s little toddler who we had noticed previously rocking and cuddling a bottle of lotion as her baby. The meetings were great, and it was a beautiful day. Then we went to the weekly African flea market, which is held every Sunday afternoon (only) at the Rosebank Mall, and Ali got a huge dose of Africana, welcoming her to the continent.


Ali presented a black baby doll to the Nzimande baby

 

Ali & Martha with Elder Khumbulani Mdletshe at Soweto Chapel

Monday morning, we took Ali with us to our weekly devotional and introduced her around, then we drove out to the Johannesburg MTC, where we met Elder Khumbalani Mdletshe of the Seventy, who gave us a 30-minute history lesson about South Africa, then he drove us on our personal guided tour of Soweto for about four hours, including lunch at a township restaurant on the street where Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu (Nobel prize winners) had lived during apartheid. Elder Mdletshe grew up in Soweto and was the first branch president of the Soweto Branch and the first bishop of the Soweto Ward (which is now a stake). It was fascinating and colorful and included stops at a Catholic cathedral where a gun battle ensued during apartheid and a museum commemorating one of the saddest events of apartheid, the massacre of young students who gathered for a peaceful demonstration protesting Afrikaans as the language they were forced to be educated in from elementary school through high school, and we visited a cemetery and some impoverished informal settlements as well as some surprisingly nice neighborhoods. We took Ali to dinner at one of our favorite spots, the eclectic Moyo Restaurant at the Zoo Lake, where our meals were fabulous.



At Moyo Restaurant at Zoo Lake with waitress who is Church member

Tuesday was our Adventure with Elephants, an amazing up close and personal introduction to five rescued elephants who demonstrated their incredible memory and skills, sprayed Martha and Ali with water and let us touch, feel and feed them. Then we went on an elephant-back safari through the game reserve. Martha and I were with Duncan on one bull elephant and Ali rode with Sugar on a female elephant. We saw warthogs, antelope, buffalo and other game as we rode through the bush. Bob’s inside thighs got very sore from stretching across the back of that big bull elephant, and walked bull-legged and sore for a few hours, but Martha and Ali did fine. Afterward, Martha and Ali had fun playing with a pet meerkat named Trouble who loved having his belly scratched. It was truly an amazing day, about a 2-hour drive each way from our flat. Martha and Bob had a Dukes Court board meeting Tuesday night and left Ali at home resting in total darkness, as we experienced another load-shedding power outage for a few hours. Then, on Wednesday, we were off to Cape Town.

Ali and Sugar on the elephant-back safari



Martha petting a meerkat named Trouble



Martha gets squirted by elephant

 

 



Martha, Bob and Ali up close and personal with an elephant

 

Missionary Reunion, Mission Presidents Seminar in Cape Town and Another Trip to Utah




Egan SACTM Reunion in Johannesburg, 2 May 2015
Pictured, left to right - Back row: Emily & Jaxon Martin, Cieron Fearch, Liezel Schwulst, the Egans, Sandile Mdanda, Marvin Mahlangu and Justin Greyling, Middle row: Donovan Schultz, Robert Nel, Mark Pearl and his daughter Juliet (son Daniel is around somewhere), Xolani Mthabela, Khanya Ngqisha, Monde Skosana, Thulani Nyoka, Thulani Buthelezi, Musa Nzimande, Siphiwe Dinana, and Werner Heydenrych. Front row: Wives Kelly Schultz, Andrea Nel, Genevere Pearl, Nokulunga Nyoka, Lebo Skosana, Sister Mahlangu, Goganomang Buthelezi, Reneilwe Nzimande and Yanga Dinana.

 Sorry we are slow in posting. We were hoping to have more photos, we've been on the road a lot and we've been extremely busy when we've been home, as you'll see below. Here's a quick summary of the past three weeks:

Sunday, 3 May 2015 - What a week this has been! The week started with a national holiday on Monday, Freedom Day, and ended with another national holiday in South Africa on Friday – Worker’s Day (Labor Day), so the area offices were only open three days this week.  On Friday, May 1^st, we had awakened for the day but, because of the holiday, we were still lounging in bed, when Martha got a call from her sister Liz soon after 7:00 saying that their father had just passed away (11 pm April 30^th in St. George, Utah). The next day was our big missionary reunion and we were set to leave early Monday morning for a week in Cape Town and the Mission Presidents’ Seminar for the Africa Southeast Area prior to moving out of our apartment, which was sold by the owner the Church has been renting from, and to move into another apartment upon our return. Then our daughter Ali comes to visit the next weekend. All of this suddenly made life feel overwhelming for us over the weekend, especially for Martha! Unexpectedly, in our busiest month ever, we are flying home again so soon for another sad occasion so Martha can be with her family and speak at the funeral.

But when we paused and thought about it, the timing turns out to be absolutely perfect, right between two trips to Cape Town that we really would have found very difficult, if not impossible, to miss or reschedule. And Martha was able to Facetime with her dad several times in the past 3 weeks including the very day he passed away. But, needless to say, it has been a very sad week for her, and our minds have been in several places at once with so much to plan for.

It’s mindboggling to realize that, although we have just been on our mission here three months as of yesterday, we have already been to Ethiopia, Namibia and Ghana and are planning our third trip to Cape Town and our second trip home to the USA and are getting ready to move into our third apartment! In a few short weeks, we’ve lost a grandson and now Martha’s dad!

The South Africa Cape Town Mission reunion in Johannesburg was a complete success, attended by 42 people – 21 returned missionaries; from as far away as Durban, East London and Port Elizabeth; 13 spouses, 6 children and 2 guests (the Sixishe sisters, originally from Queenstown and attended Rhodes University in Grahamstown, both in our mission). Bob hadn’t seen any of these former missionaries of his for 7 to 10 years, and they were so excited to see him, to meet Martha and to be with each other. They all came dressed like missionaries, in suits, white shirts and ties, and looked so good! More photos will be posted later.

We began the reunion with a temple endowment session that eight of our missionaries were able to attend, and Martha and Bob were the (only) two session officiators. There were 14 patrons in all. It was Martha’s first experience as a session follower (or as an ordinance worker, for that matter) and she did great! It was Bob's third time officiating an endowment session in the Johannesburg Temple.

Everyone gathered for mingling and refreshments at 3:00, and we had a formal meeting at 4:00, where we started with “Call to Serve,” and ended with the Cape Town Mission Song. In between, we recited D&C 4 in unison, just as the missionaries used to do at all zone conferences, Bob introduced Martha and she spoke, and we had about a dozen one-minute updates and testimonies before Bob concluded at 5:00. Then we took a group photo of those who were still there, and we continued mingling and visiting and taking photos until about 8:00. It was really a fun and glorious occasion for everyone who was there. We had several who had RSVP’ed that couldn’t make it at the last minute because of illness, transportation issues or other changes in plans, but we were totally surprised by others who didn’t RSVP and just showed up. It was a long and eventful and fun day and kind of took our minds off the sadness at home. Today was a great day at church and a day of relaxing, planning and packing, and a lot of communication with Martha’s family at home.

Sunday, 10 May 2015 – The Cape Town Mission Presidents’ Seminar was a wonderful experience and also allowed us to have plenty to focus on to distract us from the sadness at home in Utah. Our ride to the airport Monday was at 5:00 am and we had three busy days in Cape Town. For Bob, it was like old times mingling with the Area Presidency and mission presidents in the very same room where they had the Mission Presidents' Seminar in Cape Town in 2008. We stayed at the V&A Waterfront Hotel and had beautiful weather and inspiring meetings.

 

Martha and her mom at her dad's grave dedication, flanked by her four sisters

We made the long flight home to Utah overnight on Thursday and enjoyed a very comforting viewing and funeral service for Martha’s dad Friday and Saturday. A family lunch was held at Martha’s sister Brenda’s Saturday afternoon, and it was a great opportunity to reunite with lifelong family friends and relatives. We hosted a Mother’s Day family dinner for about 35 family members at our home in Sandy today. It’s a bit surreal to be home and in non-missionary mode, and we even feel a bit out of place here, but we are so very glad we came and were able to spend four wonderful days with family. The jet lag hit us hard after the funeral and family time on Saturday. Martha was running on adrenaline, after going about 48 hours without any sleep. We got home about 5:00 on Saturday evening and decided we both really needed a nap… we woke up at 7:00 Sunday morning! We’re both in a bit of a daze today but doing much better. We fly home Tuesday morning and will be back in Johannesburg late Wednesday night so we can make our apartment move on Thursday.

Sunday, 17 May 2015 - We're back "home" in Johannesburg, still horribly jetlagged, and Ali arrived last night, also horribly jetlagged. The move to our new apartment went well, taking the better part of two days, but we love it and are very happy! We ate at the Spur Restaurant on our way home from the airport last night, and Ali went to Church with us in Soweto today and loved it! We spent the afternoon at the African Flea Market, which is a Sunday only thing at Rosebank Mall that provided a real "Welcome to Africa!" experience for Ali. More photos and details of Ali's trip to follow.

 

 

Going, Going, Ghana!

 


A very familiar sight in Accra, Ghana: Street hawkers
bearing their wares on their heads...hundreds of them!

Street booths are everywhere amidst colorful buildings and colorful taxis

 

As Bob's calling includes all of Africa, we were invited to the Mission Presidents' Seminar for the Africa West Area in Accra, Ghana this past week, where we were able to meet face-to-face the Area Presidency (Elders Curtis, Vinson and Dube of the Seventy) and their wives and the 13 mission presidents and their wives.

We participated in the mission president training by the Area Presidency and the discussions and sharing of best practices and also were able to spend a full-day sightseeing in and around Accra, tour the MTC with two of our former Cape Town missionaries from Ghana and participate in an endowment session in the Ghana Temple. 

Although we applied for our Ghana visas nearly two months ago, we almost didn't get them in time. On Monday, our departure day, we expected the visas any minute all day long, and the longer we waited the more tense we both got.  We were still awaiting a call about the visas at 2:00 pm. We were supposed to be picked up for the airport at 1:50 for our 4:55 flight. Finally, at 2:05, Bob had the Area travel supervisor make one last desperate call to the visa agent. At 2:06, we were told the visas were approved and the visas and passports could be picked up. The driver who was supposed to provide our ride to the airport instead left immediately to pick up our passports and visas, and we hurriedly drove ourselves to the airport, parked and met him there by about 3:30 for our 4:55 international flight. 

 

We went to South African Airways to check in for our flight and the agent told us the system denied our passports!  The agent said it had never happened before, and she didn't know what to do. She said she was sure we were okay, but she couldn't print boarding passes without passport approval on the system.  She asked the agents on either side of her, and they both said they had just experienced the same exact thing. After a phone call to their supervisor, it was clear that their computer connection to the passport system had quit working. So we waited and waited, along with the passengers on either side of us, until finally the agents just approved us and prepared handwritten boarding passes. 

Then, of course, the security guy asks, "What is this? These aren't real boarding passes!" When he realized there were several of us with handwritten boarding passes, he found his supervisor and got approval to let us through. Once we were finally on the plane, we were able to relax a bit after a very tense day and enjoy 6 1/2 hours of peace, quiet and rest. We even both slept for about half the flight. Then there was more waiting at the airport at the other end for our transportation to the hotel. We landed at close to 9:00 pm and got to the Fiesta Royale Hotel after 10:00 (midnight our time) in stifling heat and humidity, even at that hour.

Accra, Ghana, being near the equator, is much hotter and far more humid than we expected. Temperatures are in the 90's and humidity in the 90's all year round. It was also much more lush and green than we anticipated, but we really didn't see anything the first night and were in meetings all day the next two days.

When Bob went to his first Mission Presidents Seminar 10 years ago, there were 9 mission presidents there, all white Americans. The Area Presidency taught how the day had to come, sooner rather than later, when the majority of mission presidents in Africa would be native Africans. At this conference, 10 years later, 8 of the 13 mission presidents at the seminar in Ghana were black African natives!



Area Presidency and 13 mission presidents pose for a group
photo with their wives at the Mission Presidents' Seminar

Elder LeGrande Curtis, Jr., the Africa West Area President and his counselors (from Australia and Zimbabwe) were wonderful to include us and make a big deal out of the value Bob provides to the Area. He gave us time to introduce ourselves on the first day, gave us 45 minutes on the agenda the second day, and had us bear our testimonies at the end of the seminar. We loved the training and learned so much. And we became quite familiar with all of the couples, over two days of meetings and meals.

Elder Curtis talked about the incredible growth the Area is experiencing. There are 7 stakes in greater Accra plus a temple and an MTC, and 50 stakes now in the West Area, plus another 7 projected for this year and 14 new chapels under construction. At 12 converts per missionary per year, they had nearly 25,000 new converts in 2014 and are on target to exceed that this year, making West Africa the fastest growing Area in the Church, and Africa the fastest growing continent, exceeding the growth rates in Mexico and South America. The mission presidents and wives in West Africa were completely overwhelmed by the General Conference announcement by President Monson of a third temple in West Africa, in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire (the Ivory Coast).

With an additional 14 stakes being projected for the Africa Southeast Area this year, that's a total of 21 new stakes projected in Africa in one year! That's 21 new stake presidents and presidencies, 250 high councilors and more than 150 new bishops, just in the new stakes, and there will also be new districts and branches in almost every one of the 27 missions. This growth will be sustained with local leaders in charge, and less dependence on American missionaries, which is more evident in West Africa, but also emerging across the rest of the continent..



A typical LDS meetinghouse in Ghana

The Accra Ghana Temple is beautiful, and we were able to join the Area Presidency, all the mission presidents and their wives in an endowment session Wednesday evening. Unlike the Johannesburg Temple, the Ghana Temple is staffed entirely by black, native ordinance workers (we saw no white American temple missionaries) and, much larger than the Johannesburg Temple, we had all 50 of us in one session.

At the Ghana Temple at dusk, where we enjoyed an endowment session

We had a free day Thursday to be tourists and see the country. President and Sister Heid of the Ghana Accra Mission showed us around from 7:00 am to 3:30 pm and took us to the most scenic places in the country, along the Volta River and Volta Lake, north of Accra, near the Benin (eastern) border. David Heid is the son of Elmer and Bonnie Heid, dear friends of ours (and of Ray and Kathy Egan) when we lived in Kirkland, Washington, and David and Delynn are neighbors and dear friends of Terry and Susan Gylling (my mission trainer in Denmark and his wife) in Fallbrook, California. So we had a lot to catch up on as we saw the sights and fought the incredible traffic while within the city of Accra.



Scenes in Accra, Ghana

 

 

A beautiful tree and a sample of the lush
greenery north of Accra along the Volta.

A Muslim mosque, taken from the car, in downtown Accra

 

In the shade along the Volta River in Ghana with President David and Sister Delynn Heid at the Senchi Resort

The Heids dropped us off at the MTC, where we were greeted by Bob's only two returned Cape Town missionaries from Ghana, Elder Pappoe and Elder Adonteng, who were so thrilled and excited to see Bob and to meet Martha. We spent a couple of hours with them and invited them to a guided tour of the Ghana MTC with us, from the president. Then President and Sister Robison of the MTC had us for dinner and had their driver, Patrick, drive us through the Accra traffic to the airport and our flight home.



With Chris Pappoe (left) and Alex Adonteng (right), former
Cape Town missionaries at the Missionary Training Center
in Accra, Ghana

We thoroughly enjoyed our three days in Ghana and found it well worth the nearly 13 hours in the air, so very grateful that our visas came through last minute, as an answer to many sincere and almost desperate prayers. We are loving every adventuresome day we spend in Africa!

Xenophobia, Ebola and Malaria

Okay, we know some of you are concerned and are wondering  if and how the things you hear on the news and in the media are effecting us here in South Africa.

We know many of you are hearing various reports on CNN, Fox News and other media about the current civil unrest in isolated places in South Africa, referred to in traditional and social media channels as "xenophobia," or fear of foreigners. If these reports have concerned you for our safety and welfare, please rest assured that we are safe, we are well aware of the heightened political tensions and we are taking all reasonable precautions, but please know that this "xenophobia"story has been greatly overblown by the media, and the threat to our safety and security remains minimal. We stay well away from where any protests take place and have witnessed no violence whatsoever.

Just so you can understand the situation here, the violence against immigrants is mostly black-on-black, directed at Africans from neighboring countries who have come to South Africa for economic opportunities. Owing to their desperation, many of these immigrants work very hard and are very successful—much to the chagrin of their impoverished South African neighbors, who scrape to get by in a country with a 40% unemployment rate. White missionaries, though foreign, are not considered a threat, as we are not taking any South African jobs.

The actual violence began two weeks ago in Durban, against businesses owned by foreign nationals, and has since spread to isolated pockets in and around Johannesburg's central business district (closed to all missionaries) and surrounding low-income townships. Because of a politically motivated shooting in the township of Alexandra Wednesday, South African army troops were deployed in Alexandra to support the local police. Though dramatic, the move was mostly seen as a show of force to further discourage some of the random and opportunistic crime (looting, burglary) which has been associated with the civil unrest. To be clear, the violence has been shocking with many people injured and seven people killed in the last two weeks, but it's very isolated and not near where we serve.

From the outset, the Church's Area Security Team has been on top of this, monitoring hot spots and sharing that information with the Area Presidency and missionaries. At this point, they have not requested any restrictions on any missionaries' proselyting activities anywhere. In addition to our professional security, local members—who are always concerned about our missionaries—are monitoring neighborhood situations and warning our missionaries of any potential dangers long before they erupt.

On a practical level, we want you to know that life in Johannesburg feels very normal to us. Shops are open, people are on the street, and the work of the Kingdom is moving forward, thanks in great part to your prayers, which are always appreciated and helpful.

While we were at the Mission Presidents Seminar in West Africa this week, we received promising updates on Ebola, which is isolated now to two countries, both a 7-hour flight  from where we live in Johannesburg. The country of  Liberia went 21 days without a case of Ebola before one isolated case showed up. Once it goes 42 days without a case, the country is no longer considered at risk, the quarantines will be lifted and the missionaries will be returned. In fact, a new mission president has just been called for the Liberia Monrovia Mission, effective July 1st, and Bob will be training him next month. The country of Sierra Leone has just six cases of Ebola currently and the same thing goes for that mission... we hope to see a new mission president called this year and the missionaries returned to the country. That's it for Ebola - it's practically eliminated, and is farther away from where we live and work than New York is from Europe.

Malaria, however, is still very much present in West Africa, with dozens of cases reported among our 4,000+ missionaries this year, most often in West Africa, the Congo and East Africa, but it is virtually non-existent in South Africa, so it is a non-issue where we live. And when it does occur, the medication the Church provides works immediately and thoroughly.

In short, no Ebola, no malaria, and life is pretty normal here in South Africa, despite what you may be hearing about xenophobia. We remain healthy and happy doing the Lord's work.

If you want to read about the Church's response to xenophobia in South Africa, here is an interesting link: www.mormonnewsroom.co.za/article/latter-day-saints-respond-to-aid-xenophobia-refugees