CHURCH!! -- week 53

 We got to go to Church today!!  

It is the first time we have been to Church services since we went to Molweni Branch on March 15, 2020.  Eleven months out of Church is eleven months too long.  The thing that kept us going was Zoom Church with our home ward in Palo Alto.  That weekly meeting to share with our fellow Saints has been our spiritual/social sustenance.  We can study scriptures and have sacrament at home by ourselves.  But hearing talks from others and meeting in break-out rooms after Church just to gab, have made life a little more normal -- whatever that is this year.

Today we went to Pinetown Ward -- about 10 km (6.2 m) west of us.  We went there to meet a man who President Lines talked to about the Church when we went on our gondola ride a few weeks ago.  Unfortunately he didn't make it.  But we had a good meeting with about 45 people there.  Attendance limit in South Africa right now is 50 for Church meetings.  The ward has an A week and a B week so only half come each time.

The meetinghouse had a foot-pedal operated hand-sanitizer bottle just inside the door, the same thing at any store you go to anywhere.  And there was someone sitting inside taking temperatures, writing down names and keeping count.  [In a drug store this week I saw a door-guard with two small bins of clothes pins.  When someone came in, a pin went from left bin to right bin.  When someone went out a pin went the other way.  Great easy way to make sure the store never had too many people in it.]

Every-other-row in the chapel was marked to be left vacant, and people spread out on the rows that were used.  It all worked fine. 

Usually the bread for sacrament is broken in pieces, put on a tray and people take a piece.  That procedure is not so COVID-friendly.  I was wondering how they would do it.  Instead they used the water trays.  We use water for sacrament in little tiny cups. 

Today they broke the bread and put each piece into a sacrament water cup.  Since everyone was seated only every-other row, the person passing the sacrament could easily walk the rows in between, and he was the only one who touched the tray.  We each took a cup of bread, slid down the mask to eat it.  After the prayer on the water, each took a cup of water and slid down the mask to drink it.  All very sanitary and social-distanced.  

There were two speakers.  Young Elder Chifarimba spoke about counting our blessings.  Even in these tough times we do have so much to be grateful for!  Another Brother spoke about Love -- appropriate for Valentine's Day! It was a powerful, thoughtful message.

We do feel the love of God and our Savior Jesus Christ.  We have so many blessings from them that we can be grateful for.

Baptisms!

Saturday night (morning in Utah) we were able to attend (via video link) the baptism of our granddaughter Hazel Schmalbeck in Saratoga Springs, Utah.  Hazel actually turned 8 years old last July, but due to COVID restrictions, the baptism finally happened yesterday.  Hooray!  We took a screenshot of her afteerwards, ready to be confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  

But then the phone in Utah died and we missed the actual confirmation.  But we had a nice visit with her other grandparents -- the Footes in New Mexico -- while we were all hoping for the video to come back.

And after Church today in Pinetown, there was also a special baptismal service where four new members were added to the Church.  We didn't go into the room where the baptism happened because it was small and the space was needed for their close family and friends.  But we were glad to see them take this great step in their lives.  

One of the blessings we have while living in Durban is beautiful scenery.  This is the freeway between our house and Pinetown chapel.  Ken calls it the jungle road.  And right now there are a lot of trees with bright pink and purple flowers in full bloom.  

Office Work

Now it's time to back up and talk about the earlier parts of the week.  Monday to Thursday -- normal office stuff all day.  

Finally, after weeks of canceled flights to New Zealand, Elder Raralevu did get on the plane to start his trek home to Fiji on Monday.  He was one of the Assistants to President Lines, and lived upstairs from us, so we knew him better than most of the Elders.  He had to fly to Johannesburg, then to Doha Qatar -- an eight-hour flight and then a 20-hour layover before he could leave there for Auckland, New Zealand.

He could not leave the airport in Doha because he did not have a visa, so he had lots of time to wander around.  He sent Ken a photo of this car that was on display.  Ken's affinity for Porsche's is well known around the office.

Elder Raralevu made it to Auckland --- an 18-hour flight, including a stop in Brisbane, Australia to refuel.  But he couldn't even get off the plane there.  Then after another five-hour layover, he flew to his final destination in Nadi, Fiji -- where he is now in a mandatory fourteen-day quarantine in a government-sponsored hotel.  But we are so glad he got that far!  The flight from Auckland to Nadi only goes every two weeks, so a missed connection anywhere along the way would be a real problem.

Sue tried to work on the puzzle a little in the evenings but got almost nowhere.  She did find the missing pieces for noses of buffalo and rhino.  Saturday before Hazel's baptism, she managed to get a little of the elephant trunk at the very bottom.  It's now a very slow process.  

Date Night

Friday night we went out to dinner, as usual.  We've mentioned before about all the construction in our neighborhood around the freeway on/off ramps.  We left the office and started up the on ramp.  But we had to go slowly because we were following a steam roller, and there was another one coming down towards us.  They were repaving the road but not bothering to close it!  They couldn't really, because the frontage roads on both sides are already closed because of the construction.

We were going to eat at Roco-Mama's in the mall to the west of us.  We tried to go there a couple of weeks ago at 6:30pm, but the line was too long.  This week we arrived at 5:20pm and got almost the last table.  The line was long when we left an hour later.

They have yummy milkshakes!  

Also, huge baskets of fries, and hamburgers with good stuff that drips out all over.  Ken had a salad and really messy ribs.  Sue had a cheese/guac/bacon burger.  

South African Culture Day

Saturday morning we decided to visit the Phansi Museum in Berea.  (Pronounced punsi.)  That's an area of Durban between us and downtown.  (The roads over the hills are so steep that they make San Francisco's hill look flat.  Sue's favorite yarn store is in that neighborhood, too.)  This is a museum of indigenous Zulu art, and it is wonderful.  The building is an old family estate from the 1850's and is a national monument in its own right.  It has lovely stained-glass windows and beautiful woodwork.

We had a guide named Similo.  He is their cataloger and was there working on a Saturday morning to keep the museum open.  He explained to us about the different kinds of pots and their uses. 

We loved the clothing.  They had lots of beaded aprons.  The pattern on the apron denoted the marital status of the woman -- unmarried, married, mother of children, old woman.  It was interesting to see how the patterns changed and became louder in color when cheaper plastic beads replaced the original glass ones.  

And they had a wall of head rests for sleeping.  They don't look nearly as comfortable as a down pillow for sure!  The jars on the top shelf are milk jugs, and each has a pattern that shows to which clan it belongs.  That makes thievery difficult.

One floor had life-size cloth mannequins wearing clothing from the different Zulu clans.  

There was this huge headdress.  We thought it was for the king or some such.  No -- it is early marketing.  A rickshaw driver made and wore it to call attention to his business!  You have to look carefully to even see the face in the middle.

For our granddaughter, Myra: here is the cheetah skin rug, especially decorated for the Zulu queen! 

As with most museums, the Phansi is struggling with COVID restrictions and is threatened with closure.  They are looking for donations, if you are interested in helping.  Their website is www.phansi.com/donate.  

We like this quote about their purpose.

Ubuntu art honours and celebrates the present and the future by promising to protect identity and inheritance by safeguarding the art and imagination, for the children of tomorrow.  This is particularly true in our country where the youth has all but forgotten the pain of the past and discovered how art became the tool of liberation, of identity and sanity. Today’s South Africa seems to be only mining its past for the guilty and not for the brave. In the process it deprives millions of their glorious roots and philosophy and art that underpinned it.

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Saturday afternoon we stopped by our local mall to buy some mops and sheets for various apartments.  It looks like any mall anywhere.

And at the bottom of the escalator they had set up a donation station for the national blood bank.  Good idea to get drop-ins!

Ken is having fun editing videos being made by the young Elders as part of the proselyting efforts via social media. The latest effort will appear on Facebook on February 16, commemorating the one-year anniversary of the dedication of the Durban Temple, which we attended at the time!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We love you all!  (Especially the grandchildren.)