Golden Gate National Park! -- week 59

We spent Saturday hiking around Golden Gate National Park!  No, we didn't make a quick trip home.  More below...with lots of photos.

Wednesday morning we visited Durban's Victoria Street Market with President and Sister Lines.  This is a big warehouse full of lots of little market stalls.  Most sell South African handicrafts.  

We bought a few goodies.  Sue got some beaded jewelry and a fun pleated skirt.  Ken bought an ebony walking stick and an ebony bowl with the "big five" animals carved on it.  (Elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo and rhino)

Thursday we drove up to Pinetown to clean out the apartment in Umbhedula in preparation for more missionaries arriving next week.  Luckily we had keys for this apartment. It has been empty for a year.

Elder Alotsa (left) and Elder Chifarimba (below) are the Zone Leaders, so they came along to help, too.  We all worked hard and had all the bugs and dirt cleaned out in about two hours.  There are some minor repairs needed, so our mission handyman will take care of those this week.

Friday afternoon we had a Zoom training session from Salt Lake City with all the other missions in Southeastern Africa Area about connecting with referrals coming from Facebook messages.  Sue watched the video with our Social Media Elders, Elder Pettijohn and Elder Russell.

Then Saturday morning we were at the Mission home at 6:15 a.m. to drive to Golden Gate National Park!  

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The Golden Gate in South Africa is a narrow, 6000-foot-high mountain pass with huge red-rock cliffs on either side, a much fought-over battleground for centuries.  The last battle was a hundred twenty years ago between British and Afrikaaners.  It is truly magnificent -- one of God's great creations.  It is about four hours by highway northwest of Durban.

President and Sister Lines were coming for a District Conference in Phuthaditjhaba.  [We can now both pronounce it and spell it!  Pu-tah-dit-jah-bah]  It was the first such meeting in over a year.  We came along for the ride.  While President was in meetings most of Saturday, we and Sister Lines went on a hike and drove around two loop drives through the park.  Then we went back for the "evening" conference meeting from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.  (Everything is done early here so people can get home before dark.)

  

So, here are some of the photos we took from the day.

All the shiny-gray on the rocks is water running down.  There was a lot of rain last week, but we had perfect weather: 72F, light breeze, low humidity.

There were lots of hiking trails to choose from.  We choose the shortest, up the Echo Ravine.  It turned out to be quite steep!  Ken made good use of his new walking stick.

More wet rocks!

Wherever there is water, Sue has to put her feet in.

Drakensburg Mountains are in the distance.  That is the boundary with Lesotho.

Notice the microbursts in the distance to the east.

This is the Golden Gate Hotel.

And this is the view out from our room looking west.  

As we drove back to the hotel Saturday night, the almost-full moon was just rising.  We were hoping to see lots of stars, but there were too many clouds.

After dinner President Lines took this photo of Ken standing by the bar with his credit card out.  It's not what it looks like -- Ken was paying for dinner.  But President said it is in retaliation for Ken posting a photo of President at the beach in loud Bermuda shorts wearing his white shirt and tie.

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The Church branch in Phuthaditjhaba is wonderful.  Normally for a District Conference all the wards/branches will come together.  However, COVID has changed all that.  Members in the one other District building, in Bethlehem, watched via a broadcast from Phuthaditjhaba, and each building had some people in the chapel and others in overflow rooms to satisfy COVID requirements.  Also, some people stayed home and watched on Zoom. Almost half of all the Church members in the District attended or watched, an amazing number.  

This is the group in the main room.

On Saturday afternoon President Lines asked us if we could please speak on Sunday!!  Two people who were supposed to speak were not able to come.  We gulped and said "Sure!" 

Sue pulled out a talk she had written and given in St. Petersburg three years ago.  It's so nice to have things like that saved on Google Drive and available to pull up on the phone.  In the photo you can see the Zoom screen for those watching from elsewhere.

It turned out that one of the people they thought was not coming did come, and one woman who was supposed to speak on Saturday night, but wasn't there, showed up Sunday morning and wanted to give her talk!  So the meeting ran long, and President Lines had to cut his final talk short.  (We wish we could have been skipped.)

There is also a new video broadcast app that was tried called Veedo.  It was developed in South Africa because lots of people have limited data on their phone, so they do not want to use Zoom.  Veedo solves that problem by billing the data for the broadcast to the host, not to those watching.  We don't know yet how many used it, but we are interested to find out.

Afterwards there was time to visit with the local members.  President Lines met with four young men about putting in their paperwork to come on missions.  They all said they would do it!

Sister Lines visited with the four wonderful Elders serving in Phuthaditjhaba and Bethlehem:  Elder Jensen (US), Elder Alviana (Brazil), Elder Wilson (South Africa), and Elder Chola (Uganda). They are God's Messengers -- truly angels from Heaven.  

Here is the mountain across the highway from the church building.  Amazing!

Finally, we report that the puzzle is progressing -- but slowly.  Elder Van Orden and Elder Mbaki live upstairs from us.  When they came by one evening, Elder Van Orden noticed that I had put together a chunk of puzzle near the elephant forehead, but it did not connect anywhere.  He turned it all upside down and it fit right in!  Sue got most of the lower trunk finished, too.