Lots went wrong. But it wasn't all bad. And it ended very well today.
It was a week of Mission Zone Conferences and vehicle inspections and a Multi-Stake Conference. At Zone Conferences, Ken worked on inspections while the young Elders were in meetings. He even inspected President Lines' car and found nothing wrong. (But see below.)
We do love getting together with all the young Elders for lessons, learning, discussions and just visiting. The mission current has three Zones. Durban Zone runs north/south along the coast. Hillcrest Zone runs east/west along the N3 -- main highway to the interior. Newcastle Zone is for the inland areas of Newcastle, Ladysmith and Bethlehem.
President Lines was speaking on Tuesday morning in Durban Zone when a message flashed across his computer screen: "Urgent! Missionary arrested! Call immediately!" An Elder had just been arrested and thrown in jail in a remote part of the Mission.
The notice came to him from the Church Area Office in Johannesburg, but we had prompted it. We had gone to the beginning of Durban Zone Conference so Ken could do the car inspections and Sue could bring the morning snacks, but we left about 10am. (We are in Hillcrest Zone.) Just as we were almost back to the office, just a ten-minute drive, Sue's phone rang. It was in the back seat, but she was driving, so she ignored it. Then Ken's phone rang. It was an Elder out west reporting that his companion had just been arrested because he was not carrying his passport! The police would not accept the certified copy he had in his wallet!! Oh dear!
We dashed into the office and called the Area Legal Department. We have faithfully created certified copies of passports and keep the originals in a safe in Durban. The woman asked if his certified copy was older than three months? What?? We had never heard about that. This Elder came originally in February 2020, went back to his home country for eight months and came back in December 2020, but we never gave him a newer copy. No one ever told us we needed to update them. But at this point that was the least of our worries. The police told him he had to personally produce the original passport by 2pm or he would have to spend the night in jail! Since we had his passport in the office, and it was a four-hour drive west, and it was after 11am, it would be so impossible to get there by 2pm.
For the next hours there were many, many phone calls between the companion Elder, President Lines, Church legal people, the Van Heerdens (who live only an hour away from the jail), the local Church Branch President (who had connections in the local police department), President Mkhize the counselor in the Mission Presidency who happens to be an attorney, and a local attorney who knew all the local officials. There was even a call to the local authorities from the Church's contact at the South African Department of Home Affairs. We trust that caught the local authorities by surprise and got their attention.
It turns out our Elder had been caught up in a highway checkpoint by an overzealous officer with South African Immigration. Our Elder is from South America. His companion is South African and so had his regular South African ID with him. So our poor Elder was hauled off to the local jail, and his companion followed. While his companion sat in the waiting room of the police station for several hours, various local officers came and said to him that they were praying for his companion to be safe and released soon. Evidently there was a conflict between the local police and the immigration officer about all of this. About twelve(!) people had been arrested. Our Elder was in a cell with all of them. The jailers took away his belt, his wallet, and his missionary nametag, so there was nothing to identify him as a missionary. But when he told the other prisoners who he was, they got curious. So while they all waited to learn their fate, as a good missionary he taught them. He told them all about the restoration of the fullness of Christ's Gospel in the latter-days, the whole reason he had come to Africa. Maybe someone there needed to hear this message.
While this was going on, we grabbed his passport and headed off toward the west. We ended up not having to drive all four hours to deliver the passport. We drove to Pietermaritzburg just one hour west, where (as you can see) we handed off the passport to President Mkhize, and he, as the attorney, could take it the rest of the way. We had met at a gas-station parking lot at an off-ramp near his home, and from there he continued west. 
When we turned around and headed back to Durban, we found ourselves in a long traffic jam caused by construction. It took a while to get home, but this time we were in no hurry. Things turned out well in the end for our Elder. He was out of jail by about 2:30pm, and the arresting officer was nowhere to be found.
But then we all got "jabbed." Not for COVID, but just flu. For everyone who wanted it, which was most of us. 
The best part was the information from the doctor. He said that we can now just show up at the immunization clinic and get our COVID jabs! They are not bothering with the appointment system that we had signed up for. Now the only hitch is that we have to wait for 7-10 days after flu shot. So we are going with the Lines next Friday to get the first COVID jab. Hurray!
And others outside doing similar activities with a hacky-sack (upper left, hard to see.)
We always get everyone together for a group photo at Zone Conference. We usually post a formal one, but this time here is the funny one. Sue is catching up on much-needed sleep... .
Thursday was another bad day. Sue went out errand-running. First, a quick drop-off at the dry-cleaners, then walk down the mall to the Post Office. We had decided to get newer certified copies of passport/visas, just in case, and that is done at the post office. President Lines was going up to Newcastle for Zone Conference the next day so could take the new copies to those Elders who are not South African. Easy to do? Not quite. The Post Office was closed. Permanently!! The sign in the window said "Closing permanently as of 27 May." But that's where we have our Post Office Box! There was nothing to do but drive up to the main Westville Post Office. It's just 2km further, but not in a mall where we can also shop and handle dry cleaning. Nuisance. Sue asked about the P.O. Box. They said come back next week. We think they are just moving the whole bank of boxes to the Westville P.O., so nothing will change there. We'll see... . Then Sue drove to the grocery store for some basics -- bananas, milk, oranges, spinach, etc. She dropped the groceries off at home, mixed a batch of sourdough English muffins (they need to rise for eight hours) and went back to work.
President and Sister Lines had left in the early afternoon to drive to Newcastle for Zone Conference the next day. They have a house-keeper who does not have a key, so when she was done we went over to lock the house. As we were leaving, Sue pushed the button to open the automatic gate on the driveway and then backed out, but not fast enough. The gate started to shut just as the rear bumper got there, but we were not quite far enough out for the "eye" to stop the gate from shutting. It mostly left green gate-paint on the car. Ken managed to clean it off, leaving a small black spot of chipped paint. Sister Lines said exactly the same thing had happened to her one day, and she has some fingernail polish exactly the right color... . After that minor accident we went home, ready for dinner. Hah!
As Sue pushed the door open it made a funny tinkly sound. We realized we had left the bedroom window open! We are on the third floor, but that didn't stop the vervet monkeys. The noise was the glass sliding across the tile floor from the two glasses that broke when they knocked over the dish-draining tray.
They cleaned us out of fruit -- 12 bananas and 14 cutie oranges. And they ate the raw muffin dough! However, they do not like black licorice. They opened one pack, but didn't eat it. The man who lives below us on the ground floor came up to talk to us. He had watched the monkeys climbing up the conduit for the A/C but had no way to stop them. He felt badly but said they've gotten into his flat, too. He's at ground level, so he also gets mongoose invasions as well. We spent an hour cleaning and sanitizing most of the flat before we thought about dinner.Friday we mostly worked in the office all day. Sue also went out shopping to replace the bananas and oranges. That afternoon we started getting calls from the Elders saying they were having trouble with their smartphones. Earlier in the month, all the Elders had done steps necessary to install the updated Church Security software that is put on all missionary phones worldwide. The deadline for this exercise was 28 May. But our Mission was reported to be all done by the 15th. On the 28th very weird things started to happen with the phones. On many phones all apps and contacts disappeared due to a remote factory reset. All we could do was give the Elders the Tech Support contact number. As of Sunday night, this evidently global problem had not been resolved.
We drove up to Pavilion Mall in Westville and had dinner at John Dorys -- a great seafood restaurant. 
Pavilion Mall is HUGE! Three floors of stores, and maybe 20 restaurants, banks, and a nine-theater movie complex. (But no movies we wanted to see.)
Saturday is our P-day. P stands for Preparation, not for Play, we always tell the Elders. We often do play on Saturdays, but this week we Prepared! We have five new Elders arriving on Tuesday. Three are from Kenya and were serving there while waiting for their visas. They will go straight out to work someplace in the mission. The other two are from Johannesburg and are starting their Missionary Training Center on-line classes with us in the office.
That means they will live down the hall from us. No one has lived in that apartment since February. We knew it would need some cleaning, and did it ever! We spent SIX hours dusting, washing windows, mopping floors, cleaning the washing machine, cleaning out kitchen cupboards, cleaning the bathroom, etc. It now looks really nice, but we are tired and sore.
We are all praying they will not be our neighbors for long. They are about our age and are from Hungary. They have lived most of their married lives in South Africa. They have two sons who live in Hungary and Germany. In March 2020 they sold their home and were getting ready to retire to Hungary. Then COVID hit. They could not get out of South Africa! They ended up renting a flat in our building "just for a little bit" until they could go. Shortly after they moved in, they were in a car accident that totaled their car. They didn't want to buy a new one because they were leaving "soon." They thought. It's now been over 15 months. This week they were able to get their first COVID vaccination. The second dose is scheduled for 9 July, then they have to wait two weeks before they can fly. So, now their plan is to be home to Hungary by the end of July. We all hope so! They are very nice neighbors, but we understand here is not where they need to be.
Saturday night we were talking to Elder and Sister Young on the phone. They are the lone missionaries out west in Bloemfontein, but the end of June we are getting more young Elders, and President is planning to send at least six out there. Youngs are working on the empty apartments there like we did our downstairs one yesterday. They were having a little trouble so we told them what to do. Lots of hard work.
The Youngs came to Newcastle for Zone Conference on Friday. (There will be a new Zone in Bloemfontein soon.) Elder Van Heerden was teaching Elder Young how to do car inspections. After the meetings they came to President Lines and told him they had one car with a particularly bad report. Everything that could be wrong on the standard report sheet was marked wrong! Dirty, bald tires, no oil change, dents and dings, etc., etc., etc. They handed him the report. President realized it was his car! Elder Young was looking very serious, but Elder Van Heerden standing behind him was having a hard time suppressing a grin. President knew that Ken had already inspected his car on Tuesday and knew that it was just fine. So much for the training exercise.
Sunday afternoon, today, we attended a multi-stake Conference at the Berea chapel. Everyone in the Provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Free State were invited. That is our Mission area. Speakers were Elder Andersen of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Kearon and Elder Palmer the Area President, as well as President Holmes of the Durban Temple. It was held live and webcast, with Elder Kearon and Elder Anderson remote from Salt Lake City. There were well over 215 connections from all over the Mission on Zoom. Some of those were other chapels with lots of people watching. Many more connected on Veedo from home. Veedo is a South African Zoom-like program, except the event host pays for the cell-system data time for all participants. That is important here where almost no one has unlimited data.
Ken was fascinated by the multi-camera, multi-point video setup. It all went very well. And the Spirit was strong.
Nick who washes our cars, told us he is planning to be baptized! We are so pleased for him.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.