Elders All Departed and Arrived! -- week 72

We've had quite the week of arrivals.

Monday we went to the airport and picked up Elder Wynn and Sister Bette Hubrich.  They are from Utah, just north of Salt Lake City, and are here to manage Humanitarian projects for the Church.  They will live just downstairs from us, so we are glad to have more 'adults' in the area.  We went out to lunch with the Lines and the Hubrichs.  Then we took the Hubrichs to get their car, see their apartment and go grocery shopping.  We saved orientation for Tuesday.

The other exciting news on Tuesday was the installation of a fiber Internet connection in the Hubrichs flat!  We steal their WiFi through their ceiling and our floor.  It works fine, but used to be so slooooow.  It took Ken about 13 hours to upload a 1-hour YouTube video.  We had about 5Mbps download and 1Mbps upload.  Here is Ken's screenshot of the new speedtest.  So much better!  Especially now that we really do have to share.

We also had some departures this week.  First was Elder Hulley from Johannesburg, who finished his MTC training in the office on Tuesday.  He's been around the office this week still, because his companions are the Social Media Elders, but tonight after dinner he will find out where he will be serving going forward.  

On Thursday night we had three Elders come to the Mission Home for their last dinner with President and Sister Lines.  We came just before the dinner to help Elder Gore with his final paperwork for the process of getting into England and quarantine.  It had to be done no sooner than 48 hours before his arrival in England, which would be 4:15pm on Saturday.  It was supposed to take 20 minutes, and took 90 minutes!

But now Elders Gore, Chifarimba, and Tiyiwe are home--well almost for Elder Gore. (He's in quarantine at Heathrow for two weeks.)

Thursday night about 8pm we got the first texts from the new Elders.  They were arriving in Minneapolis (three of them) and in Atlanta (the other eight.)  There was some confusion about needing an instant COVID test at the airport, but we got that straightened out.  (No longer needed.)  Text at 10:48pm our time:  All eight are in Atlanta.  Whoppee!  That means all eleven are really coming.  By past experience, that's a total surprise.  We went to sleep knowing all was well.

Friday morning text from Amsterdam:  "All Durban travelers from Atlanta and Minneapolis are here and well in Amsterdam."

Besides our eleven on that flight, there were fourteen going to the Botswana/Namibia Mission and thirteen going to the Johannesburg Mission.  And the flight was so empty that nearly everyone got a row to himself, so they actually got some sleep.  Which was a good thing, because they got to the hotel in Johannesburg at 11pm Friday and had to get up before 5am to catch the 6:50am flight to Durban.

We knew that Saturday would be an all-day marathon with Elders arriving, so we had our P-day on Friday.  We took the Hubrichs to three of our favorite places in Durban.

We started with a session at the Temple.  When they arrived on Monday, we just drove by for a photo-op, as the Temple is closed on Mondays.

It is so beautiful, and the spirit flows.  

Second stop was our favorite Mexican restaurant, La Rosa.  We all enjoyed nachos, enchiladas, and wet burritos.  

We sat outside and enjoyed the view.  That's the Indian Ocean just past the palm trees.

But of course we couldn't be that close to the beach and not go there.  Third stop was the beach.  First we had to walk along the promenade.  We laughed at this sign.  The day before, the Hubrichs had put a piece of banana on their porch railing because they wanted to see a monkey.  It only took about five minutes for one to show up and claim it.  Now their flat, as well as ours, is marked forever as good foraging ground for the vervet varmints.

We all agreed that one day soon we will come back and rent bicycles and ride along the beach.  

Sister Hubrich and Sue are kindred spirits.  They both need to put their feet in the water everywhere.  The husbands didn't even step onto the sand!  But Elder Hubrich and Ken have something in common, too.  Elder Hubrich sold his Porsche convertible before he came on the mission.  He has an interesting story--born in East Germany, escaped out with his family at age eight, moved to the US at age 10.  So his love of German cars is in-born.

Saturday was something else!  Out of the flat by 6:45am, Sue driving a bakkie to the airport.  We meet up with President and Sister Lines also in a bakkie, and the Assistants in a nine-passenger van.  Oops--plane is delayed by an hour.  

We had planned to have brunch about 10:30am or so at the Mission Office, and the Hubrichs were buying 40 Egg McMuffins from McDonalds.  Now it was looking more like lunch, so we called them and asked them to scratch that plan and order pizzas for noon instead.  We were so glad they were around to help, and willing to be flexible.  

None of us had eaten breakfast, so we decided to wait in the airport restaurant and have something to eat.  As we were leaving, one of the servers came up to our group and was asking President Lines what church we were from and why we were there.  He explained that we were at the airport to pick up missionaries coming to teach the people of South Africa about Jesus Christ and His restored Church.  She thought that was wonderful, and wanted to pray for us.  She gave us the most wonderful prayer, standing around right there in the restaurant.  President Lines gave her a card with information about contacting the Church.  We love the people of South Africa!  

The plane was only half an hour late.  The Elders said they got on their plane, and then the pilot announced there was something wrong, so they pulled everyone off and put them on a different plane.  Then they got out of baggage claim in record time.  There was hardly anyone else on the flight, and no luggage got lost.

We were speedy out of the airport.  Next stop is always the Temple.  We took the group photo with the sun behind the steeple.  Ken also took individual photos of each Elder with President and Sister Lines.  Saturday night Sue sent these to the individual families, along with the group photos at the airport and temple.  We call these the "proof of life" pictures (named so thanks to our daughter Rachel).

Next it was to the office.  Let the fun begin!  Sue had a whole rotation schedule set up for orientation, starting at 11:20am.  Four groups of three Elders going to five stations for 20 minutes each:  

Secretary (Sue)

Finance (Ken) 

Safety and phones (Elder Mbaki, Assistant)

Social Media (oops, no photo)

Driving test (Elder VanOrden, Assistant).   

Even with the late plane, we were at the office before 10am, so things changed a little.  President started doing his personal interviews.  They take about 30 minutes each, so with this big group, that's an all-day process. 

Sue collected everyone's passports and driver's licenses to make copies.  Then we decided to start the rotations an hour early.  That part worked well.  

We did four of the five rotations, and then the Hubrichs showed up with pizza.  We took a break and had lunch.  

Earlier, President Mkhize showed up.  He is Counselor in the Mission Presidency and is a lawyer.  We had trouble a few weeks ago with an Elder getting arrested for not having his original passport and visa on him.  (See Week 68, 30 May.)  President Mkhize helped get that straightened out, and now has written a letter in legalese that each Elder will carry.  We needed new certified copies of each passport and visa on one side, and this letter on the other side.  Sue had made the new copies for everyone on Thursday and for the new Elders on Saturday morning.  President Mkhize came to stamp and sign the certifications on all the new copies.  He had to do two copies each of 64 pages.  Going forward he will just need to do the new Elders arriving.

We finished all the orientations quickly, and President Lines was almost finished with his interviews, so the Elders sat and visited.  

Earlier in the week President & Sister Lines, with consultation from the Assistants, had decided who was going to be transferred where.  The new people are just designated as "N" or "T".  N is the new Elders who have been serving for six or ten months in the USA--we had three of those.  T is for the new Elders who needed further infield training.  This is what the Transfer Board looked like on Friday:

Anyone with the picture askew is going to someplace new.  Anyone without a companion is getting someone new.  But President Lines doesn't decide which will go where until after the interviews.  

The new Elders all spend Saturday night in the bunk house behind the mission home.  Sunday they are having their own church services at the mission home.  With congregations limited to 50, there is no ward where they can just drop in with an extra dozen people.  After dinner they will find out who their new companions are and in what area they will be serving.  

Sunday morning we went for a walk around the neighborhood.  There were people working on the McDonalds driveway grading at 7:30 on Sunday morning!  We think they are behind schedule.  We also took some photos of the big intersection.  It looks finally finished!  

Except they just skipped paving the final layer on a whole big section in the middle.  We may send some photos to the city roads department.....

Sunday we went to church as usual in Molweni, and we took the Hubrichs with us.  They will be permanently assigned to another congregation, but President hasn't finalized that yet, so they came with us today.  

After church was the baptism for Amy Chipara.   She is eight years old, so very excited to be baptized.  She asked Elder Banda to baptize her, and he was glad to do so.  

After church we took this photo of Amy, in the white dress and black coat, with her family and us missionaries.  It was a wonderful day.

We are concerned about the state of COVID in South Africa.  Particularly around Johannesburg and its province it has gotten very bad.  Our church has closed the Temple there, the Area Office, and cancelled all church services for the next month.  

Here is the graph of COVID in South Africa as a whole since March 2020.  The worst was early January at about 20,000 cases/day.  We are almost there now.

This is Gauteng Province -- Johannesburg and area.  They are doing much worse than January.

This is Kwazulu-Natal, the province that contains Durban.  So far we are doing well.  We hope it continues!    

The two provinces are each about 20% of the population of South Africa.  

We post-poned sending out this blog until later tonight because President Ramaphosa did a nation-wide TV talk at 8 PM.  We are now on modified level-4 lockdown.  No social gatherings indoors or outdoors, no church meetings.  Offices and stores are still open, but people should work from home if they can.  No alcohol sales anytime or anywhere.  Restaurants can do take-out or delivery only.  Masks are mandatory everywhere.  Parks and beaches are open, but no gatherings at them.  President Ramaphosa will speak again in two weeks and see how things are going and decide what to lift.  

Only 2.6 million people are vaccinated out of 60 million residents, and the Delta variant is much more contagious and is showing up here.  It's the one that devastated India last month.  So far it has not hit our province of KZN, but who knows when it will -- not if.

The missionaries are sad that they have to go back to teaching only on zoom or telephone.  They can no longer visit people in person.  That is hard on them.  But we are so grateful for the technology that does allow some teaching to continue.  

When we went home in March 2020 we thought for sure we'd be back by July, or August at the latest.  Now it is a year later and things are still bad.