Quiet week, lovely hike -- Week 71

Mostly a quiet week at the office, as we prepare for about a dozen new missionaries next Saturday.  Of course the number coming changes almost daily.  One drops out, another comes in, another drops out and then comes back... .  We'll see who really gets on the planes.  They all have COVID vaccines but still must have the test 72 hours ahead of the trip and sometimes the results come back too late to fly.  They all leave the USA about 6 p.m. on Thursday and then we'll know who is really coming.  

Newcastle Zone came to Durban, half on Tuesday and half on Friday, to go to the Temple with President and Sister Lines.  The Van Heerdens took advantage of the trip to exchange their bakkie for a brand new one.  The old one is perfectly good, but it has reached the end of its life in the Church fleet and will be sold. The new one was brought here on a truck so only had 38 km on it.

With all the new Elders coming next week, we need to get some of the stored cars out and working.  Ken wanted to take this Suzuki to get a new battery, but it was so dirty from just sitting that it needed a good wash first.  Luckily this was Thursday and our friend Nick was doing his car washes in the office parking lot.  Sue missed the photo with Ken squirting the hose.

Friday and Saturday we had a hard time.  Elder Gore is going home to England next Friday, after completing his mission.  But England requires a 11-night quarantine in a hotel at the airport for anyone arriving from South Africa (and a bunch of other countries.)  We tried to make the reservation online, but it wasn't working.  Sue did it Friday, and got no confirmation email.  She tried to email the quarantine hotel, but got a canned response.  She called the phone number -- long distance to London.  Fifteen minutes on hold, then live person who took her info and put her on hold for 'a few minutes.'  40 minutes later she hung up.  Sue asked Elder Gore's Mom to try calling, because at least for her it wasn't a long-distance international call.  She said it would ring and ring and then hang up.

Saturday Sue called the bank and no charge had gone through on her mission credit card.  So Saturday we tried again, using Ken's mission credit card.  We got confirmation email.  Hooray!!  Then three minutes later another email -- payment denied.  Reservation cancelled.  Now what?  We called the credit card bank. We each have a $2,000 per transaction limit.  Eleven days in a London hotel for room and all meals is about $2400.  Nuts!  We called President Lines and got his credit card number in hopes he has a greater limit.  He does.  It all worked!  Elder Gore has his reservation, but is not too happy about getting back to England and spending 11 days in a hotel room by himself.  He's not the first one.  We've had other Elders spend 3 or 4 weeks in quarantine going  home to Pacific Islands.

Saturday morning we took a break for a hike in the hills along the Molweni River.

We walked the red trail, taking the short side-trail from point 16.   This map doesn't do it justice. That little trail is almost straight down the cliff side.

But the waterfall at the bottom is worth the hike.  We took Elder Hulley with us.  He from Johannesburg area, but is currently doing Missionary Training Center by himself in our office -- on Zoom all day long every day with the MTC in Johannesburg.  Not so fun.  He is in a strange situation.  P-day for the MTC Elders is Saturday, but P-day for the rest of the missionaries -- including his two companions -- is Monday.  So, they would take him grocery shopping but then he would spend the rest of the day with them doing regular missionary work.  We said we'd take him for the day on Saturday and let him have an outing to get a little exercise and fresh air.

Ken took this panorama photo.  You can scroll L-R and up/down to see the whole thing.

The view to the top of the gorge.  That's how far down we hiked.  It was so steep going down, but we made it.  Coming back up Ken 'fell' a bit and bruised a shin.  And he lost his glasses, as they fell out of his pocket somewhere.  But he has an extra pair.  

We started walking along the top of the gorge, thinking we would get to another falls, but we wore out and turned around after awhile.

The plants alternate between dense jungle and open fields.  

And of course Sue had to put her feet into the river.  This time of year this is a small river, but it's easy to see how much higher the river would be in the summer when it is the rainy season.

South Africa had an earthquake this week!  Did we bring it with us from California?  We were told that South Africa doesn't have much in the way of natural disasters -- no hurricanes or tornadoes, no earthquakes, etc.  This unexpected earthquake was at 4 AM on Thursday morning.  We both slept through it.  We came into the office that morning and President Lines said he felt it.  It was about a 3.8, so not huge, but enough to be felt -- if you are awake.  They don't have monitoring equipment here, so the scale rating is a guess.  The big worry is that most buildings here are made from unre-enforced brick or concrete blocks.  A serious earthquake would destroy most of the homes and stores in Durban.

One of Sue's responsibilities is to write the Mission History.  She usually puts together a few pages each month about departures and arrivals of Elders, people baptized, special Mission activities, etc.  But 2020 was different.  It just didn't happen.  It needs to be done, and the Church is asking for 2020 histories to be submitted by 30 June.  Last week when we were driving the 2-1/2 hours to the Drakensburg Mountains, Sue took her computer in the car and interviewed President and Sister Lines about the lockdown and the mission situation during the eight months that we were away.  Ken turned on his phone recorder and also recorded the conversation.  The Church also likes to record oral histories, so today he edited that into something coherent and we will submit it to the Church History Library, too.

We are excited each weekend when there are baptisms in the mission.  We see many people making covenants to follow Christ and strive to be more like him.

But this week we had one of the best baptisms ever!  We were there only by FaceTime but were so pleased to see our granddaughter, Myra Cate Allen, be baptized in Henderson, Nevada.  

She shared the service with one of her good friends, and for part of it the girls and their mothers sang 'Teach Me to Walk in the Light" with our son Reed playing the violin.  

After Myra was baptized, Reed confirmed her a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, bestowed on her the gift of the Holy Ghost, and gave her a wonderful blessing for her future.