Transfers -- week 81

We had a busy week in the office.  Transfer week is always wonderful and difficult.  We love to see new Elders arrive, but it is so hard to say good-bye to those who are going home after finishing their two years of service.

When the Martins were here last week they brought Sue a gift from Sister Smith in Joburg.  Elder Smith is our In-field Representative (IFR) -- that is liaison between all we do and the missionary department in Salt Lake City.  He does this for all of Africa and is amazing.  His wife made these cute "Phone Chicks" for Sue and Sister Hubrich and Sister Lines.  It's for propping up the phone while doing video chat.

Monday there was talk of more demonstrations, maybe riots, so we all stayed close to home in the morning.  But the police and army were out in full force and things remained calm.  Whew!  Elders were all able to do normal Monday grocery shopping and other P-day activities.

The Chatsworth and Queensburgh Elders had asked Sue if they could come over for a cooking lesson for their District P-day activity.  They wanted to make Mexican food and cookies.  Sue gave them a shopping list for burritos and snickerdoodles. They did a great job.  Here are Elder Otina, Elder Birkeland, Elder Odhiambo and Elder Hanson Evans.  The two African Elders are from Kenya.  Elder Odhiambo was a professional soccer player and gave it up to come on his mission!

Tuesday morning Sue and Sister Hubrich went to Makro -- local equivalent of Costco.  We bought out almost every duvet cover they had in 3/4 size.  (Bigger than twin.)  We needed four more for the Elders coming this week, but we may have 25 more coming in three weeks!!!  So it was a challenge to find 29 cover/pillowcase sets that were not pink flowers or kiddie school buses.  Each arriving Elder gets a new set and they take it with them when they are transferred.

While we were gone Santa Claus arrived -- at least that's what President Lines said about Ken's reaction to the packages.  It was the social media video production kit -- computers, camera, steadycams, tripods, and studio condenser mics.  He has had fun, and frustrations, this week getting it all set up and the pieces talking to each other.

Tuesday afternoon -- new Elders!  We had three brand new Elders arrive to start their Missionary Training Center (MTC) time with us.  

Elder Pick, Elder Kortjas and Elder Tinta

We've known about Elder Tinta for awhile.  He is from Klerksdorp, a small city in Northwest Province about two hours southwest of Johannesburg.  He was originally called to our Durban Mission, so has been on our list for awhile.  We were concerned that he would be alone doing MTC training, as that means another Elder has to be assigned as his companion and just sit around the office and watch for three weeks -- not good, but we can do it.

About four weeks ago Sue got a call from the Missionary Training Center in Johannesburg saying that the name tags for Elder Tinta were being sent to us, and also the ones for Elder Kortjas, because he was coming to do MTC with us in a few days.  What???  We had never heard of him.  And we had no one else coming to do MTC then.  He is from Durban and was called to serve in Kenya, but he did not yet have his visa, so he's coming to do MTC and serve with us until his visa comes through.  President Lines talked to the Powers-That-Be and had Elder Kortjas delayed three weeks so that he could be companions with Elder Tinta.  Another little miracle solves our problem.  The Lord provides!  We may have Elder Kortjas with us for several months, as Kenya visas often take a while.  We are assuming President will assign him far out west someplace after MTC, as his family lives right here in Central Durban.  One blessing of missionary service is time away from home to grow into an adult.

Then, just about a week ago, President Lines got a call from the Johannesburg Mission President.  They had an Elder coming to attend MTC with them, but he will be all alone.  They knew about Elder Tinta, so they asked, can Elder Pick join him?  Of course!  Elder Pick is from the Cape Town area.  He will just be with us for the three weeks and then will go to Joburg for his mission service.

We will all be so glad when the real Johannesburg MTC opens again!  The Elders have a hard time doing Zoom for six hours every day.  (10am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm -- except when it goes to 6pm)  And one of the joys of the real MTC is that they feed the Elders three great meals every day.  Sorry, at the Durban MTC, you have to cook for yourself.

Wednesday morning we made an unscheduled trip to KwaMashu -- about 20 minutes north.  Two Elders locked themselves out of their boarding (apartment), and we have the spare keys.  This is the second time in about two months, so we made them this special sign for the back side of their front door.

Ken has also been working on car registrations all week.  A bunch of them expire on 31 August.  The forms come, and there is a circle sticker that has to be cut out by hand and stuck inside the windshield on the passenger side.  They don't have month/year tags on the plates like we have in the USA.  The blue sticker is for the insurance company that does towing service, so that also goes onto the windshield.  It's who to call if you get stuck in a ditch.  It happens.

Thursday we said good-bye to three wonderful Elders.  Elder Russell was a Social Media Elder for several months, so spent a good deal of time in the office and we got to know him well as a great missionary who took the job of getting the Mission set up for Facebook and ran with it.  During all the lockdowns, that has kept the mission running.

Elder Mbaki, who is from Cape Town, did Sue's job in the office for the eight months we were back in the USA in 2020, and so we consider him a real hero.  Then he was an Assistant to President Lines for several months and lived upstairs from us.  He's another wonderful young man.  This week he headed to Cedar City, Utah, to attend Southern Utah University. 

Elder Mahe is a Tongan/American dual citizen, and that's a good thing right now.  He went home on the evacuation flight with us in March 2020 to USA, came back on his mission in December 2020 and went back to USA this week.  There are Tongan Elders serving in other areas in Africa who have been serving now for 2.5+ years because Tonga is closed to entry due to COVID.

Friday noon we had three more Elders arrive.  These are all experienced Elders who have been serving in the USA, or who had served here before.  We thought we were getting four, but one had his flight-required COVID test come back too late and he missed the flight.  We think he is coming next week???

This photo is taken in front of the office instead of at the airport.  Sue and Sifiso Madela, the Church Travel head in Johannesburg, were wrong.  We both thought a 90-minute layover in Johannesburg was plenty of time to transfer from one flight to another.  Nope.  The Elders just barely missed their flight to Durban on Thursday evening.  And it was the last flight of the day.  Not a problem -- just put them in a hotel overnight and do a Saturday morning flight.  That was the original plan from Salt Lake Church Travel.  Big problem!  Every flight on every airline all day Friday from Johannesburg to Durban was full!  We have no idea why.  There must have been something special going on around here.  When Sue tried to make a hotel reservation for Pres. & Sister Lines for Saturday night up north in Richards Bay the big hotel where they usually stay was all full.  The Hubrichs had their flat painted on Friday/Saturday so stayed in a hotel about 45 minutes south along the beach, and they said it was also crammed full.

So, three Elders were stuck in Johannesburg.  Sifiso is wonderful.  He hired a van and driver, and they drove down to Durban.  It's a bit under six-hour drive.

They left at 7am and were here in time for interviews with President Lines.  We got Elder Wardlow, Elder Peterson and Elder Bowman.  All three are from Oklahoma!  Elder Peterson served here in Fall 2019 and Spring 2020 and went home on the evacuation plane with us.  Instead of being assigned to a temporary mission in the USA he chose to be released and come back later.  Elder Wardlow and Elder Bowman have both been serving in temporary USA missions for almost a year.

Then we had pizza lunch brought in by the Hubrichs.

New Elders always like to look at the big map of the mission and speculate about where they will serve.  

We did orientation with the new Elders, and then they went to the Mission Home for the welcome dinner and to find out where they will be assigned.

We have had the craziest weather this week!  It is the middle of winter, remember.  Friday was almost 90deg F and the wind was blowing hard, hard, hard.  It felt like Santa Ana winds at home.  

Saturday very early it started to rain.  We just prayed it would stay dry for Transfers.  And it did!  Missionaries met in the parking lot of the Pinetown chapel and traded their luggage from one car to another and then headed to new homes, or back home with new a companion.  It stopped raining for just the 45 minutes when we had this all happening.  It really was a miracle.  But it was still cold!  The temperature was in the mid 40's all day!

And that didn't stop Ken and Elder Bascom from doing a little football toss.  After his mission Elder Bascom will be a receiver on the Southern Utah University football team.  

After the catch, Elder Bascom and his companion, Elder Mokhoanatsi, left to drive the "Durban Express."  That's the Transfer vehicle that goes to Bethlehem -- about four hours west.  There they meet up with the "Bloemfontein Express" which has driven east from Bloemfontein about four hours to Bethlehem.  Elders being transferred from Durban to out west exchange places in vehicles with those who have been out west and are coming east.  Everyone drives home again.  They had quite an interesting trip.  Here's a video someone posted to our neighborhood WhatsApp chat group on Friday.

Hillcrest is only about 15 miles from us, but up the hill in elevation a bit.  And the Elders driving from Bethlehem had to come through passes with lots of snow and bad fog.  We were glad they arrived home safely.

Sunday we were invited downstairs to have dinner with the Hubrichs and Elder & Sister Irving.  The Irvings are serving in all of South Africa gathering Church History.  (Hubrichs left, Irvings center.)

(Sue writes a history of the mission each month, consolidates them all, then makes an annual history to turn in.)  They also go all over southern Africa doing oral history interviews for the Church archives.  They were here doing interviews for a few days, including talking to the Hubrichs about their Church Humanitarian projects.   

After dinner we went up to our parking lot and showed them how to "douse" or water witch with straightened coat hangers to find underground pipes or other disturbances such as graves.  We learned about it years ago in Iowa.  None of them had ever done this before and were pretty amazed at how it works.

We were talking about this, because Ken got a call from Brad Klodt on Friday night with exciting news.  Brad is President of the Iowa Mormon Trails Association and worked with Ken on the monument to Mary Ann Morris Allen in the backwoods of Iowa (previously reported about).  A woman who heard about the monument dedication and who lives near the Mounts Pioneer Cemetery, where the monument is, said she thinks she knows where the actual grave is!  She is in her 80's, and when she was a child her father showed her the location of an old Mormon grave.  She's going back there with a friend and see if they can witch out the location.  Pretty fun!