We have had a wonderful, busy week. Life is never dull here, for sure.
Monday we started moving furniture into a new apartment for the Umlazi Elders. They usually drive a Toyota Corolla, but were very pleased to be given a bakkie (pick up truck) for two weeks, and Ken's credit card! Our wonderful handy-man, Andre, is helping to buy appliances and furniture for the two-bedroom, four-Elder flat. But Andre has neither money to purchase all this, nor vehicle to haul it. So Andre picks out and then sends the Elders to pay and haul.
Besides, this flat is on the back side of a house on a hill, so there are lots of stairs. Young men's strong backs are needed.
The Assistants also came to help. We started in the Mission Home garage to pick up two stored refrigerators and one washing machine. Sue had also gone over the previous day and filled the back of another bakkie with all the little stuff -- dishes, ironing board, pots/pans, etc. The garage has been used as storage shed forever, but it is getting almost empty! There is room to park one car, and almost room to park a second one.
The problem now is Sue's goof on ordering. She wanted 100 each of about four kinds of missionary pamphlets in Zulu. So that's what she ordered. She didn't realize that they come in packages of 25 and you order by the package. So now we have 2500 of each pamphlet. Ouch! There is no point in sending them back. We are the one area of the world where people speak Zulu. These were probably all printed just for us. A small part of the Johannesburg mission also has a few Zulu speakers, so we will share with them as needed.
Elder Matlapeng (from Roodeport, near Johannesburg) and Elder Phipps (from Payson, south of Provo, Utah) will be living here, along with two others -- to be named next week after Transfers.
And of course it is always followed by a yummy lunch. One of the benefits of the riots in July was that we joined the WhatsApp MGM Chat group. (MGM for Mottramdale, Grace, Monarch -- the three streets in our neighborhood.) Through that we learned about Amiena Toyer's Halaal Catering. Halaal means prepared properly for Muslims to eat. We don't care about that part, but Amiena and her husband Fadhli make great food in any culture. We had them cater our lunch.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we mostly just worked around the office. Ken continues to pay the bills. Sue is trying to get a little ahead for next week. We now have 26 new Elders coming! Ten are at the Provo MTC, two are doing home MTC, twelve were supposed to come in August but were delayed, and the last two are here doing MTC training with us. We also have three Elders going home, and one leaving our Durban MTC for his permanent mission in Johannesburg. Sue got the Departure packets all done, and has started on the arrival packets. She's making lots and lots of lists. More about all that next week when it's over. And we'll see how many actually come. President Lines says he doesn't believe they are coming until he sees them walk out of baggage claim at the airport.
Saturday was, of course, 9/11. It's a day we all remember with great sadness -- even those of us who were far away on the west coast. The events of that day changed the lives of many families who lost loved ones, but it also changed our country fundamentally. It began a period of fear and hesitancy to accept "others" that is sad to watch. We have never quite escaped the shadow of that sad day.
But life does carry on, and Saturday was a really busy day!
That morning the Church fleet manager, Sifiso Madela, came down from Johannesburg and picked up the Triber. That's the cute Renault that is honey-orange, so Sue loves finding it in a parking lot full of white/black/silver cars. But it is truly awful to drive. Terribly underpowered and quirky. Good riddance! We complained so much about it that they decided just to sell it. They had bought three to test, because they are inexpensive. Cheap is a better word. We delivered it up, practically new but dusty and appropriately covered in monkey paw prints from sitting for several months.
When we got back about 10am from doing that at the office, there were monkeys everywhere around our building! Even three fighting over a piece of bread on top of the car next to where we park.
They had come into the Hubrichs flat and stole some food, while they were standing in the kitchen(!), and were immediately chased out! But they obviously had done a major invasion someplace. It turned out to be at Sean's on the ground floor. He wasn't home. They broke the bathroom window, even! He had quite the mess. So sorry.
We've been wanting to have a real beach day with the Hubrichs almost since they arrived at the end of June. But, it's the middle of winter. Every Saturday there has either been something else going on, or it's been cold and windy and wet. Saturday was gorgeous! 80F and sunny. You can see why Durban is famous for its beaches. We went south this time to Amanzimtoti and found an almost-deserted beach.
We sat in the sun, behind a large dune that sheltered us from the stiff sea breeze.
We waded in the water. It was a little cool -- just 70F. That's much better then the average mid-50's at Santa Cruz near home.
And we built a wonderful sandcastle, in honor of all the grandchildren.
We started with the moat and the wall, then the turrets. We talked about the war chapters in the Book of Mormon and how the Nephites would build up their defenses to keep out the Lamanite invading armies. Sue's favorite part is Alma 43:23-24. In 74BC Captain Moroni had spies, but he didn't have instant communication, so he asked the prophet Alma to ask the Lord where the Lamanite armies were going to strike. He got his answer and sent the defenders where they were needed.
This is the photo that almost was... Ken and Elder Hubrich went to wash their hands after finishing the sand castle. Right after Sue took the photo, Ken fell over backwards and got hit by a wave. She put her finger over the lens for that picture. Nuts! Ken did the most swimming of the day.
We came back from the beach, got cleaned up and went to get haircuts. Above-mentioned Andre has a wonderful wife named Vanessa who is a hair dresser. During the lockdowns she would come to the Lines home to give haircuts in the back yard. Now she still does it for all of us. We love the photo of President Lines with the 101 Dalmations cape.
After haircuts, Ken had his Iowa Mormon Trails Association meeting on Zoom. It was the quarterly meeting with a report about his Allen Pioneer Memorial dedication, and also about the Council Bluffs seminar about the 175th anniversary of the exodus. He was voted a life-time member of IMTA.
We capped off the day with a lovely dinner with Lines and Hubrichs at Lupa's--a delicious Italian restaurant in Westville.
Sunday morning at 4:15am found Ken down at the Hubrichs to watch the BYU v. Univ. of Utah football game. For some reason ESPN would not work on the big computer, so they watched it all on the iPad. Sue woke up and came down for the last five minutes. BYU won 26-17! For the first win since 2009. There were a couple of off-years when they didn't play each other, so BYU broke the nine-game losing streak.
All good news this week — except for those pesky monkeys!
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