On the Road Again

Dear All,

We have found that senior missionaries can be as busy as they want to be while serving. There is always something to do and, as was the case this past week, often more to do than time allows. 

A main focus last week was to prepare a home for a new couple, Elder and Sister Stevenson, who will soon arrive in the mission. They will be serving in East London, a city with a population of about 750,000 and located 175 miles to the East of where we live. We drove a pickup truck and trailer loaded with appliances and furniture, along with an assortment of other items needed by the Stevensons during their service. We worked with Elder and Sister Davies, another couple who serve in that area, to prepare everything that is needed for a comfortable life in the nice little two bedroom home which was rented.  One of the benefits of the trip was to see several missionaries who have served in our area during the past months. Missionary reunions, no matter the circumstances or length of time in between, are very special occasions. 

We will return to East London this coming week and spend some time instructing the Stevensons relative to their specific responsibilities and life in South Africa in general. It will be nice to become acquainted with another missionary couple. While in East London we also plan to tour the Mercedes Benz factory, something we have heard is very enjoyable.  

While in East London, our mission president asked us to travel to Mthatha, a town of about 150 miles East of East London with a population of about 100,000 people and on the far Eastern edge of our mission. Our assignment was to conduct a special interview and to give encouragement to the missionaries there. We have 4 Elders serving in the area, one of whom is our dear Elder Ivins, with whom we served in Motherwell more than 6 months ago. It was such a pleasure to be reunited with him and to see how he has grown as a missionary. 

Our new Mission President, President Lebethoa, was here this past Friday and Saturday to oversee training and conduct interviews of the 28 missionaries who serve in our area of responsibility. We are now blessed to serve under a second leader who is a master teacher and we greatly enjoy the instruction we are receiving as missionaries.  President Lobethoa, now 41 years old, told us of his conversion to the gospel when he was in his early twenties and of the first callings he received. The first was received right after his baptism and was as a counselor in the stake mission presidency. Not long after he was called as a high councilman and was told he would need to be ordained a High Priest and he said, what's that? Well, in a relatively few years he has certainly learned what it is to be one with the responsibility to preside and how to bless the lives of others. We look forward to continuing to be led by him and to gain more insights from him relative to gospel principles.  

      

Life is good in the mission field. We meet new people every day and have met very few who are not open to speaking with us. Most are extremely kind and many we come to love soon after meeting. Without doubt, the greatest joy in life comes from our association with family and friends. We are so very grateful that these relationships can be forever!

All our love,

Elder and Sister Watson 

This is Mike and Phebie Rugara and their girls, Lynn and Lianda. They are converts from Zimbabwe who will be united as an eternal family in the temple next month. We love this little family and have greatly enjoyed helping them prepare for this special event. (BTW, the large belly on the old guy is indicative of the great food here.) 

One advantage of road construction stops is that we meet very nice sales roadside salespeople. The orange on her face is a sunscreen. She is working hard for little money. Five Rand got us two lolly pops and the photo...not a bad deal.

We loved meeting these missionaries in Mthatha and especially seeing dear Elder Ivins (next to the old guy) once again. He has a special place in our hearts, and in the hearts of many others here.  

Picture above:  It was an extreme pleasure to interview "KK" as she prepares to be baptized. She is one of the sweetest and most faithful people we have met here. She owns and operates the "Sugar Shack", the little roadside stand pictured behind the group and where she sells all sorts of handmade linens. She lives in the garage of the home in the back with here two children. She has an ever-present and infectious smile. We love KK! 

Goodbye Tent

Dear All,

Well, the big news is that the Motherwell Branch was able to secure a new meeting place and move out of the tent. Even though we are in the middle of winter we had been very fortunate to enjoy reasonably good weather while worshiping there theses past 3+ months. The main problem has been the dirt and dust being stirred up, and that there were no chalk boards for use in teaching. Anyway, our new meetinghouse is another school. We will use five classrooms, none of which is very large. We had about 90 people at church on Sunday and every chair was taken, so no room to grow. 😩 There is one large classroom but another church is using it.  They meet on Saturdays so we suggested that we ask about sharing with them, with us taking it on Sundays. The branch president wasn't too keen on the suggestion but maybe he'll change his mind. It was wonderful being  in a real building however. Maybe next week we'll even have electricity. 😊   

We spent an afternoon at the South African National Arts Festival this past week in Grahamstown (1.5 hour drive from our home) and enjoyed seeing a huge exhibit of the native arts and crafts. We also attended a performance of song and dance that evening. The majority of the performances were by Xhosa, who are native to this part of the country. It was a wonderful show and gave us a great overview of the music and dance which is part of the Xhosa culture. The best part of the performance was watching the faces of each person on stage. They truly put their whole hearts into what they were doing and obviously loved performing. This is quite representative of how they live their lives, with lots of emotion and passion.

Yesterday was quite a day, and was somewhat representative of our mission, in that it was filled with diversity and even some drama. In the morning I pick up the Motherwell Elders at the auto dealership after they dropped their car for service. I took them to their home and left them with two bicycles to use for the day. (They were quite excited about being on bikes for the day, even though it is about a 30 minute bike ride to their area.) We went shopping for items for our storehouse (cleaning supplies, kitchen utensils, etc). We went to the bank for business which took about 4 times as long as it would in the US. We then went to see a woman in the large public hospital here in Port Elizabeth. She is a member who happens to be from Grahamstown. She fell and suffered a severe fraction which will requires surgery. It took us about 30 minutes to locate her, as there is no central registry. Even though she came to the hospital the day before, she was still in the "Casualty", department, which is equivalent to the ER. There must have been 70 to 80 people in this department just laying or sitting on gurneys and waiting for care. One nurse finally gave us her attention and pointed to the area where the sister should be. So, we went around the area calling her name with no results. Finally, one person pointed to a lady sleeping and said "I think that is her". Thankfully it was her and we had a nice visit. We asked what she might need and she said soap and a skirt. She had forgotten to bring them, so we headed off to a nearby store to buy them for her. She was very appreciative when we returned. By this time it was mid afternoon and we headed to Motherwell to visit members and teach a couple preparing for marriage. As we approached Motherwell we received a call from one of the Elders. They had pushed their bikes to the township and had gone walking on splits with two of our local fellowshippers. One fellowshipper is Mzolisa (Mzo) Mgqali, a young man who has been preparing for many months to serve a mission but has been rejected because he has diabetes and it hasn't been well controlled. So, the Elder told us that Mzo was not feeling well and he asked if we could check on him at a member's home where he had stopped. When we arrived Mzo was in a comatose state and was completely unresponsive to us. We immediately gave him a blessing and then carried him to our car and headed for the Motherwell Health Center. By this time it was well into the evening and just the small Casualty Center was open. We carried him in and laid him on a gurney where a nurse soon came and checked his blood sugar, finding that it was dangerously low. She started an IV to correct the situation so we took off to pick up the other missionary and took the fellowshipper who was with him home. We then picked up the bicycles which were nearby and headed back to the Health Center. By the time we arrived Mzo was sitting up and being his old self, so we took him home. By the time we dropped the Elders off at their boarding and got home it was after 9:00 PM, and were very tired, as we are every single day of the week.  

To say that the sights, sounds, tastes, and the smells, of South Africa are unique is certainly an understatement. As time has passed our ability to feel comfortable with them has increased to where we now embrace it all and are very much at home. Above all, the people are what make this part of God's creations special. We love them and hope that our time here will help bring them a bit closer to heaven.

All our love,

Elder and Sister Watson

Pictured above: Elders Paskett and Nkosi are Zone Leaders and they accompanied us to Knysna and George to visit our missionaries and provide training. It was a real treat for all since it is about a 4 hour drive from Port Elizabeth and not often visited.    

We see many of the Xhosa women carrying large burdens on their heads. However, this one was somewhat unique, and she was going up a steep hill. She laughed when we asked for the photo. Wish you could see her bright happy face, even while under such a load.   

Here are Elders Hernandez (Mexico), Nkosi (South Africa) Latu (Samoa) and Paskett (Cedar Hills, Utah). Elder Paskett made a traditional Xhosa meal for us on Saturday...no utensils required. 

I had the privilege of interviewing this young man recently as he prepared for baptism. He was introduced to the church by his friend pictured with him who is a recent convert, and who is preparing to go on a mission. His English is lacking so she interprets for him each Sunday. His knowledge of the gospel is really quite amazing. A challenge for him has been to forgive his mother and father. He never knew his mother and his father abandoned him when he was young. It was an honor to help him get past that and to see the relief he found thereafter.