Sunday, December 13, 2015

Thanksgiving and Other Things

Every year the senior missionary couples plan and cook a Thanksgiving dinner for all the couples, Area Presidency and wives, and some invited guests.  This year we cooked for 72 people.  The only place large enough to accommodate this size crowd is the 3 car garage of the White House, where the Area Presidency lives.  We lovingly call it the basement.  We had so much good, traditional Thanksgiving food that we invited some of the workers to come and fill a plate for themselves.  We had beautiful decorations made from twig trees, rolls of toilet paper decorated up like pumpkins.  Elder Egan said it best when he described our lowly mission Thanksgiving in a garage with twigs and toilet paper rolls as decorations.  It sounds a lot worse than it was.  In fact it was perfect!  It was also time for the Primary Program in all the units.  Since it was a warm spring day, the Primary Presidency in Cosmo City provided watermelon in gratitude of a job well done.  With the heat of the days and the use of high volumes of electricity, load shedding is a constant.  One beauty salon at the mall got creative and came out of their store to use the plugs that were on the generator to finish the hair of their clients.  It is so fun to serve here!




The Joy of Mission President's Seminars

Mid-November all the mission presidents and wives in the Africa Southeast Area converged on Johannesburg for their semi-annual Mission President's Seminar.  We had three days of wonderful, enlightening, spiritual instruction and sharing.  The last day we visited Croc City and the Lion Park.  Both are within half an hour of downtown Jo'burg.  It was fun to get out of the city and enjoy the wonders of this beautiful country.  We saw baby crocodiles, an albino boa constrictor, and big old crocodiles. Chuck was brave enough to hold the boa as well as President and Sister Dunn who are friends of President and Sister Knudsen and serving as Mission President in the South Africa Johannesburg Mission.  We also got to pet the baby lion cubs.  Word of advice, they are still wild animals and they are babies, so they do bite!  Sister Merrill, from Angola, and Liz found that out the hard way!