District Conference

We just returned from a District Conference today which was a first for us.  They hired 5 large buses to bring everyone here from the villages so everyone has a chance to be a part of conference.  Otherwise, it would be sparsely attended because most people do not own cars and most can’t afford a bus or taxi fare to come this far.  The travel distance varies between nothing for the locals to around 150 km for those farthest away. The conference was very good.  It was all done in English, but the individual accents people have made parts of it very difficult to understand.  The conference had an unusual format.  From 10:000-11:30 the priesthood and relief society met separately.  Then we had a break from 11:30-12:30 for lunch, followed by a 2 hour conference session.  Mom and Sister Mihu (downstairs) prepared some sandwiches for some of the people who came on the bus from poorer areas. 

In case any of you want to check our area in more detail, we are including a description of the areas for which we have responsibility.  We live in Tzaneen which is the location of one branch.  They have a group which is part of their branch that meets in Matuba, about 30km north of us.  There is another branch in the village of Madjadji, also about 30km in a north direction from us, but on a different road.  Then, there is a branch called Lenyenye which is about 30km east of us.  Another branch is located about 100km west of us in Polokwane.  It also has a separate group which is part of the branch and meets in Seshego, about 30km away. The other branch is in Mokopane, about 100km to the west and 50km to the south of us.  These 5 branches and 2 groups make up our district. 

In addition to our district we recently were asked to include two other branches which are over 4 hours away.  One is called Nelspruit, near the southern entrance of Kruger Park and another called KaNyamazane right at the park entrance.  You might have a hard time finding some of these small villages on the map.

Seminary and institute will not start until mid January, but it is our job to help them get started, make sure teachers have been called, train the teachers before and after it starts, and visit each seminary and institute once each month.  We are also supposed to teach a class periodically in each group to show them how it is done, but I’m not sure we will have enough days to do all of that. In addition, we are responsible to teach a 4 session Perpetual Education Fund workshop at each of the branches when they have candidates for this program.  We will do our first one this Saturday, and there is a total projection of about 25 for 2012.   Anyway, we will be doing a lot of traveling.   Some seminaries meet daily after school and some meet once a week.  The weekly program is referred to home study and the kids are expected to study daily at home and meet one time a week at the church.  Institutes generally meet one day a week.

Kruger Park is one of the biggest and most popular animal reserves where hunters and tourists go.  We hope to visit there in the coming months.  In addition, there are numerous smaller reserves filled with animals, some of which we hope to visit as we travel to/from our assignments. We have been encouraged to visit these sites in Africa as time permits

There are lots of new kinds of birds here in our city.  I don’t know their names but they wake me up every morning at 5am. Sometimes they are as loud as barking dogs when they get close.  We have cuckoo birds that sound exactly like our cuckoo clock at home.  We have a bird that Dan always mimicked from his jungle days in Peru.  I recognize the sound from Dan’s imitations around the home.  I have not been able to tie the sounds with the birds yet, but I’ll work on that.

Mom went to the ophthalmologist, eye specialist, a couple of weeks ago and he gave her a good report.  The glaucoma seems to have gotten better, without eye drops, and she has had a lot less pain.  He seems to be a real competent doctor who had spent quite a bit of time in the states.  We’re happy for that, but will check periodically to make sure things stay good.  I got some kind of a rash on one of my legs which included red spots all over, but they were painless.  The mission doctor thought it was related to the airplane ride here, but I don’t know.  They have since almost all gone away so I’m not worrying about it.  In general, we both feel very well health wise.  We take a morning walk for about an hour and have enjoyed that.

We have been spending a lot of time preparing lessons to train the teachers, which also means we are getting familiar with the Seminary and Institute lessons.  We will be teaching our first lesson on the Perpetual Education Fund this weekend.  Our days are getting busier.

I mentioned earlier that we need to prepay our internet costs, based on the amount of data traveling over the internet lines.  Every time we run out, we need to go to the store and buy more time.  But we can not buy more that a month’s worth because it expires in a month.  Well, the same thing happens with our power.  We buy power units and there is a meter inside our flat which tells us how much we have left in Rands (African currency).  If we don’t get to the store to buy more power, we will find ourselves without power the minute the meter runs out.  We’re about a week away from testing that system!  We’re still trying to get accustomed to these new ways of operating.