Now that seminary is going in most of the areas, we decided to visit one of the seminary classes in the small village of Modjadji(Mod ja je). This is about 25km from where we live. The seminary teacher is teaching seminary in her home. We drove to her home at 4pm in the afternoon, which was when seminary was held, and just barely made it with the car because it is an unmaintained very steep dirt road which had been washed out very badly. The students walk 2-3 miles and up this steep road to attend seminary with scriptures and manuals.
Her home consisted of 2 rectangular, premade structures about the size of two DI trailers in the parking lot. They each contain one door and a couple of windows. It had electricity but no running water. The teacher used to carry the water from a central spot up the hill to her home on her head, but has recently advanced to using a wheelbarrow to carry it. It was a very humbling experience to be a part of this seminary class. The students are strong in the knowledge of the gospel and very committed to learning about the Old Testament.
She had a table set up in her home with room for her 7 seminary students and herself. Since it was very hot, she had two fans blowing on the kids and provided glasses of water for them. She had no blackboard but had taken scraps of cardboard or masonite and had written on them with magic markers. But all that aside, she did a very good job teaching and the kids participated very well.
The young people study the gospel and seem to understand it well. Of course, there are no distractions such as TV, video games, and the like. English is their second language so they struggle in that area, depending on how well they were taught in school. Our testimonies are growing as we attend many seminary classes here in South Africa.
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It is hard to drive away from church or seminary in your new car as others walk long distances or catch taxi’s to their homes. We have one family who lives 2-1/2 hours from the church and drives here and back home most every Sunday. It would be like driving from Santa Clara to Sacramento and back each Sunday to go to church. She teaches a home seminary to her two sons, but has a calling here in our branch. This family has invited us and 3 other senior couples to come visit them this coming week for a barbeque. There is a river boat service near their place that takes you up the river to see crocodiles and hippos so we’ll have to check that out. There is also a mini-Grand Canyon over the mountain and they said they would take us up to the top of a hill so we can see it from the top. We’ll let you know how that works out.
We are busy collecting reports and entering the data into the church’s data base. We have started making our rounds this month to see how things are going in each of the seminary classes. There are about 20 classes, but some are struggling and need a lot of help to survive.
Mom is baking some cookies which we are taking to an institute class in just a few minutes.
We hope all of you are doing well.
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