Finally! Boyd gets to work on cars.

On Saturday, August 11 we had a missionary zone conference which we attended.  The seniors are invited, but not required to be in attendance. We usually go since we generally are asked to help provide a luncheon for the missionaries between the conference sessions.  And we did that again for this conference.  Mom attended the entire conference, but I only attended up through the lunch time.  Another senior and myself were asked to go and do a thorough check of each elder’s car during the last part of the conference.  They have a detailed checklist which requires us to check registration, cleanliness, seat belts, body damage, fluid levels, all lights, horn, etc.  So we spent about two hours doing this for all of the cars which were at the meeting.  So this was a new experience added to my repertoire of missionary work.  Later that night the mission president invited the Mihu’s and us to go have dinner together so we had a very enjoyable evening with
just 6 of us.  It has been nice to get to know President Omer and his wife on such occasions.
We are continuing to make our audit visits.  So far we have done three, with another one scheduled tomorrow and one more on Saturday.  That will leave just the district left to audit.  Since I am the financial clerk here in Tzaneen, I can not audit myself so a brother is coming up from Johannesburg to audit this branch on Saturday.  He has been auditing for years so it will be interesting to see how I should have been doing it! Over here, training is an exception; not a rule.
Mom continues to teach some of the sisters in the branch how to sew.  So far it has gone very well, and the sisters seem to enjoy it.  A couple who is going home in another months gave mom their sewing machine so that will make things move faster with two machines.  The first lesson was to teach them to make a bag, and now she is helping a sister make a skirt.
A couple of weeks ago we drove to Mokopane to do an audit—about a three hour drive.  We decided to spend the night since we had to do the audit late and didn’t want to drive home in the dark.  While there we received a phone call asking if we would speak at a young single adult conference in Polokwane, on our way home.  Since we never say no, we worked late Friday night and early Saturday morning to prepare something and then gave our talks.  Other than a few remarks from the District President, it turned out we were the keynote speakers.  To top it off, the person in charge failed to arrange for lunch for 50+people at an all day event.  As a last minute way to deal with this, he ordered pizza and some fruit, etc.  Unfortunately he brought no money so I had to foot the bill and was then reimbursed a few days later.  Again, an example of how things frequently go unplanned until the last minute. We stood up together and gave our remarks—something we
had never tried before.
Yesterday was the Mormon Helping Hands service assignment.  We decided to do some repairs on the desks at the grade school which we also use for our church services.  The branch president purchased 150 bolts thinking that would allow us to replace lost bolts and make repairs for most of the school.  As we got into the project, we found things much worse than anticipated.  We used all 150 bolts with just 3 classrooms so we’re thinking we might go out and do more repairs occasionally, since everything is in so bad repair.  They just don’t seem to have much money to maintain schools, particularly in the villages.
Today we had another visit from a church member from Bingham, Utah.  He works for a mining company, and comes here 2 weeks out of each month to do safety checks, etc.  He brought an investigator family—a man from South Africa who was married to a woman from Russia.  They seem like a great family, but live about 1-1/2 to 2 hours from here.  If they get taught and baptized, there will be no place for them to attend except to make a two hour drive here.  I think the missionaries were going to seek advice from the mission president.
We have started a choir in Matupa.  President Mihu is the leader and his wife plays the keyboard.  I sing alto and surprisingly Dad is trying to sing bass.  I think he will get it eventually (I’ll probably get it in the next life) .  This is his first attempt at choir.  It has been fun to watch the members learn how to sing the hymns.  Some do very well and some need more practice.   We have had 4 practices and have sung 4 times in Sacrament meeting.  
Winter has turned to summer (no spring).  One day it was winter and the next day it was summer.  No gradual change just one season to another, overnight.  Temperatures are in the high 80’s.  It won’t be long until we are wishing for the cool days to be back with us.
We hope all of you are doing well.