Getting Ready for Christmas

We usually start putting up Christmas the day after Thanksgiving.  This year, we had to leave early for Tzaneen to attend Zone Conference, so Christmas decorating got put on hold for a couple of days.  But that was fine, because we are always very spiritually fed at Zone Conference.  Elder Hunt rode up with us, as Sister Hunt had gong to DuBai to help with a new grand baby.

The next morning, we arrived early so I could get my rolls and desserts in the kitchen and have them ready to go in the oven in time for the luncheon.  We were to be in our seats by 8:00, ready to ponder, read scriptures and be in tune with the Spirit ready to be taught.

In the meeting, President Omer and the Assistants helped with some of the presentations.

President didn't do a straight lecture, but instead asked questions about the preassigned reading from Elder Holland' talk on the Atonement, and allowed the missionaries to give their thoughts on the subjects.

It was all very good and informative.  Sister Omer even took a few minutes to remind the Elders of things concerning their flats, good health habits, good eating habits, doctor visits etc.

As usual, we came away very spiritually fed and uplifted. In addition, we were fed physically as well.

 At the end of the Conference, the Elders were all eager to fill their plates with the delicious Thanksgiving dinner prepared by Sister Smith,  and other Senior Sisters from Nelspruit and Polykwane areas.

There was plenty, even for seconds.  The lunch was topped off with apple pie and carmelitas for dessert 

Before we all departed for our areas, we gathered for a group picture.

Coming home, the sun come out and it was much nicer for sight seeing.  We made a couple of stops, but because it was closing time, we only stopped at a few of sights.

Beautiful rock formations

The Three Rondavels

Some of God's beautiful creations!

On Monday, after the elders finished their emailing, we got out our Christmas things.  The tree and many of the things were already unpacked since we used them for our Branch Christmas party.  When we brought our things home after the party, I thought I was very clever and just took off the decorations but left the lights attached, and the tree put together so it wouldn't take so much time when we got ready to put it up at home.  Bad idea!  The car was too small for the tree to lie down in the back seat.  It got put in, but when we went to take it out, the top part of the tree was broken a little bit, and the lights got all squirrly and tangled.  It was very frustrating trying to get them off the tree and to put them on all over again.  Lynn became frustrated.  I was a little frustrated as well, we finally started working together and soon all of the tangled lights were off the tree.  It was actually funny when I had remembered seeing pictures of the Dad trying to hang Christmas lights and they were all a tangled mess.  If Christmas wasn't so much fun, it probably would have been enough to toss the whole mess in the garbage and forget it!  I even thought about cutting them all off and going to the store to get some new ones!  However, invisioning what the tree would look like if we ever got them all untangled and put back on, we continued to work. We persevered and soon we had all 5 sets of lights off, and were to ready to take the tree to the living room and start decorating it again.

It turned out  prettier than the first time!

Our little stockings await Christmas Eve.

Our table in the front entry.  The small Nativity was hand made from banana skins in Kenya.

We looked all over Nelspruit last year and could only find the small one that is on the coffee table. 

Jeanette found this one in Deseret Book last year.  We laughed that an African made

Nativity had to be bought in Utah!  :)

This is my gift to me.  We saw this hand carved ebony Nativity in a little market in Joburg.

The facial features were so well done, I could not pass it up.  After bartering with the man

several times throughout the day, he finally came down to a price that I could afford. 

I couldn't resist!

Can you see why?

Our coffee table with some of last year's things.

Our front entry

Our festive front door

We even had to make our bookcase look festive!

Our African animals are even decked out for the holidays!

The kitchen had to look a little festive as well.

Now that our house is all decorated with as much as we had to decorate with, 

and the space that we had to decorate, 

we are ready to enjoy the holidays!

Our Branch Christmas Party

Last Christmas season, we had a Branch Christmas Party planned.  Early in December, we had an outbreak of mumps, and the party had to be  cancelled in order to eliminate the possibility of the whole Branch coming down with the mumps.  The few cases that we had get passed around to several others, including our Branch President.  He ended up in the hospital with meningitis as a complication of the mumps.  The bottom line was, we never had a Christmas party.

Because we hadn't had a Branch Council in almost two months, we hadn't started planning a party for this year.  When we did finally meet, it was almost the end of November.  We brought up the possibility of a Christmas party, and with the school nearing the end, and people leaving for holiday to visit family, many people were going to be leaving early in December and wouldn't be back until January when the children started school again.  It was finally decided to have it the following Saturday, November 23.  This meant that we wouldn't be having Church before the party was to be held, so there was the chore of contacting everyone.  The Primary President had a little Nativity Play that she said she would take charge of assigning parts for the entertainment part.  They usually just do games.  Our Branch President didn't want to have a Braii, (B B Q) because that took too long and all the men would be down doing the cooking and wouldn't be able to be a part of the happenings.  It was finally decided that Lynn and I would be in charge of the main course and the Relief Society and Young Women Organizations would assign out the other food.

So with less than a week to get things ready, we started working on a menu, decorating etc., as well as sending out mass SMS's (texts) to everyone.  We decided to do Chicken Salad on rolls for the main course and salads , desserts, and drinks to finish off the menu.  People don't do any decorating for Christmas over here, in fact almost no ones even puts up a tree.  In order for it to feel like Christmas, we had planned to take over our small tree and what other decorations we had to make it feel festive.

Friday after District Meeting, we began to haul in all our things to get the Primary rooms set up for the Party.  We would have the Nativity in the Chapel area and then move into the Primary room for the eating.  This was the final result:

Our wonderful tree!

Our new item this year - a lighted angel.

We tried to put a little Christmas something for each table.

We set up chairs along the side for overflow.  We're thinking positive!

This was on the serving table.  We put our little music box in the middle so it wouldn't be handled too much.  It was sound activated and played "Let it Snow" whenever a loud sound happened.  Then snow would start falling down in the background as it lit up.  This was the delight of all the kids.  They couldn't figure out what made it start playing all of a sudden.  Some of the little preschoolers even carried small chairs from the nursery to stand on to get a bird's eye view of it.

On the back side of the table was our little Nativity.  It was the only one we could find last year.

We put the drinks on a separate table to avoid some spills onto the food.

Getting the food set on ready for the invasion of hungry people.

Nicholas was our first narrator for the start of the Nativity.

Each speaking part was followed by a Christmas Carol by one of the Branch organizations.  

This group was the Relief Society.

Mary (Sarah) and Joseph ( Bryan) arrive in Bethlehem. 

Nolwazi does her part of the narration.

The Branch Presidency & Elder Baxter contribute to part of the music.

The Shepherds on their way to see the Baby Jesus.  

Dressing the Shepherds was a production in and of itself!

The angels and shepherds herald in the birth of the Savior. (Baby Zande)

The Young Women Leaders add to the music also.

Despite all the last minute preparations, no rehearsal, and confusion and excitement of the children, it really turned out nice.  Everyone felt the real Spirit of  the Christmas Season.  We then went into the Primary room for the luncheon.  Unfortunately Lynn and I were so busy keeping trays and bowls refilled and drinks poured to avoid spills, we didn't think to give our camera to the Elders to take some pictures of people enjoying their meal.    The atmosphere and the spirit that was there, made the members just want to hang around and visit and enjoy the beauty of the day as they set their minds to the beginning of the Christmas season.  Even though many members had to work or had car problems, we had about  70 members and investigators in attendance.  Needless to say, there wasn't a crumb left afterward.

To finish off the occasion, I had made White Stockings, so  each family could take one home.  This was Jesus' stocking.  On Christmas Eve, each family member would write on a small piece of paper what gift they would gift to Jesus.  This would be something that they would do individually to bring them closer to the Savior, and help them to grow spiritually.  The papers would be put into the stocking, then the next Christmas, when the decorations come out again, the stocking would be hung on the tree.  On Christmas Eve, the papers would be taken out and each gift read, and the person would decide how well they did on the gift that they committed to give to Jesus.

Even without a lot of planning, or time for people to schedule this event on their calendar, we felt that it was very successful and the members came away with a joyful, meaningful feeling of Christmas!

South African Thanksgiving - 2013

We are always excited for the holidays, and this year was no exception.  With Thanksgiving soon at hand, I started planning the menu.   This was not difficult as I am such a traditionalist, I started planning the same things that we usually have.  Sister Hunt had to be in DuBai to help with a new grand baby, since her son had to be in Nigeria for work.  The timing interfered with our Thanksgiving Day plans, but that was fine.  We didn't have another senior couple last year and I managed to do the preparations all by myself.  This year it would actually be easier since I actually had a stove top and oven, which I didn't have last year, as mine died during a thunder and lightening storm the day before Thanksgiving.  I was way excited to have such modern facilities right at my fingertips.

We did our shopping for the feast.  We knew that turkeys would be a challenge, so we started shopping early for them.  Several of the ones I saw had an inch of frost on the inside of the package, so I knew they were old and had been in the freezer for a long time.  I did find some at another store.  They even had the pop up timer in them.  I was excited!  "They're getting more modern every year in Africa", I thought.  The only problem was, they were very small.  They were even smaller than the regular turkey breasts that I usually buy at home.  Even though there would be 7 of us, I thought I should get two  just to be sure.  You know, these Elders eat a lot!

These sweet little turkeys, getting ready for the pan.

With the groceries all bought, I was set.  I just needed to plan my schedule, since I was to bring all the rolls for the luncheon for Zone Conference.  They had also planned to do a Thanksgiving dinner.  I thought this was a little much to have a dinner on Thursday and and another one on Saturday.  But, since I wasn't in charge of it,  I just did my food assignment and kept my mouth shut!  On Tuesday, I made my rolls for Zone Conference, 90 of them, and put them in zip lock bags and put them in the freezer to take out Friday morning when we left.  This way, I would have these preparations out of the way and wouldn't have to  do it Thanksgiving night.

These were just a few of the many that I made.  

The good thing was, they turned out nice!  Hooray!

.

On Wednesday morning, I had my day planned to a "T".  About    8:30, we received a message from Jennifer that she was in town, and would I like to go Visiting Teaching with her?  Great, this wasn't on my schedule today, only food preparations!  However, I thought what a sacrifice it is for Jennifer to come over an hour to Nelspruit  and the expense involved for taxi fare.  I also knew that when you do the Lord's work first first, everything else falls into place.  So I changed my schedule and told her, "Yes, I could go Visiting at 10:00, and told her I would pick her up at the Church at that time.

I got another call from a member who lives an hour away in another direction saying she was in Nelspruit and could I pick her up and take her to Kamagugu to pick up her baby from the other Grandma's.  So I met her and picked her up, then went to the Church to get Jennifer, then to Kamagugu to drop Trish off,and we started off to do Visiting Teaching.  Several people weren't home, but we were able to catch two of the sisters.  We came back to our flat.  I fixed her some lunch and then dropped her off at the taxi area for her ride back home.

At 3:00, I finally  started on my pies, dressing and other food preparations.  Surprisingly enough I was able to get most everything finished without staying up all night!  Actually the Lord blessed me to be able to get these things done in a timely manner.

These sweet turkeys are getting ready for the pan.

All went well with my other preparations with the exceptions of the turkeys.  I noticed that on the bag that the turkey was packaged in, it said, "Packed with Brine"  I wasn't sure what brine meant.  I soon found out when I went to make the gravy on Thursday.  When I was bringing it to a boil to make gravy, I tasted a little bit of it to see if it was flavorful enough.  Wow!  what a surprise.  The broth was so salty I could hardly stand it.  I couldn't understand why it would be so salty, because I had rinsed it well.  I tried everything I could to downplay the salt factor, but it was still bad.  Even the turkey was very salty when we sliced it.  Oh well, we would just have to put lots of dressing and cranberries on it!

We had been able to find real orange sweet potatoes this year.

Last year, all we could find was white!

The pumpkin and lemon meringue pies were all done and were waiting on the shelf on the patio.  

The banana cream pie was in the fridge.

The table was set and ready/

Elder Saintonge and Elder Flynn were strumming and chillin' 

while we waited for the KaNyamazane Elders. 

Elder Baxter donned his African Apron while he sliced the turkey.

The dinner is finally ready!  

Turkey, cranberries, potatoes & gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, 

fruit salad and rolls, and 3 kinds of pies!

                  Despite the earlier problems, the meal seemed to be enjoyed the Elders.

Starting on the left:  Elders Flynn, Elungu, Hunt, Baxter, Saintonge, & Kolani.

Making memories!

                             While we were all together, we held our District Meeting
                    since we had to leave early in the morning for Tzaneen for Zone Conference.

We enjoyed our pies after we finished with our meeting.

Thanksgiving was a new experience for our two African Elders, but they seemed to enjoy most of it.
                        They each got to fix another plate to take home with them for later.

It ended up being a very good day!  Our last Thanksgiving in South Africa!

More African Adventures

Besides being able to see all the exciting sights of South Africa, Joyce and Nadine were just as curious to see just what we did as missionaries.  They enjoyed going with us on visits and meeting the people who we call our "Family".  Truly, some of them call us "Mom & Dad"  We love it.  We feel very honored!

They came with us to visit Sister Jennifer.  

She is probably one of the most dedicated members in the whole branch.

These are some of Jennifer's little neighbor children who come to purchase a small snack from her little daughter, Senethemba.  They let us take their picture.  

The large tubs under her house are used to do her washing.

We had plates of cookies to deliver to say "Happy Halloween".

This is Nomvula and her two little boys Thabiso and Bandile.

This her daughter Nallie and her niece Phyllis.

They are 13 & 14 years old.

These are Lucky and Nokuthula twins, Omphile on the left and Lebohand on the right.

I sewed a piece of ribbon on the stem of this Halloween hat and 

it made a great door decoration!

I was lucky enough to find some Jack o lantern lights.  I was excited to hang these on our gate of the patio.  Good thing we took a picture the first night, because the next night when we went to plug them in, they didn't work!  :(  Go figure, the tag said, "Made in China")

This is the McCarthy Family, Frick, who is Adri's brother, Adri, the Primary Second Counselor, and her husband Barney, the Second Counselor in the Branch Presidency.

Thandiwe, her daughter, Nolwazi and the little brother, Thabiso.

One morning as we were on our way to another adventure, we saw some women 

with their loads on their head.  Over here, this is very common.

These ladies took the prize for the biggest loads.  They were gathering their loads of wood to be able to cook their meals for a few days.  In addition to carrying her load of sticks, she also picked up her baby and put him in her towel or blanket to carry him.  These women are amazing, and very hard working.  This picture was taken at 8:00 a.m. and they had already gathered this much firewood.  

While traveling through a little town called Graskop, we went into a little antique shop.

They had several old hats with a sign that said. "Feel free to try one on"  So I did!  I think I could fit right into the culture here, as they always wear a fancy headdress to match their outfit.

Pretty stylin', wouldn't you say?  (Hope I don't get head lice from that bit of fun!)

In order to give Joyce and Nadine a taste of genuine African culture,

we made arrangements to visit the Shangana Cultural Village, not too far from where we stay.

Outside one of the huts in the village.

A picture with the Chief of the Village.

Some of the dancers acting out the history of the village.

 One of the Warriors.

Toward the end of the show, they gathered people from the audience to dance with them.

Lynn even joined with them to do the hand clap gum boot dance. 

The Witch Doctor prepares her magic potions to help cure the Chief when he is ill. She tossed rocks and shells and then reads them to help decide what to do to treat the patient.

After the program, they served a traditional African dinner of rice, vegetables, pap, fruit,

shrimp, two kinds of fried worms, one was like this one, and another lighter in color, shrimp, chicken,

and hot bread.  Some of us passed on the fried worms, But Elder Baxter tried both kinds. Not too bad".

It was an interesting, informative, and fun evening!