Baxters in Africa: This and That

As I was scanning through our pictures, I've noticed several pictures that haven't been put on the blog, so I've decided to just randomly add those to the blog so can see the bits and pieces of our life lately.

This is a bloom of my new hibiscus plant. They are so big and beautiful, but they only stay that way for about three days and then they curl up and drop off.

I enjoy them anyway!

What a beautiful sight to see when I come out of my house to see these beautiful blooming flowers!

The Elders helped to deliver the new fridge and get it into our flat.
The KaNyamazane Elders used their Bakkie (truck) to move our fridge to our Elders flat.
They just live 2 rows below us in the same complex.
Elder Baxter and Elder Martin were in the back helping balancing the fridge.
Getting out of the bakki, Elder Baxter went to step down. Instead of the bumper being flat,
it was rounded and his foot slipped off of it and he fell onto the ground!
He had a large bruise all along the inside of his arm, and his tailbone has pained him for several weeks. He's lucky he didn't break something! I got there with the camera too late for the action!
Sorry, no pictures! :(

They got it into place, and Elder Martin adjusted the legs on the bottom so it would sit level.

Voila, My new fridge! It's way taller than I am!
If I stand on my tiptoes, I can each the top shelf!
However, I just can't see what it is I'm trying to reach! :~

Senethemba, Jennifer's daughter, asked me if I would show her how to make cinnamon rolls like the ones I brought for break snack when we were watching General Conference. I told her I would. Her Mom had been coming to our house to use the sewing machine to sew aprons that the Young Women were doing for the Mothers for Mother's Day. It was a National Holiday and the kids were out of school, so she came with her Mom and we had a Baking day. She was quite the little baker for 12 years old. She's mixing the dough for the rolls.

She also wanted to make Brownies. Her School was having a "Market Day" and she wanted to bring Brownies and Cinnamon Rolls to take to sell. Since she wasn't sure when the "Market Day" was, the plan was to put them in baggies and put them in the freezer and then take them out the day of the sale and they would be all ready. She lives about 1 1/2 hours away, so we had to do them early.

Here we are with the finished product--well the Brownies anyway. The cinnamon rolls are on pans in the freezer. When we know when the "Market Day" is, I will take them out of the freezer. We will bake and frost them, and put them is bags ready to sell.

She picked up on this business thing and the last time we went to visit her Mom, we saw a sign on the gate that said something about "corn" and some other words in another language. She was selling popcorn and the neighborhood kids were coming to buy the little bags of popcorn for 2 rand each.

She had quite a business going!

This is the Birthday Girl, Naomi. We visit her family, well we did until about 6 weeks ago when they said they didn't want our visits anymore. It was her birthday and we had brought a treat and a gift to her. She had a friend there to play while her parents were at work. She is an only child and always lites up whenever we came to visit. I feel sad that they don't want our visits anymore. Her dad is a returned Missionary and her Mom was a Relief Society President when they lived in Joburg. I still send Phumeza messages so she knows that I care about her, but she has only answered once.

Despite the gorgeously beautiful greenery that is all around where we live, we did see signs of fall as the winter season was approaching. In the higher elevations, the temperatures drop in the evenings so they do get some "autumn leaves" like we have at home.

It just seems strange to see these autumn colors in May!

Even though there are autumn leaves in the higher elevations, we still have beautiful flowering trees in town. When one kind finishes blooming, another kind starts. We have flowering trees all year round!

Just can't get enough of these beautiful flowering plants over here.

This plant gets a beautiful pineappley looking bloom in the CENTER of all the green foliage.

This larger plant has several blooms hidden underneath!

We have many of these spiney looking plants around our complex.

We even had a small one on our patio when we came. It didn't really look like anything other

than green prickly spines, so I gave it to one of the gardeners to plant in the ground

where it had more room to grow. Little did I know that they got a beautiful tall orange bloom on them in the winter! Just proves the "Ugly Duckling" theory is true in other things as well.

Good lesson for all of us as we prejudge people. We don't really know the beauty Heavenly Father has in store for them down the road. We need to look for that inner beauty in everyone!

This beautiful plant looks like an orchid bloom. I'm not sure what it is called.

Wherever we drive, we encounter beauty! And it's the middle of the winter, mind you!

Game night with Elder and Sister Hunt. They are diligently pondering what items they

need to buy in the game "Crossing the Prairie". It's much like the game, "Oregon Trail."

Trying to decide what we will take on our Pioneer journey

Happy Father's Day, Lynn!

In Roodeport, a suburb of Joburg, one of our Sr. Couple friends, told us to stay away from the area with the large red ball on top. That is a very bad crime district. One day after a doctor appointment, we were looking for a post office, and accidentally got caught in the middle of these streets.

We were glad to have found our way out of it.

Interestingly enough, just a block below the red ball is the steeple of the

Johannesburg Temple. Just goes to show you how close Satan tries to get

to those things that are beautiful and of a Godly Nature.

Elder Hanarade's first-ever birthday cake in 22 years.

First time ever to blow out candles! Aren't missions fun? !

Driving to Barberton one afternoon to visit the Mashiles, we saw this enormous rainbow!

We thought surely there must be a huge pot of gold at the end of it, but there were too many trees

in the area to find out! :(

Birthday time for Larraine. She is one our favorite waitresses at the Cicada restaurant.

One of the Senior Couples placed a Book of Mormon with her when they stopped to have dinner

one evening. She was baptized a few months later.

All of her family is in Zimbabwe, so we took a cake over to her so it felt like her birthday.

It was her first birthday cake as well.

I don't know who was more excited - she or her coworkers!

There's never a dull moment around here. Oftentimes when you stop at the robot,

(stoplight) there will be young fellows with their faces painted white doing their "mime"

performance for you. Of course they're hoping for a few coins for their performance.

When our car wheel dropped in a hole, our member's neighbors came to the rescue to

lift it out. We were able to make it to Hunter's baptism. We told them we would bring treats for a thank you for their help. Here is one of the helpers.

Here is another lady whose boys also came to help. We we knocked at her door and told her what
we wanted, she asked us to come in and leave a blessing on her home, which we did.
She was grateful for our visit.

This is Thandiwe and her two children whose house we went to visit initially.

A couple of weeks ago, President and Sister Omer came to our area to do interviews and sign
recommends for the temple and for Patriarchal Blessings. He was here Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Friday after Zone Meeting, and before President started more interviews, Sister
Hunt and I prepared lunch for everyone. President and Sister Omer are at the end of the table.
Coming up the right side are Elder Coon - Zone Leader, Elder Parrish,Elder Moyo, Elder Madebe, across the table going down is Elder Martin, Elder Litchford, Zone leader, Sister and Elder Hunt.

While President Omer was in interviews, I thought Sister Omer might want some help making her

place mats with the fabric Sister Moss and I had bought on an earlier trip when he was here for interviews. She has such a busy schedule, she hadn't had time to get hers done.

With Sister Hunt and I helping, we were able to get all nine of them done.

To make the time go faster while waiting for their interviews, the Elders got creative
and decided to play a dice game.

The Zone Leaders joined us for our District Meeting. It was the last time Elder Holman, front row, left side, would be here with us, as his mission was finishing the next week, so we had to gather for a picture.

Every year in Nelspruit, they have a huge celebration called, "In the Bush".
It's kind of like an Art Festival. A few weeks before the celebration, they put up flags along the streets, and run wire along the island to keep people from jay walking to get to the festival.
The fence looked like Candy Cane Lane.

Talk about Christmas in July! This is my poinsettia from last Christmas.
By the end of January, it was looking rather straggly with only a couple petals of red, and very few green leaves. At this point, I usually just toss the plant, but since I had a covered patio and it was summer here, I just set it out there and gave it water occasionally when I went out to water the other plants. A few months ago, I started giving it some fertilizer when I did my other plants. Suddenly, leaves started coming back and then bits of red, and now look at the beautiful blooms! Not sure if it will survive until Christmas! :) We'll see.