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.

One Sunday, one of our members showed up with some pretty fancy heels.
Elder Baxter thought they were worthy of photographing!

Pretty Fancy!

As you can see, life is definitely not boring around here!
But we wouldn't have it any other way!

The Blessings of Fasting and Prayer

Friday evening as I checked my email, I received a note from Crystal that at her doctor appointment that day, she was only 1 cm dilated and 60 % effaced.  The hospital was booked so they couldn't send her over for an induction.  She was to go back into the doctor on Tuesday since Monday was a holiday and they were closed, and the doctor would send her over from there.  She is already over her due date, and the baby is measuring almost 9 pounds on the ultrasound.  I knew that Jennifer was coming in on Sunday to help her and be with her since I'm not there to be with her after the baby is born.  I felt strongly that we needed to fast to get the baby here this weekend, so she could take advantage of having Jen there to help before she had to go home the following Sunday.  We started our fast Friday night.

Early Saturday morning, I checked my email to check on Crystal's condition and saw an email from Jill.  She said they had just gotten on their way to Utah at 6:37 p.m. The original plan was to leave by noon to make it to Caishalynne's graduation at 7:00, and still get things ready for Hunter's baptism on Saturday. Cody had had an allergic reaction to a medication for a sinus infection and had been violently throwing up. She asked me to keep him in our prayers, so they could still go ahead with Hunter's baptism the next day as planned. I immediately knelt down and included him in our fast and prayers.

I hurried through the laundry and cleaning and got ready to go to a teaching appointment outside Hazy View, over an hour from our flat.  We were doing Temple Preparation lessons for two sisters in our Branch.  We still needed to video my Baptism talk just in case skype didn't work for some reason or another.  We finished in time, but had to leave while it was still downloading on the computer.

We had a lovely lesson.  This single sister had her teenage daughter and six year old son come to be a part of the prayer and lesson, which was on the "Plan of Salvation".  The lesson went well.  We finished, had a closing prayer and got on our way.   It was a few minutes before 5:00, so we thought we were good for getting home in time to get the computer set up.  As we were driving down the lane to the main road, which is about 2 blocks over very deeply rutted roads, filled with tall four feet high grasses, and many large rocks.  We had to be careful that we didn't high center on some of the deep ruts in the road.  In order to dodge some of the pitfalls, we had to move to the left or the right of the ruts.  Not far from Thundiwe's house, Elder Baxter leaned to the left to avoid high centering.  All of a sudden, we heard a loud thud as the car's left front wheel dropped down and the car stopped.  When we tried to go, all the car did was spin it's wheels!  Elder Baxter got out and surveyed what had happened.
It looked as if the left front wheel had dropped into a large hole and was just suspended there! He tried to go forward, but again it just spun.  Lynn tried again, and all it did was just spin the wheel.

He got out the GPS to find the nearest wrecker.  No luck, the closest one was 15 K away and it was starting to get dark.  Even if they could come, they probably wouldn't be able to find us since the road was up a very curvy, rutted road with no street lamps.  Lynn's first words were,"I'm sorry but I don't think we're going to make it back in time for the Baptism!"  I told him that we HAD to be back.  There was no one else to give the Baptism talk.  He decided to walk back to Thandiwe's house to get her to see if she and her daughter and Lynn could push us out of the hole.  While they were gone, I said a silent prayer asking Heavenly Father to help us get the car out so we could make it back home in time.

Soon they came back, and began to push while I gave it a little gas and steered it.  Nothing happened!
The left front wheel continued to spin while the car sat there!  Thandiwe sent her little boy to the neighbors to come help.  Three very large, "Sumo Wrestler" type ladies came out, one was holding a baby.  They tried to push while I continued to give it a little gas, but nothing happened.  A few of the neighbors could see that the car was really stuck, and people started coming up the road and over the small hill to help.  Lynn spotted some cinder blocks down by a shed which he brought to put under the wheel to give it something firm to sit on.  Another fellow brought a small log to help.  None of these things helped.  One of the fellows said, "Let's just lift!"  It reminded me of the story that President Uchtdorf told about "Lift where you stand."  Still praying silently, on the count of three, they all lifted.  My gentle touch of the gas actually moved the car, and instantly, we were on flat ground!!  Everyone started to cheer!  I put the car in park and got out to inspect what had actually happened.  With tears running down my face, Elder Baxter and I kept thanking the people for the miracle they had helped to happen.

These were the people who helped save the day.  Thandiwe is the one in the red shirt, her daughter, Nolwazi, is next to her in the white blouse and her little boy, Thabiso, is in front of her.  I didn't have any treats with me at the time, but I promised to make treats and bring to them.

Some of the other people had already started walking home.

Fast forward two weeks.  Here are our helpers with the treats that 

we promised for their help that day!

This friend had already set her treats on the table where she was ironing.

She asked Thandiwe if we would come in and give a prayer on her house, so we did.

Thandiwe, Nolwazi, and Thabiso, after helping us deliver our treats.  

They are Branch members.

We finished our drive home and arrived a little before 6:30.  The Baptism was to start at 7:00, our time.  Elder Baxter turned on the computer, while I started some dinner. Just after it got booted up, Cody was ringing us on Skype to see if the connections were good. After a few minor adjustments, we were ready to begin.

We had the opportunity to talk with some of the family while we were waiting for the last ones to arrive.  Once again, I was silently thanking Heavenly Father that the technology was working so we could be a part of the Baptism.  Everything worked perfectly!  Hunter looked so handsome in his white baptism clothes.  I got teary just looking at him.  Soon we were ready to start.  Everything was perfect!  I was able to give my talk and Hunter kept looking at me so that I could speak right to him.  The rest of the program went as planned.  Hunter and Jill sang a "When Jesus Christ was Baptized".  It was so touching to have the baptism candidate sing about his own baptism.

We  couldn't see the baptism taking place, but we could hear the prayer and hear the splash as he was immersed.  After Hunter and Cody were redressed, Katherine or Gubby as her grandkids call her, gave a very nice talk on the Holy Ghost.  All the grandkids then sang, "When I Am Baptized".  Hunter was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by his dad, Cody.  The closing song was by Mikayla and Milayni.  It was one of my favorite songs, "If the Savior Stood Beside Me."

It was a beautiful service, and I felt it was nothing short of a miracle that we were able to be a part of it as well as participate in it.  I have definitely felt Heavenly Father's influence today in response to our fasting and prayers.  Even though Crystal didn't go into labor to be able to go to the hospital to have her baby, we felt that the Spirit had been with her as well to continue to help her body to get ready to deliver her her sweet princess.

Sunday as I checked my email, I noticed a comment from Cristee that she was at the hospital waiting for an x-ray and a C T scan.  I panicked wondering who had been hurt.  As I read further, I saw a picture of Aubryn, her 5 year old daughter with masive bruises on the side of her face and wearing a neck brace.  It turned out that Aubryn had been playing at her brother Treyson's ball game and decided to climb on a platform by the flag pole.  She fell and landed on the cement down below.  When she came to Cristee, she was walking strangely and couldn't talk.  When they realized she had been seriously injured, they hurried off to the E R.  Once again, blessings were pronounced on our family as the test results showed only a concussion.  Her speech returned and with some bed rest, she was the same bouncy energetic girl!  Another miracle!

When we began our fast Friday evening in Crystal's behalf, we had no idea of the additional blessings that would come from our fasting and prayers.  We feel very thankful for the blessings and miracles that we were blessed with that day!

Senior Retreat

Once a year, all the Senior Couples from our Mission, as well as President and Sister Omer get together for  a couple of days to refresh ourselves from our everyday work, and share some of our successes and challenges with the other senior couples.  This year, Elder  and Sister Taylor from Botswana were in charge of the Conference.  After checking out severals venue possibilities, they decided on the Lesedi Cultural Village near Pretoria.   This village is designed around each of the five different tribes from South Africa.  It was very unique.

We arrived arrived about 1:00 and had some time to unpack and relax before all the festivities began.

We were welcomed by some of their workers.  They were dressed in clothing of their particular tribe.

This was the village we stayed in.  I don't remember the names of each one.

Number 3 was on our room door.  They were very brightly painted!

The inside was decorated in the same manner.

You don't need headboards, you just paint the wall in whatever decor you want!

Even the bathroom was painted in the same fashion.

Although it looked quaint and authentic, behind the painted doors was a television.

Pretty sure the tribes didn't have those back then!

Everything followed the same theme.  Notice the painted baseboards and

the woven waste basket.

As soon as each of the other couples had arrived, and checked into their rooms, they took us on a tour of the village.  We were to see villages of each of the five tribes.

At each village, the guide told us a little about their homes and their way of life.

Each village had different kinds of homes.

These are called "Rondevals".  They are really talented the way

they weave their thatched roofs in a decorative way.

They told us about their weapons and what their lifestyle was like.

 They even paint their entryways to be decorative!

The huge elephant tusks at the entrance of this village gave a scary appearance.

They demonstrated some of their weapons. 

This little one was too tired to care much about the informative tour!

After the tour, we were treated to a program of dancing and drum playing.

This was a group of dancing gold miners , I think they actually called it

"The Gum Boot Dance".

They were very good, especially trying to dance with those tall rubber boots on!

These women wore beaded costumes.  They did a  lot of kicks in their dances.

One kicked so high, she nearly fell down.  They were really full of energy!

 This was sort of a bum bump dance. 

 All the dancers danced to drum beat and not to music.

After the dancers had finished, they did a drum demonstration.

They also passed out drums and let us learn as well.

They started out slow for some of us slow learners.  They then increased the speed.

Surprisingly enough, most of us were able to almost keep up with the drummer!

After the demonstration, we had a dinner break.  They served a traditional 

African buffet.  Some of the meats were beef, lamb, chicken, and ostritch.

There were several kinds of vegetables, and salads.  One thing I've noticed about African food,

is that is always looks better than it tastes.  Though I only took small portions, I struggled

to get more than a couple of bites of each thing.

After dinner, we gathered in one of the conference rooms.  Half of the couples took five minutes each to share what particular things they do as they are serving their mission.  It was fun to hear about their experiences.  We discovered that all of us had experienced some challenges, as well as some rewarding moments.  We finished off the evening with several kinds of games.   Laughter is always a good cure for whatever  ails you. 

The next morning after breakfast, was a free day.  They had several different activities that you could choose to do.  Many of us chose to do the  Tram ride.  On the way to the area, there was a large back up of cars.  After doing some checking, we discovered that a bus was stuck coming thru the gate.  After much twisting and backing, it was finally able to make it through.  Consequently, finally, so were we!

Even though it was kind of a hazy day, the view from up there was beautiful!

We got a bird's eye view!

All too soon, we were back on the ground!

After we had arrived safely at our take off spot, we headed for Chameleon Village for an afternoon of shopping at the African Markets.  There were many vendors trying to pedal their wares.  Each one saw our badges and called us by name saying, "Elder Baxter, come see my shop.  Please buy something from me for good luck to start my day!"  Even after telling then "No", they would follow us down the walkway telling us they would make us a "good deal".  We have learned that you never pay what they ask, and you never buy it on the spot.  If you want it, you walk away telling them you'll think about it.  They always come to find you with a lower price.  We actually did find some good deals on some African treasures.

We stopped for a picture before leaving these fun shops.

From there, we went to the Chameleon reptile zoo.  Elder Baxter was fascinated by the snakes, as they aren't his favorite things, but we did see some interesting ones.

You have to admit, even if you don't like snakes, this yellow and black one is definitely striking.  With it being Wasatch High's colors, I would have thought this one would have been Elder Baxter's favorite!

This one was all snuggled up having his afternoon nap.

This little monkey was sitting on the shoulder of the girl who was taking the entrance fee.

He immediately hopped down and began to take the money that she had just put into the cash drawer! 

 li

This was an interesting fellow, except he looked a little grumpy to me!

I bet he has to be careful of that tail getting caught in automatic doors!  Maybe it has,

and that's the reason for the grumpy face!  :)

Check out this little monkey's white pony tails!

When we walked outside the zoo to see some of the other reptiles, I was puzzled by the bunnies.

Uuum, I knew that bunnies weren't reptiles!  We found out they aren't, 

they're food for some of the reptiles - the snakes' main course!

After a full day of activity, we all met at the Swiss African Restaurant for dinner.  We ate out on one of the patios.  It was all set up and ready.  The only thing they forgot was to have enough waiters to accommodate 32 people.  It took forever to be served.  They had forgotten Elder Hunt's order.  We were all finished when they finally brought his dinner.  One of the kind couples who knew that we were waiting to talk to Sharielle who was planning to open her mission call, brought their laptop for us to try to call on gmail.  We actually weren't able to make connections with her until the next morning!

The conference room that we met in had murals on two of the walls.  They were beautiful, depicting some of their African History.

Whoever the artist was,  did an excellent job!  The paintings were  very life-like! This picture below depicts the fighting between the black Tribesmen and the white European Voortrekkers, who used oxen and covered wagons to travel inland from the Atlantic coast of Africa in the 1830's. 

After trying our hand one last time with the drums, we gathered up our things,

went to our huts to pack, and said our last good-byes.  The highlight of the morning was

that we were able to make connections with Sharielle, to find out that she is going to the

Florida, Tallahassee Mission, leaving July 24, 2013.  We are very excited to get the Missionary

roll going among our  grandchildren!  With bags and treasures securely tucked away in the "boot", we headed back to reality and the challenges and blessings of Missionary life, for which we are very thankful!