Work, Play and Devotionals

We are having some lovely "Winter" weather - reminds us of Summer in Alaska.  We haven't needed coats yet and have only had two windy, cold, wet days that felt like winter.  Our flats do not have central air or heat so we have a little space heater that follows me around through a couple of rooms. Works really good and we are more than comfortable.

Work continues to be good.  This week we have patrons from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (French speaking), Kenya, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique (Portuguese speaking).  I am still amazed that even without a translator we are able to do the things we need to do to help them prepare their paperwork before going up to the temple.  Google translator is a big help and putting Family Search in whatever language we need to also a huge help.  Of course, the real reason for our success is that we receive help through the Holy Spirit that inspires us and then we all seem to understand each other.  It is fun to see how the Spirit works through, not only us, but our patrons as well.

The temple is going to be closed through the month of August.  That means that the family history centre will also be closed.  So, we will start traveling to do training.  Al and I leave tomorrow for Bloemfontein, South Africa where we will hold two training sessions on Friday and Saturday. When we return we will head off to spend a few days visiting a game reserve in Pilanesburg.  The following Friday we will fly out to East London, South Africa for another training session. After we finish in East London, we plan to rent a car and drive down the coast to Cape Town for a few days.  The nice thing about being a senior missionary couple is that we are always encouraged to go and see the country where we are serving.  We will fly back to Johannesburg from Cape Town and then drive to Swaziland to meet up with Brent, Charlene and three of their children who are coming for a visit.  We will check in with a couple of the wards in Swazi while we are there and see how their family history consultants are doing.  When we train we invite the Ward/Branch Family History Consultants, Stake FH Directors, High Priest Group Leaders, High Councilman over family history and Stake and Ward leaders.  We like to do as much "hands on" training as we can if they have computers.  Unfortunately, places like Mozambique do not have computers yet in their family history centres and most people do not have personal computers to bring with them.  However, EVERYONE has a cell phone and we are learning how to help them that way.  Since internet is not always viable, the church is making a cell phone app that will cut out all of the "fluff" and graphics on FamilySearch so that the app will work better and faster on this continent.

One of our Mondays that we had off we traveled about an hour out of Johannesburg to a couple of game reserves.  The first was a Cheetah Reserve and the second a municple game reserve.  

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Love these guys.  The acacia trees that they love to eat are very, very thorny.  They must have mouths of steel!

This is a black wildebeest.  Not quite as large as the blue wildebeest.  These guys have faces only a mother could love.

The wild dog is an endangered species.  The sound these guys make is ear piercing when only one is making a noise.  When an entire pack is making the same sound it is awesome!

Cheetah #1

Cheetah #2

Cheetah #3!  I love these beautiful cats.  We are told they have approximately 2000+ spots on them and not one is exactly like the other.  They do not retract their claws like most cats and they use their tails to steer, like a rudder on a boat.

Musical Family Home Evening!  We had a lot of fun snging together.  In fact, we decided we sounded so good we would keep at it.  We sang a second time at a recent Zone Devotional.

We've all heard of a barrel full of monkeys.  Well, here is a tree full of Vervet monkeys :)

This is a huge fellow - rightfully called King of the Jungle!

I can't remember which country this little one was from; but I remember that they spoke English.   She was a real sweety.  Very sociable!  This was the day after her family was sealed in the temple.

Helping a new ward family history consultant.  A 17 year old young woman who is absolutely amazing.  She didn't need our help for very long.  The room they use for the Family History Centre doesn't have a working heater and it was always very cold in there.  When our training and travels are over in August, we will move on to another ward to train another consultant.  This is what we do on Sundays :)

Family Visit, A Full House and Cute Kids

We had a visit from our niece, Kaitlyn Phillips, and her husband Tim.  They were passing through for a few days on their way to a game reserve down by Durban.  Enjoyed catching up on their lives and going out for good food while they were with us.  We are standing in the back garden of the temple. We had just finished a session and were on our way to dinner.

Just us!

Brent, Charlene, Allan and I had been doing training at a Ward Family History Discovery Day event. Afterward, we were served KFC, juice and rolls.  It was WONDERFUL!  These darling boys were very patient and waited until everyone else had their food before they got theirs.

This a a view of the gardens at the Area Offices.  There is a Koi pond just to the left of the path in the middle. It is a lovely place with a stream running through it, a little wooden bridge and lots of park benches.

Thought you might like to see what the family history centre looks like on a typical Tuesday morning.  These families were all either French speaking from the Democratic Republic of the Congo or were Portuguese speaking from Angola or Mozambique.  If I remember correctly, on this day there were 43 families with about 23 children.  We have translators within the Area offices who will come into the centre to help us when we have non-English speaking patrons.  However, there are times when we are on our own to help and prepare these sweet people for their first time (and, possibly their only time) in the temple.  We know we are getting help from the Spirit when we can communicate without translators and accomplish all that we need to do.  

Most of the time the families arrive by bus or airplane the night before and are with us bright and early on Tuesday.  Their day is over around 6:00 pm; so, it makes for a long day for everyone, especially the little ones.

These first three photos are self-explanatory.....it's a full house!

We have a toy box and the younger kids are usually in that area in the middle of the centre.....

The older siblings will normally go to the sofas to read or sit on the side with coloring books.....We have Family History coloring books in English, French and Portuguese.  We allow the children to take the books with them when they leave.

While the parents are in the temple, the children are brought to the "Gatehouse" to wait until it is their turn to go inside the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity to their parents.

 

There are games and toys in the Gatehouse and snacks are provided.  There is a room with two cribs, two dressing rooms with showers, a kitchen and this common area.

We play music and sing children's Primary songs.....when the time is close, we help the children dress in the white clothes for the sealing ordinance.  

 

This young man was remarkable.  He managed to let us know that he plays the cello and another musical instrument.  He read Book of Mormon stories to the younger children while they were waiting.  Very nice and very personable!  Spoke a wee bit of English  ;)

The young man in the middle was quite a character and took a great deal of delight in teasing his older brother which is the boy on the left.  He had an infectious laugh that had us all laughing.  Kids are kids regardless of where they live or the language they speak.

This beautiful young lady was an older sister to about 4 or 5 of the other children.

This adorable little one everyone wanted to keep and take home.....she was quite the little mother as I watched her kiss the doll baby and take care of it.

As I said before.....it is a long day, especially for the little ones.  We were very, very glad to have older sisters for this sweetie. Some of these children have never seen white people and there are at least 4 sisters helping in the Gatehouse during the two different shifts - most of us white and some wearing white dresses.  We don't speak their language and I am sure it must seem very strange to the ones that are too young to understand all that is going on.

Here is another one that I could have taken home - love the attitude.

Some I could never coax to smile for the camera.......

It took some convincing, but I finally got a darling smile from this little one!

These two are looking pretty tired but it won't be much longer for them.

Love the beads!

The kids love to have their pictures taken and, of course, have to look at the picture after it is taken.  I have never seen rude or unruly children when helping at the Gatehouse.  They are always polite, happy and helpful.  The older children ALWAYS help to take care of the younger children whether it is their sibling or not.  A lot of the children are shy but I think that is because of the language barrier in most cases.

I love Tuesdays when we have several families come to see us.  It is truly beautiful chaos and it is a lot of fun.

T, T, T and T

T, T, T and T stands for Terrorist Threats, Translation and Testimony

T & T

Every now and then the world of extremists rears its ugly head. The US Embassy has warned all Americans in South Africa about a terrorist threat against Americans during the month of Ramadan. Ramadan is where the Muslims fast between sun up and sun down.  They can eat after sunset until the first light of dawn then they fast again. This year Ramadan is from June 6 and ends July 7.  Anyway, we have been advised not to go to "up-scale" malls or places that are distinctly American like McDonalds, Burger King and KFC.  At least, we are not to go to these places during peak business hours.  So, that is what is going on in the country of South Africa right now.  We don't go to the malls very often, so we aren't too worried in that respect.  However, keeping Brent and Allan away from Burger King and McDonalds for a month will be a challenge.

T

While going through miscellaneous papers in the centre today, we came across a story about the Book of Mormon being translated into Afrikaan.  The article was written by John Pontius who is a member of the church.  He is writing about Professor Mynhardt, the man who did the translation, who is not a member of the church.  I wanted to share the article, so here it is!

I was searching through my books in storage a few days ago and came across a first edition of the Book of Mormon in Afrikaans.  I served a mission in South Africa from 1971 to 1973.  It was an interesting and challenging experience.  I attended the Stake Conference in Johannesburg on May 14, 1972 when the new translation of the Book of Mormon in Afrikaans (Die Boek van Mormon) was presented.  It was an electric moment.  People wept.  Some had waited all of their lifetimes to read the Book of Mormon in Afrikaans.  Many people had learned English for the sole purpose of reading this scripture.  The Spirit was strong among us as we rejoiced.  Remembering back more than 50 years, I can still remember Professor Felix Mynhardt (not a member of our church) as he spoke of his experience in translating that sacred book.  I will retell it as best as I can recall.

Professor Mynhardt was invited to come to the stand and speak about his experience in translating the Book of Mormon.  He recounted how he had been given a gift of languages from God from his youth.  He said that he was fluent in many languages, including English, Afrikaans, Hebrew and Egyptian, as well as many others.  He was presently employed as a language professor.  He said he had been praying that the Lord would give him some task, some divinely important task, that would justify his having this gift of language from God.  He said in about 1970 that he had visited with a group of Mormon leaders, who sought to commission him to translate the Book of Mormon from English into Afrikaans.  He said that he knew of the Book of Mormon from his religious studies, and his initial reaction was that he did not want to be involved in translating it.  However, that evening, as he prayed upon his knees, as was his habit, he said the Spirit of the Lord convicted him.  The message was something on the order of, "You asked me for a great, divinely inspired task of translation, I sent it to you in the form of translating the Book of Mormon, and you declined."  

Professor Mynhardt said he could not sleep through the night because he knew that translating the Book of Mormon would get him into trouble with his university which was owned and operated by the Dutch Reformed Church.  When morning came he telephoned Elder Clark to inform him that he would begin the translation immediately.  He stood at the pulpit and described the experience.  He said, "I never begin translating a book at the beginning.  Writing style usually changes through a book and becomes more consistent toward the middle.  Accordingly, I opened to a random place in the middle of the Book of Mormon, and began translating."  He said, "I was startled by the obvious fact that the Book of Mormon was not authored in English."  He said, "It became immediately apparent that what I was reading was a translation into English from some other language.  The sentence structure was wrong for native English.  The word choices were wrong, as were many phrases."  He said, "How many times has an Englishman  said or written, "And it came to pass?"  We all laughed, and knew he was right, of course.  He continued, "When I realized this, I knew that I had to find the original language, and translate it back into the original language, or a similar language to the original, and then proceed to translate it into Afrikaans.  He listed a half-dozen languages he tried, all of which did not accommodate the strange sentence structure found in the Book of Mormon."  He said, "I finally tried Egyptian, and to my complete surprise, I found that the Book of Mormon translated flawlessly into Egyptian, not mordern, but ancient Egyptian.  I found that some nouns were missing from Egyptian, so I added Hebrew nouns where Egyptian did not provide the word or phrase.  I chose Hebrew because both languages existed in the same place anciently."  "I had no idea at that time why the Book of Mormon was once written in Egyptian, but I can tell you without any doubt, that this book was at one point written entirely in Egyptian."  I head him say this over and over.  Then, he said, "Imagine my utter astonishment when I turned to chapter one, verse one and began my actual translation and came to verse two, where Nephi describes that he was writing in the language of the Egyptians, with the learning of the Jews!"

He said, "I knew by the second verse, that this was no ordinary book, that it was not the writings of Joseph Smith, but that it was of ancient origin and was in fact scripture.  I could have saved myself months of work if I had just begun at the beginning.  Nobody but God, working through a prophet of God, in this case Nephi, would have included a statement of the language he was writing in. Consider, how many documents written i English, include the phrase, "we are writing in English!"  It is unthinkable and absolute proof of the inspired origins of this book.  He paused, then noted, "I am one of the few people in the world that is fluent in ancient Egyptian.  I am perhaps the only person fluent in ancient Egyptian who is also fluent in Afrikaans and English.  And I know for a fact, that I am the only person alive who could have translated this book first into Egyptian, and then into Afrikaans.  If your church ever needs an Egyptian translation of the Book of Mormon, it is sitting in my office as we speak."  We all laughed.

Professor Mynhardt spoke of many other things regarding the translation of this book, and then said, 

"I do not know what Joseph Smith was before he translated this book, and I do not know what he was afterward, but while he translated this book, he was a prophet of God!  I know he was a prophet!  I testify to you that he was a prophet while he brought forth this book!  He could have been nothing else!  No person in 1827 could have done what he did.  The science did not exist.  The knowledge of ancient Egyptian did not exist.  The knowledge of these ancient times and ancient peoples did not exist.  The Book of Mormon is scripture.  I hope you realize this.  "I will keep promoting this book as scripture for the remainder of my life - simply because it is scripture, and I know it.  I haven't studied your doctrine or your history since Joseph Smith.  The only thing I know about the Mormon religion is that you have authentic, ancient scripture in the Book of Mormon, that your church was begun by a living and true prophet of God, and that all of the world should embrace the Book of Mormon as scripture.  It simply can't be denied."

T

I add my testimony to that of Professor Mynhardt's.  I have read the Book of Mormon many times and every time I read it I receive confirmation through the Holy Spirit that the Book of Mormon is true.  It is indeed the word of God!  I also testify that I know that Joseph Smith was (and is) a true prophet of God.  Not only while he was translating the Book of Mormon but before and after - until the end of his life.  I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I love that our Heavenly Father loves us so much He put forth a plan that will lead us back to Him, if we are obedient to the commandments, keep the covenants we have made with Him and endure to the end.

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We have been training family history consultants in the wards locally so we haven't been traveling since the first part of May.  We expect to do several trips this "winter" to visit and train in the wards and branches that are far enough away that we will be required to fly.

The seasons are reversed here.  It is hard to get use to the fact that we are now in the middle of winter. We haven't needed much more than a light sweater or jacket after the sun goes down.  The weather here is quite lovely overall!

Farewell until the next posting!

Maputo, Mozambique

We spent this weekend in Maputo, Mozambique on assignment to train Stake Family History Directors and Ward Family History Consultants, plus Bishops who do not have a consultant yet.  We left Johannesburg on Friday morning at 10:30 am for the hour flight to Maputo.  However, we were delayed an hour in Jo'burg which caused us to arrive in Maputo an hour late.  We thought our training started at 5:30 pm but it had been changed to 5:00.  This meant that we headed straight to the church from the airport.   We had a member of the Stake Presidency meet us at the airport to drive us to church.  That was one exciting, white knuckle ride!  Yes, they have traffic lights.....but not on every corner.....you have to be fairly aggressive to drive there.  The city of Maputo is the capital of the country.  The downtown area we drove through showed signs of poverty but I am told that the city was better than most.  After dodging cars and pedestrians, we  made it to the church building.  It is a four story building renovated into a chapel.  We walked up three of the four flights of stairs to get to the room we would be training in.  It was all set up for us and we were greeted by the Stake FH Director and her two assistants.  As in South Africa, the people are warm and friendly and we enjoy their company very much.  I liked that the women kiss both of your cheeks in greeting.  The men shake hands, as normal!  We had requested a projector and internet and they had both.  However, we could not get my computer on-line with the internet due to a really weak signal.  My computer was the only one with the right connection to the projector.  After many, many tries, we gave up the idea of using the projector to help us to train.  So for the next two hours, Allan and I taught the basics of family history and the Family Tree on familysearch without the internet.  We discussed the "My Family" booklet, walked them through how to sign on and how to create a new account and how to recover user names and passwords.  We had some good discussions at the end of the two hours.  We were driven to our hotel to check-in and have dinner.  The hotel had a large buffet that night that we enjoyed very much.  On Saturday, we woke up to the sound of the surf mixed in with rain.  It rained pretty much all day.  For us, the rain was not a problem but it was a problem for some of those hoping to attend on Saturday and were not able to come because of the rain.  This time on our drive into the church, we saw a man get up from laying on the street.  He had a piece of cloth wrapped around his waist and nothing else! He was covered with mud and I felt so badly for him.  As in most large cities, you have the wealthy and the not-so-wealthy.  Because it was daylight we were able to see more of the area.  We drove by rows and rows of shanties with stalls for selling anything and everything just outside the shanty town boundaries.  Interestingly enough, we didn't see one person begging.  In Jo'burg, there are three, four or even more at EVERY intersection.  We had a fair turnout on Saturday for our training session. Friday we had about twelve and we had ten on Saturday.  We were in luck on Saturday, the Stake President was our chauffeur and he brought a modem with him that we put in my computer.  So, on Saturday we were able to project and had the internet.  We felt that our training was much more effective. Everyone seemed to enjoy the time we were there and they said they learned a lot that they had not known before.  So, we feel that our time was well spent and well received.   Right now, there are no family history computers in that stake.  We know that they will be getting two in the near future and we hope to go back to do more training once they have the computers up and running.  When we arrived at the church on Saturday morning, we met two young sister missionaries serving in Maputo.  We asked them what they had going on that day.....they said that they were having a baptism.  Problem.....they didn't have any water!!  My first thought was - with all this rain, if you wait a bit, you can have the baptism outside.  By the time we finished upstairs they had been able to get water flowing into the font and the baptism had taken place.  When they say you need to remain flexible here - they really mean it.  You never know what will be thrown your way :)

Below are some pictures of our hotel (The Southern Sun), our room and the view from our room. The skyline of Maputo was taken from the airport.

Lovely room.  We had just finished training for the day and were getting ready to go down to dinner.

The view from our room!

Coconut palms

This is Maputo Bay on the Indian Ocean

Four floors and we shunned the elevator as much as possible.

From the outside this part of the hotel looks like a castle turret.

View from the dining room.

The rain on Saturday dampened the outside eating area.

So, we ate inside right next to the window.  

Just me by the pool!

Hotel parking area and guard facilities.

Looking down at the main entrance from the fourth floor.

The skyline of Maputo from the airport.

LOVING THIS MISSION!!