Monday, October 30, 2017

We had another wonderful Zone Conference on Saturday, October 28th in Mbabane.  The Nelspruitt/Mbombela District was taken out of our zone now that we have 21 of us here in Swaziland.

President Simelane from Manzini, 2nd Counselor to Pres. Leavitt in the Mission Presidency came at the end of the Conference and spoke for a few minutes.  He is right behind me in the photo.  Also joining us was Wesley from Mbabane, who is leaving soon to serve in Cape Town South Africa!

We did the food and also found out on Friday night that we were doing a 25 minute presentation on Saturday morning on Elder Holland's talk "The Miracle of a Mission".  It's an excellent talk he gave at the Brazil MTC in 2000.  (We never know what we will be asked to do!!)




I took photos of our new elders from Madagascar with the Swazi flag, to go up on our wall at home.
The elders are (top to bottom):  Elder Pace, Elder Chaunlamany, Elder Passey, Elder Jordan, Elder Freestone, Elder Willey and Elder Pulley.









I have been helping Sister Ketsiwe with the Primary Presentation
which will be on November 19th.  I helped her write it and will be
there the next few weeks instead of traveling to attend the other branches.
She has been doing Primary alone with 21 children (26 have attended at 
one time or another)!  I love the cute kids in our Ezulwini Branch! 


This cute girl, Yenzo, came last week for the
first time.  I love her pose when I took her picture
to go up on the wall! 





Our YW board is filling up!! 


We woke up to a beautiful sunny day and had no plans, so decided to spend our P-day on an adventure to see some sights in Swaziland that we have not seen yet!





We drove up past Mbabane almost to the border with South
Africa to the Ngwenya Glass Factory.



They use recycled glass to make BEAUTIFUL things!!



There were aloe vera plants all along the path and this
 glass one was in the middle of them...


The Glass Shop was AMAZING!! 


This is the logo and he was made of green glass on the outside
of the store...


Here is the other side of him from the inside of the store!



There were a lot of really cool animals made of glass. 






The elephants were SO fun (but VERY heavy)!  
They were all sizes.



We bought a small giraffe, elephant and rhino. SO cute!! 


Some photos of the pretty grounds





There were a lot of fun shops there and we picked 
up a few Christmas ornaments and miscellaneous
things we couldn't pass up.




Mmm...the Magnum almond chocolate ice cream
bars were SOOO good!! ( I did taste JOY!!)


Peacocks wandered all around the grounds
and lizards were all over too!




These striped lizards are very commonly seen here!


I LOVED the pretty flowers!! We see lantana, vinca, bougainvillea,
a lot and we even saw a blue solanum like we have at home!!



We left the Glass Factory and headed to Pigg's Peak.





There were lots of GREEN hills with lots of ROCKS
just like we saw down south in Nhlangano.






We decided to go see the Maguga Dam on our way.


Maguga Lodge is on the hill. (See huts below)



We drove across the dam and got a kick out of this 
speed bumps sign.  "Traffic calming"!? 


The Komati River


I thought these formations along the highway were interesting!


We stopped to eat at the View Point Restaurant at the dam
and watched this guy putting new thatch on the roof. 


My yummy lunch ~ a salad, chicken 
sandwich and chips. Bob had a cheeseburger
and thought it was one of the best he's ever eaten!


The pretty pathway to the look-out point



The dam from the look-out above the restaurant



Leaving the dam on the way to Pigg's Peak


A homestead on the side of the hill


More "rocky" mountains...


There were so many amazing views but I couldn't begin
to capture them....








On the way to Pigg's Peak, we took a dirt road for 4.4 km
to see the Phophonyane Falls.









We paid E100 ($7) each to hike down to the falls....
It was a pretty hike (but we were dressed in missionary attire)!
They said it would take 10 minutes but after about 40 min.
this is all we could see!? 




Whoop-de-doo....  



We did see a lot of monkeys as we walked, 
but they were FAST and hard to get a picture of!


The drive to Pigg's Peak was very scenic.
There is SO much timber! It was breathtaking!! 








We never did figure out WHICH peak was Pigg's Peak
(named after a guy named Pigg, who married a woman
with the last name of Hogg)!?!  

Pigg's Peak is a small town of 5,000 that we drove through.  
We should have asked about the peak.  We originally thought
it may be this interesting one... but it isn't.



It MAY be the tallest peak in this photo... We looked
it up when we got home and found that it is actually
on the border of Swaziland and South Africa and
NOT really anywhere near the town of Pigg's Peak! Haha!



We saw a lot of very different rocks sticking out of the
middle of nowhere....


This was the BLUEST lake I've ever seen! 
I took a quick photo just as we drove past it on our way home.