A quick trip to Johannesburg!  We drove Elder Chakanyuka and Elder Hosmer to Johannesburg on Monday for transfers.  Elder Hosmer will be a ZL in Joburg and Elder Chaka has completed his mission and flew home to Zimbabwe on Tuesday! We will miss them.... Here are a few photos we took during our short stay.  It was our first time there since we arrived in Swaziland 3 months ago!

The FOG was SO bad the first hour or two of our trip!! 

Then we got through the fog, the sun came out and it was a beautiful day!! 

We dropped the elders off and Elder Wagner took us to the 

Clearwater Mall to see about replacing my iPhone 7 that 

hasn't worked since I bought it in Mesa before we left! 

The mall was BEAUTIFULLY decorated and HUGE!!

It had McDonald's, Burger King and Krispy Kreme in

the Food Court!  We were amazed at what we saw!!

We then went back to the mission office and parked and we

went to the Hunt's flat (since they had to go home after only

10 months because Elder Hunt had 3 surgeries in 6 weeks 

for kidney stones and ended up back in the hospital with an

infection...) : /  We stayed there both nights, right next to the

Wagners' flat! The Hunts and the Wagners worked together 

in the mission office.

The Wagners' flat is on the right and the Hunts' is on the left.

The APs' flat and another flat of elders are in the same complex.

Tuesday morning, we went to the mission office 

during transfer time and there were elders all over

the place!!  We just missed seeing Elder Lee from

Panguitch, but I met Elder Mkize, whose brother 

served in CapeTown in my brother Bob's mission.

I also saw an Elder Trammell and asked about 

his family.  I taught his older brother, Mychael

and his sister, Laurann in 2nd Grade at Hermosa 

Vista between 1999 and before I retired in 2002!

He was just a pre-schooler then! Cute elder!

His family was so excited to see this photo!  

We also got to say "good-bye" to Elder Hosmer

and sign his journal and get a photo since he will

probably not be back in Swaziland before he goes

home....

We didn't get a photo with Elder Chakanyuka except

for this one at the last zone conference.  He took off his

shoe one day and threw it at his companion, Elder Perez,

so we always kidded him about that.... I just had to do

this when he wanted a photo with us!  Haha!  He is the 

FUNNIEST guy!! He made us laugh all the time!

Then we went to visit the Mickelthwaites who live

just 2 minutes from the mission office.  Their son

Russell and daughter-in-law Eva live across the 

street in Mesa from the Beutlers, who we worked

with at the Mesa Temple.  Sis. Beautler brought a 

package to us that they wanted us to take to their 

parents, Godfrey and Cynthia. So we did!  They 

are the CUTEST!! We had a delightful visit with

them and they made us promise to come back if

we get back to Joburg.  (We hope we do!?)

They had a wonderful flowers! I loved these lilies!

This was an interesting tree....

That afternoon we met our new S&I Coordinator at the Area Office

canteen, (since we are now under Johannesburg S&I and not 

Mozambique anymore).  We had a delicious lunch and really enjoyed

visiting with Tirana Ngowane! She will come to Swaziland to visit in January.

While we were there, in walked Portia, whose twin brother, Michael

Khosa is in our branch.  She is married, lives in Joburg now and works

for the Church Travel Dept. in the Area Office.  (She is friends with 

Bob and Martha and he sent me a photo of her in her Swaziland traditional

skirt right after we found we were going to be serving in Swaziland!) Ü

She is darling!  She is coming home to Ezulwini at Christmas time!

The Area Offices are next to the Temple, so we walked

through this pretty wooded pathway and went to the Temple 

for the 3:00 session, (which we didn't know was in French!

So we got to wear headsets to hear it in English!) The Temple

is BEAUTIFUL!  We LOVED finally getting to see it and attend

a session at the temple!!

The Johannesburg, South Africa LDS Temple