What a day this has been!!  We went to Mbabane to get Elder Samatanda's passport from Nathi and also took Krispy Kreme donuts that the Sidwashini  Elders had requested from the ZLs who were in Johannesburg the past 2 days... These four elders in Mbabane had been handing out candy at a hospital in their Santa hats. Ü 

L-R: Elder Passey, Elder Schwalger, Elder Freestone

and Elder Brown

More changes for Swaziland!!  Now we are

down to 15 Elders! Elder Samatanda is going 

back to Johannesburg and Elder Sinclair is coming

from Manzini to be companions with Elder Pace.

We went to the Msibi home to help prepare food

for Apollo Msibi's brother's funeral there tonight

(all night) and tomorrow.  They expect to feed 

200+ people!! Lots of family and neighbors were

there to help.

 I stirred the pap ("pop") over the fire

for a bit, then joined the elders cutting up FROZEN 

chickens.

The Msibi kids

L-R Masabendza, (Elder Samatanda saying 

"good-bye"), Simphiwe, Venus and Wendy. 

On the right is their cousin, Coolar, who sat in

on a missionary lesson on Tuesday.

We went from the Msibis' to the Mbulis' and taught 

a lesson, then took more photos....

Gogo (Grandma) is on the left and one daughter is on the 

right. The kids are Gogo's grandchildren. She has a son

serving in the Uganda Kampala Mission but is not a member 

herself. The older grandkids come to Primary and LOVE it! 

The sky on the way to the Mbuli home...

Rose Mbuli's son and his wife, Misty (Lombardi)

and baby Rosalie just arrived a few days ago from the U.S. to visit! 

The whole sky was lit up with lightning all the way home!!

It was almost impossible to capture it, but I snapped 

these two photos at The Gables!

The road to our flat was finished today!!  Woo hoo!!  They have been working on it for the 3 months (TODAY) that we have lived here! Elder Wold took these photos today and the others are from different stages of working on it.  

When we moved in Sept. 8th, there were huge piles of rocks and dirt all the way down the road. Elder Wold would often have to get out and move big rocks to turn down the road to our complex.  (The road behind him looks the same today....)

This is how it has looked for a LONG time. They spread the dirt and packed it down good.

Then we got to this stage where they were putting in the cement borders on each side.

This is how it looks right now (to the east). You can see on the left where there is now a sidewalk all along the side of the road and it's hard to see, but on the right, there is cement forming a V, where the water can drain down the road after heavy rains (like we have had for the past couple of days).

This is looking west from our complex where our road meets this main road into the neighborhood.  You can see the sidewalks.  It's hard to see the cement on the left

because it is full of dirt from our last three rainy days.

I finally got a pretty good photo of the HUGE Conference Center that is being built on the main highway near Mpumalanga Road that goes down to our chapel.  This just shows part of it. It's too big to fit in one photo up close. It is really going to be something!!

I love these trees with the bright red-orange flowers on them! This tree is in front of our Ezulwini Elders' flat. There is a Nursery across from them and there are so many flowering trees and bushes there. It's SO pretty!  I finally got a picture of this tree yesterday!

I also took these photos yesterday in Elangeni, which is across the M3 freeway from us and is part of our branch boundaries.  We visit several families in this area.  We were on our way to the Msisbi family's place and it was SO green and SO pretty between rainstorms, I had to get some photos! 

The Msibi family lives far up on the hill and the dirt roads get pretty bad!  We actually got stuck in the mud around this turn and couldn't drive any farther up where the road gets

much steeper!! They have a grove of mango trees up near their property.

(I didn't bring boots or a jacket and tried to find them here and in Johannesburg, but they just laughed, because it is summer here!  But it is also the rainy season and there is a LOT of rain and a LOT of MUD!!  My shoes get covered with mud when we visit on these dirt roads.  It can get REALLY cold too! The heaviest thing I brought was sweaters.... Guess I will have to wait until March or April (which is their Fall here) when they get winter things in

the stores!

November 25th was Swaziland's Mormon Helping Hands day. I was home feeling really sick but Elder Wold went with our elders to clean up an area between Ezulwini and Manzini. I just found these photos on Swaziland Mormon Newsroom! 

Our Swaziland Elders Ü 

Bob with Pres. Mahlalela in the District Presidency

All of the district after the service project

Today was Elder Powell's birthday.  Here he is with his

birthday cupcake.

We went to lunch with our Ezulwini elders (Elder Pace, Elder Pulley,

Elder Powell and Elder Samatanda) at SPUR and met the 

Manzini elders (Elders Nogueira, Smith, Willey, Sinclair, Jordan 

and Chounlamany) just leaving after their 2 for 1 burgers at SPUR 

on (P-Day)  Ü 

The waiters at SPUR sang to Elder Powell and brought 

a bubble gum flavor ice cream sundae (with blue topping).

Later, Elder Schwalger and Elder Freestone tore off the paper 

and really dug into their birthday cupcakes we took to Mbabane!! 

And Elder Francis got his Tuesday, when

he came to bring the truck from Nhlangano.  Ü 

I just had to get this picture when all the cashiers at

SPAR were wearing red cowboy hats with 

"MERRY CHRISTMAS" on them! 

I love these flowers in Corner Plaza's parking lot.

It's across from our flat.  I don't remember what 

they are called but they take me back to Ethiopia.

They were growing all along the path to the mission

office in Meganagna! Ü

Elder S. Mark Palmer of the Seventy and his wife did a mission tour and came to our zone conference in Manzini yesterday! It was awesome!  I have been sick for a week and still needed to fix all the food for 27 at the conference for lunch, (enough sloppy joes for 2 each,   though some ate 3 and 4, salad, chips, and two Texas Sheet Cakes, besides 5 dozen chocolate chip cookies for the morning.)  Then there was a dinner at 6:00 pm that we were also in charge of for 16 people (Elder and Sister Palmer, the District Presidency and their wives and two of the Mission Presidency and their wives and us).  We ordered chicken, fries, salad and rolls from Galito's and I made three banana cream pies for dessert. Ü  It all went well! 

Our Swaziland Zone with Elder and Sister Palmer, Pres. and Sis. Leavitt, Elder and Sister Jensen and their two elders from Nelspruitt District in SA, and us!  (I really HATE to put this photo of me on the blog but have to because the Palmers are in it and we want to remember them!)  Ü

Our chapel in Ezulwini before the new paint and after! Just took the bottom photo today.

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