We drove to Johannesburg on Thursday morning, for an appointment I had with Dr. Deseta, a cardiologist from Argentina, that afternoon.  I had an episode Sunday night, with really bad chest pains and numbness in my hands and face.  Dr. Frew at Medisun Clinic, here in Ezulwini, admitted me to be observed overnight.  The next morning more tests were done and Dr. Gina, on duty, was sure it was my heart and thought it could be angina. He gave me a prescription and referred me to Dr. Deseta at Milpark Hospital in Joburg.  Dr. Deseta did a very thorough exam and ECG, stress test on the treadmill, an ultrasound and said my heart is perfectly fine! Yay!  What a relief!!  He was really good! (I have no idea what that was all about on Sunday....but I did have a blessing!)

We went to the Mission Office, to see the Wagners and Boyers but only the wives were. We picked up the order I gave them for Azteca, a Mexican wholesale place in Joburg.  We got  yummy salted tortilla chips, refried beans, corn tortillas, cans of tomatillos to make green salsa, flour tortillas and green enchilada sauce. There are NONE of those things anywhere in Swaziland, except for the flour tortillas (which we have seen here but they are not as good). 

Then we drove to Clearwater Mall nearby and ate dinner and did a bit of shopping, then spent the night at the Mission Home, arriving just as Pres. and Sister Leavitt did at 7 pm.

It was really FOGGY for almost the first hour and a half of our drive to South Africa!

Johannesburg was VERY COLD (colder than Ezulwini for sure)!

I just LOVE all of the streets all over there, where the trees meet in the middle of the road. 

This is Clearwater Mall.  I loved the colorful, hanging umbrellas!  We ate dinner at Panarotti's and bought our first lasagna in 10 months.  (I did make it one night for a 

farewell dinner for two of our elders, their companions and the zone leaders, 

but we had not seen it in any restaurants before.)

Bob went out to the parking garage to get something from our truck 

just in time to catch this pretty sunset! 

He met this cute clerk, (Elder) Motli, at Edgar's in the mall and found out that he served in the UKM the exact same time we did!  He knew a lot of our Elders in Ethiopia, 

who also spent some of their mission serving in Uganda. 

Downtown Joburg

Thursday, we went to the 9:00 session at the Johannesburg Temple. (I didn't get a photo...)

It just so happened that 14 Elders from our mission were on our session 

with Elder & Sister Boyer, one of the office couples.

This is the only picture we took.  We were invited to eat with the Elders after the session, in the cafeteria for the Area Office people, next to the Distribution Center. We met Elder Rash,

who sat by us and is from Mesa, AZ! He went to Skyline High School and knows our friends, Michael & Patrice Hofeling, who Elder Wold taught with at ASU Institute!

This morning we went to THE BIG RED BARN, that we have been hearing about for months and months from the Wagners and Boyers.  It isn't a barn....but booths where people sell handicrafts, food, and just about anything you can imagine! I bought these cute purses made from a LONG zipper!  The girl who makes them was SO cute! She unzips them and rolls them up and puts them in a cute fabric bag with a ribbon tie to give as gifts. 

We had never driven that far north (on the way to Pretoria) and it was fun to see 

some different scenery than we usually see as we drove on the N-4 to Emalahleni. 

I thought these were very interesting buildings!

This pretty chapel was out in the middle of nowhere... We don't even know for sure

what area it was in, but I think it was around Kwa-Guga.

A township off the N-4 highway....

Closeby were these very LARGE beautiful 2-story homes.

There was SUCH a difference in the kinds of homes we saw on our way!

Men were cutting the grass on both sides of the freeway with weed-eaters.  It was interesting to see this tractor going down the middle cutting the grass.  In MANY places

all of the grass had been burned to clear it.  That is the most common sight this time of year!

We always stop for a bathroom break (which is a" toilet" break here...no "restrooms" or "bathrooms") at ALZU, which is exactly halfway to Mbabane (2 hours away).  I never get tired of seeing the wild animals grazing, as we look out the windows, behind the SPUR Restaurant, when we eat there, as we did today.

There are water buffalos, zebras, rhinos, ostriches, 

and different animals from the antelope family...

The sky was a BEAUTIFUL shade of blue as we drove on to Swaziland 

and I LOVED the white fluffy  clouds!

There are lots of forested areas...

The clouds rolled in but we never saw a drop of rain...

(You can see below where the grasses have been burned along the road.)

This was taken just as we were coming into the Ngwenya Border 

going into Swaziland from South Africa.

I took this just north of Mbabane, Swaziland, which is about 20 minutes from the border.

These three photos of the Ezulwini Valley, were taken from the M-3 highway as we left Mbabane. We are only about 15 minutes down the mountain road from Mbabane. From our kitchen window, in our flat, we can see the highway going up to the very top of the mountain into Mbabane.  It is always about 5 degrees colder in Mbabane than in Ezulwini.  

Manzini, 25 minutes south of us, is usually a few degrees warmer than Ezulwini.

We live in a truly BEAUTIFUL country!! Ü

Our zone leaders had District Leader Council at our flat this morning. So our three district leaders and their companions were all here with us.  I had to get a photo!  Elder Wold also showed the safety and driving training videos since we had the brand new elders with us.

L to R: Elder Treasure (ZL), Elders Molteno (new DL) and Rodgers (Nhlangano), Elders East and Sinclair (DL Mbabane), Elder Smith (ZL), 

Elders Daybell and Musumhi (Manzini Fairview).

Elder Musumhi, below, (new DL) had a tie that matched Elder Wold's, so I took their picture.  Everyone was saying they looked like TWINS!  Haha! We LOVE our Elders!

Oh dear!  Since it was the 4th of July today, I made a cake and it totally sunk in the middle, so the American flag was "waving" in the wind.... Haha!!  No fresh blueberries, so I bought canned ones. (Not good! : / )  And the whipped cream just disintegrated and melted into the cake. (The rows of strawberries were perfectly straight and the while stripes of whipped cream were pretty and straight too, when I put in in the fridge!?! Believe it or not, this is a WHOLE CAN of spray whipped topping!?!?) This is how it looked when I took it out of the fridge after 3 hours.... : / Hahahahahahahaha!!!  But the elders ate every crumb and loved it!  

Oh well.....

We had about 25 sisters in Relief Society on Sunday! That is the most we have had attending in the 10 months we have been here! I took a couple of photos but still missed getting all of them in, so we took another photo outside after the block.

L toR: Gertrude Mamba (our new RS President), Tema Ngubeni, visitor from Mbabane, Zola Shongwe, Thatho Zulu (Counselor), Thoko Shongwe, Fikile Ngubeni, Thandekim Mayala, Rachel Hlophe, Philiswa Hlophe (visitor), and not in photo... Me, Thuli Fakudze and Thuli Ndwandwe.

Other side of the room... L toR: Siphiwe Mthembe, Lungile, (Investigator), Lindelwa, Samukelisiwe Dlamini, Bahle Ngubeni, Sylvia Dlamini (Counselor), Ntsiki, Nelly, and Thuli

coming in the door.

 Also added to the other RS sisters above are: Ketsiwe (far right ~ Primary President) and 2nd from left, Pontsho Shongwe (newly called to the Primary) and 8 YW. (A bunch of kids came and sat in front, but since I wanted just our RS sisters (and some YW too) I cropped the bottom off.) We are still missing some sisters who are behind others in this photo... 

Our friend, Charles Dlamini was married in Durban on Saturday to Samukelisiwe Mchunu!

We took them out to dinner Tuesday night to celebrate. Ü  We are SO happy for them and proud of them for not giving in to pressure to pay lobola, an African tradition, that our Church leaders have counseled is not the Lord's way.  

Famous Malva Pudding ~ a favorite South African dessert

It is usually served with custard but they served it at SPUR with soft serve ice cream.

It sure is hard to say good-bye to our elders who leave.... We had two leave this morning! 

Elder Bowen (Las Vegas) has been serving in Nhlangano just since April 3rd and he is being transferred back to Johannesburg.  : /  We will really miss him! 

Elder Nogueira has completed his two years and left for Johannesburg this morning to fly home tomorrow! : /  In the photo above,  he is with his companion, Elder Siale (from Tonga), who we were there to pick up and take to the dentist.  He lost a filling and had to get his tooth fixed this morning in Ezulwini. 

  In the photo below, Elder Nogueira is with Elder Siale's new companion, Elder Francis (from Provo, UT).  Elder Francis and Elder Nogueira have both been in Swaziland for a year, since it was put into the Johannesburg mission from the Mozambique mission, where both of them were originally called to serve. (We have only four elders left in Swaziland from the Mozambique mission.)

The Mbabane Four

L to R: Elder East, Elder Nogueira, Elder Sinclair and Elder Siale

Elder Smith (far left) drove to Johannesburg this morning to take Elder Nogueira and Elder Bowen (in the middle).  Elder Musumhi (far right from Zimbabwe) and Elder Molteno (next to him from Cape Town) are also going with them to Johannesburg to pick up their NEW companions, straight from the MTC and be trained to be new trainers! We LOVE our Elders!

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Elder Daybell (above) from Rexburg, ID and 

Elder Rodgers (below) from Colorado Springs, CO

arrived late Tuesday night from Johannesburg and we got 

to meet them Wednesday morning!  They are straight out of the MTC!

Left to Right: Elder Rodgers, Elder Daybell, Elder Musumhi and Elder Molteno

Updated wall....

The sky last night between our 5:00 appointment with Bakezile (12 year old sister of Lungile YSA) and 6:00 appointment with Ntsiki, (sister of Nelly who is married and Lindelwa, a YSA)

 We got a call from our zone leaders asking if we could go with them to Elangeni to give Sister Rose (mother of the Mbuli family) a blessing.  She was so thankful for Elder Wold's
blessing.  I didn't take any photos of her, but I did take these, as we were driving away. She lives HIGH up on the hill above Ezulwini Valley.

I didn't get it in the photo but the banana tree on the right was FULL of bananas!

It is SO pretty around Elangeni! 

We also went with the zone leaders to visit Sister Thuli, who was baptized with her husband in 2012, RS President in 2015, but has been less active.  She has been coming back to church and we are hoping her husband will come too, someday soon. She is a sweet sister! She gave us names of two sisters who were active when she was RS President, who no longer attend. We hope to find them.  Her baby girl is one.  She has three other children.  The oldest is 17.

We were parked in front of this home and these two cuties came out 

and waved and waved and called to us in siSwati! 

Elder Nogueira on the right is completing his mission and heading home to Brazil! 

He will drive to Johannesburg with a couple of other elders on Monday, so we had

a "farewell" lunch for him at Galito's in Mbabane, (after the YSA Activity this morning).

Here he is with his companion, Elder Siale from Tonga, Elder East from Wales, and 

his companion Elder Sinclair from Queen Creek, AZ! They loved it and also the 

chocolate dipped ice cream cones afterwards. They are all great elders! 

(The YSA Activity had 23 YSAs there!! We took Cowboy Caviar, Sweet Chili Doritos

 and a Texas Sheet Cake to help out with the activity.  But I forgot to take a photo!)

We'll miss Elder Nogueira!  He knew NO English when he came to serve in Swaziland

from Mozambique!  He really speaks English amazingly well! (Bad hair day for me!) : / 

I have on some Swazi jewelry today.... 

The bracelet is made from hair from an elephant's tail!

(They promised me the elephant was not hurt... Ü )

I LOVE these two photos we got this week from two of our missionary grandkids! 

They are both SO happy and both are doing SO well!!!