Sunday Notes

In Sacrament meeting we sit in front on the side facing forward with the primary children in front of us in rows that are facing to the center. We keep a good eye on them, and today before the meeting started the group on one row took my music picture book out of my box and the 6 of them were huddled together softly singing  “Follow the Prophet”.  I was just dying to take a picture of them but it didn’t feel right to do in the chapel.  They really are so eager and innocent. I had to stop them when Fredrick got up to begin conducting.

I love those rascally children. This is Sister Mashishi last week teaching them.  Because she promised she would not do this to me again, I was surprised in Primary today to find her absent.  Yikes.  But by coincidence (of course not)  last night I thought maybe I would prepare the lesson in hopes that I could ask if I could teach today to give her an example of another way to present a lesson, using pictures, discussion, etc.  Thank goodness I spent that time and gathered the pictures and was ready to go. I hadn't prepared a sharing time, though, so we did a good deal of singing.

The children are presenting talks now (not like what we see at home, but they are excited to do it and I see some progress).  They are passing off their Articles of Faith (earning stars on their name tags), and singing like children possessed!  (Especially with Popcorn Popping, Follow the Prophet, and I’m So Glad When Daddy Comes Home!)  They love the activity songs, especially "On my head my hands I place." They are learning Christmas songs and today (because we had lots of time) after they sang everything they have ever learned plus some that they had never heard before,  I had them draw pictures of what they think about when they think of Christmas.  We played Christmas songs while they drew and one-by-one they came up to proudly show me what they had created.  Remember, this is senior primary – 8 to nearly 12 year olds.

There were pictures of Christmas trees with lights and presents all around.  Some showed snow falling.  I asked if they had Christmas trees in their houses.  They said no, and no one had ever seen snow.  One girl drew a fireplace with stockings hanging there.  I asked her if they hung stockings for Christmas.  She said no.    Of course there would be no fireplace either, and December is the hottest time of the year here. Some drew fireworks which they do for Christmas, quite a few drew Jesus and angels, one with angles blowing horns.  Mpho drew a great Jesus in his red robe.  When he showed me he apologized, pointing to the picture on the wall, saying, “I couldn’t do the rest of him.” You know the picture, showing only Christ’s face and shoulders- poor Mpho could only draw Jesus as far as his waist because there was nothing more to copy.  Almost everyone gave their pictures to me and I love them, but my greatest treasure was from Khanyisile who wrote a letter decorated with hearts and a colorful boarder:  “Dear Sister Wells, I love you more than words you can say and I wish you can stay here for long time you take us carefully that know one can be every care like you and teaching us about the Gospel you are the best teacher in here.  From Khanyisile.”  Now that one is worth framing!  I kissed her on the cheek and gave her a teary hug of thanks.

I wish I could follow their progress as they grow.  I hope they join the church and become like the Armies of Helaman that they sing about.  I hope they Choose The Right Way And Be Happy and keep trying to be like Jesus.  I hope they find worthy companions and marry in the temple and sing primary songs to their children as the church grows in Africa.  But how will I ever know? 

Morning Walking

 We have had the most cold and rainy week!  Usually I love the rain here, and I find the thunder and noisy downpours really delightful.  But this week it also brought cold temperatures that were surprising.  It felt like we were back to winter, when we should be beginning summer.  Still, the rain makes everything even more beautiful and it is hard to complain about that.  We walk in the mornings with 3 other couples and this week we had to keep to the parking terrace of the Killarney Mall across the street.  We circled that place for an hour each morning!  Hopefully we can get back out on the sidewalks beginning tomorrow.  During  the months of October and November, our exercising took us out among the blooming Jacaranda trees and it was so enjoyable.  Here we are one morning tossing the blossoms into the air. Sister Wells, Sister Butler, Sister Noll, and Sister Forsgren.  The blossoms are at last fading and green leaves are filling out the trees, but I’m surely grateful to have experienced two Jacaranda seasons in Africa.

Black and White in South Africa: By Elder Wells

We returned Saturday p.m. from a quick trip to Mozambique—zone conference, some counseling with missionaries, and consulting with the mission president and his sweetheart,   Loren and Tina Spendlove, from St. George via Laverkin, Shanghai, and Mozambique.  They are a wonderful younger couple (52 and 50) who served as CES missionaries in Mozambique just 13 months before.

My missive for today sounds like I’m speaking of racism—which I am just a little—but mostly about the incredible saints of the latter day.  When we were last in Mozambique (January), we met an albino elder in Beira.  Albinos suffer a great deal of persecution in Africa and this young convert to the Church was no exception.  However, his pain and humiliation among his people served to give him an intense desire to know God.  A humble, quiet young man, he is more thoroughly acquainted with the scriptures and prayer than many of us who have been taught from “Jesus wants me for a SUNBEAM!” to “Ye Elders of Israel.”  In the last “transfer meeting,” which occurs every six weeks, President Spendlove surprised everyone by announcing that this elder was to take a place as a zone leader.  Transfer meetings are a highlight in missionaries’ lives, lots of guessing about who will go where, with whom, and who will be called to lead.  When this elder was called, he was absolutely stunned, and the zone erupted into magnificent, loving applause and backslapping.  He cried a little and then every 15 minutes or so throughout the remainder of the meeting giggled quietly to himself in unbelief and joy.  It makes me cry a little too, but that won’t surprise you.

The hot season is just beginning in Mozambique—humidity is high, no wind and the malaria mosquitos are beginning to proliferate.  When we arrived at the chapel—a four-story downtown building with a large room for a chapel, district presidency offices, and the mission distribution office—we discovered that the president had left the plug converter at the mission home.  So Sister Spendlove and Sister Wells raced back to retrieve it, because this entire meeting was to be broadcast via Skype to the rest of the mission.  Without his Power Point presentation of the transfers and the ability to communicate via Skype, the president was in fear of being lynched by his missionaries in Beira and north.  While we waited in 90 degree sauna “comfort,” the president asked that a missionary lead us in singing some hymns.  Mozambique is a Portuguese-speaking mission, 101 missionaries strong with elders from Canada to Rexburg to Brazil to Cape Verde.  So, there I am trying intently to look like I’m enjoying being a steamed vegetable when suddenly the missionaries begin booming “Far Far Away on Judea’s Plain"   I was overcome.  Here we were, most of us several thousands of miles from home, black, white, and in between in thundering unison singing glory to God.  Once again I was so forcefully reminded that this is the greatest work in all the world.  And to top it off, the song was written by a St. George pioneer, at a discouraging time in the colonization of Dixie.  Like most of us he would never see Judea’s plains and couldn’t possibly imagine how many voices in how many languages would praise God through his inspired words.

We flew back to Johannesburg on Saturday p.m., grateful for a balmy afternoon and a few sprinkles of rain.  This morning we were off to the Tembisa ward again, a black ward in the Tembisa township about 40 minutes away.  Part of my “assignment” there is to help out as occasion requires with the Young Single Adults.  Sister Mosala is our teacher, a registered nurse and relatively “old” convert, having been in the Church for nearly 20 years now.  Our lesson was about “Every Member a Missionary,” as I expect yours was too.  Sister Mosala is a strong Zulu woman who usually ends her statements with “Ne?,” meaning, “Are you with me?”  She said it was hard in the beginning being in a Church where they only spoke English.  As we talked about the need for having a friend in the Church, she talked about the first year or two she was a new member in the Kempton Park ward, while Apartheid was still in force.  More than once white members told her that she didn’t belong in this Church, that there were churches for black people elsewhere.  As blacks joined the Church, whites left it.  In fact, when the ward was divided, most of the black members were naturally part of the new ward and were to attend the new building the next Sunday.  During the week it was discovered that the building wouldn’t be ready on time and they were to return to Kempton Park.  She said it was a great surprise and disappointment to the white members returning from inactivity to find the black members still coming to Kempton Park that Sunday.

But I digress.  Sister Mosala talked about her friends in the Church, Bishop and Sister Fourie, a white couple who saved her spiritually.  Sister Fourie would ask every week how she was doing, was there anything she could do?  The bishop loved all the members, black and white.  He was known as the Black Bishop because he loved the black saints so much.  He persuaded Sister Mosala to give her first talk.  Because it had to be in English, she practiced it for days, over and over again in the front of the mirror.  She prayed with humility for the help of the Lord—and she opines now that it may have been the best talk she’s ever given.  Bishop Fourie was so visibly pleased and moved by her message that she knew she belonged to the right church.  Now 20 years later, Bishop Fourie’s wife is the stake Relief Society President, and Bishop Fourie, later President Fourie, is the stake patriarch.  He serves in the temple whenever he can, and Sister Fourie is usually to be seen in the 7 a.m. session of the temple on Saturday mornings.

When Sister Mosala finished her story, she tried to describe how the Church has changed her life.  As a young wife she sent her husband off one day to work, and he didn’t return.  It was a very dangerous time for black men, not only because of racial tensions but because of crime in the CBD (central business district) where he worked.  As days continued without finding him, she began searching in city morgues.  Finally, after he had been gone fourteen days, she asked her home teachers for help.  They went to the temple.  When they returned, they told her that it had been made known to them that she should go back to the first morgue she had visited, that she would find him there.  She did (and she bore testimony of her gratitude to the Lord for the blessing of finding her husband).  Several years later she met and married Brother Mosala, our High Priest Group Leader now.  Then she looked over our little group of YSAs, pointing out the now young adults she had taught as Primary children, now tall and strong in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  They know they have a friend in the Church, Ne?

Another one of my heroes here is Brother Tyson, a silver-haired stocky little white man who has served the Church here for forty plus years from convert to bishop to stake presidency.  He is now a sealer in the temple, serves as a high counselor in the Tembisa ward, and somehow is having to be sort of an interim elders’ quorum president in the ward for a period of time.  He is quietly giving his whole life to the Church, always smiling, always anxious to build, whether in the temple or in this ward every Sunday now.  He is so supportive of the ward, but he is blunt enough that he is building—with love and a twinkle in his smile—some discipline in the quorum.  The brethren now know that when he teaches the lesson, they had better have read it, because he is going to ask them to stand up and talk about what they read.  And I know from personal experience that he is as willing to be blunt with me as he is with the other brethren.   We are brethren.  Being a white senior missionary doesn’t (and shouldn’t) cut me any slack.

Black and White in Africa, children of God growing and learning to be brothers and sisters in His Family.  I am grateful to be here.

Sunday letter (written on Monday morning, November 9).

We woke up this morning to thunder and pouring rain. Normally that would be something I love to see and hear but today is the Wright’s farewell that we have been preparing for and plans for our outside dinner party are looking grim. We have a couple of general authorities in town who will be attending with the area presidency and have arranged for nicer table decorations and food and really wanted it to be on the area office white house grounds, but it looks like it will be in the patron housing canteen instead. Oh Well.

It’s been a busy week for us trying to learn how to make a slide show with music to show at the party. Several calls to Jed who had to try to figure out how to counsel us on our PC when he is a Mac specialist, but he kept patient and helpful. Then on Friday when we were desperate about the music problem, I asked a young woman in the office who spent a couple of hours with me and worked it out, attaching the music to the pictures. Hooray! I keep going over it and changing out pictures, and each time I add one I have to delete one to make sure the timing it right. If it works, it is really nice, ending with a great shot from Elder Wright of a black sky and a crescent moon and the angel Moroni on the temple spire. Nice. Now if it will just work when we get it hooked up to the projector and push play.

Since the Wrights are leaving we have been trying to do some final things together and Dawn and I have been on several short week day outings on some final shopping trips as she picks up last minute things. Through all my flittings and our slide show fussing,  Elder Wells continues to write to missionaries, phone them in the evenings and mornings, and counsel with local members who are continually being referred by their bishops and stake presidents.  Also, it is not at all uncommon for one of the employees  in the Area Office to drop by and ask to talk.  He is such a good listener and counselor.

On Friday night we attended a dance performance with the Wrights which included dinner before the show. It was very authentic and well done. The dancing and drumming were amazing. They leave on Thursday, the same day we go to Mozambique so we can’t take them to the airport. It has been a nice friendship and we will miss them. Their replacements are already here and will move in while we are gone over the weekend. It won’t be the same without the Wrights next door, though, so it’s probably good that we are soon to depart as well.

A sadness last Sunday. After primary I discovered that my camera was missing. We went back into the primary room looking, but it was not to be found. I went to the bishop’s office and found Fredrick who was so upset as well, and then we just left. Knowing that one of the children had taken it was so devastating for me. We talked to Fredrick later on in the evening and he assured us he would track it down. Monday evening he called and said he had the camera and would bring it to the office the next day. He sat with us and told us about his experience with the young culprit and we are grateful for his handling of the situation. He was very firm but gentle with her and wants to teach her and protect her from future trouble. (It seems she also took the camera of one of the Elders a week or so ago and it was also discovered and returned). The little girl didn’t come to primary yesterday, but I hope she will come back in the future. One comical aspect is that she took a picture of herself so I have that on the camera. Funny but sad.

We love Fredrick. He conducted the baptisms yesterday and did such a nice job. One of my primary children, Nomatemba, who is about 10, maybe, and her mother were baptized along with 3 young men.

I had baked cookies but didn’t know about the young men (or the mother) who were to be baptized and was surprised to find many people attending the service. (Did I have enough cookies???)
A young men’s chorus sang, and family members of the candidates were gathered as well. In fact it was most interesting to hear the non members chanting and witnessing (Yes! Amen! Holy Jesus! ) as the testimonies were given after the baptism. Fredrick is so gentle and insightful and asked the newly baptized members to share their feelings and also their plans for the future, especially the future mission plans of the young men. Then he called little Nomatemba up and asked her what she would like to say to her mother. She thanked her and told her that she loved her and assured her that they would remain faithful together. In her testimony she said that she would follow the teachings of the gospel and prophets and not go astray. (Could I have helped with that by teaching that song?) More sweet things were said that I wish I had written down, but there were many tears, especially when the tough and joking young men became very serious and thanked their grandmothers or mothers for their lives of service to them and recognized publically what coming into the church really meant to them. Fredrick was there to stand beside them and hand them strips of toilet paper to wipe their eyes.
The meeting was very nice and very long and we didn’t get home till about 3:30. I was up at 5:30 to put cookies in the oven and was blessed by a great visit with Carrie and Eric on Skype before leaving the flat at 8:00 am. The primary president was there and we are trying to learn to work together. I need to pull out and she seems to be ready to get back into the program. Anyway, we were tired when we got home but have the feeling that Tembisa Ward is making progress. We have gotten ourselves in for a little trouble, though, offering help for a Christmas activity on the 12th of December, the day after Matt arrives. We were supposed to orient the newly called activities chairman (they have never before had one) but she was not there. We need to just teach her and let her handle it, but can that happen? We don’t know.

Well, since I have been sitting here writing, the rain has stopped and the sun is shining. A little hope for a pleasant outside event has sprung up again. Also, Dad is now ready to leave and I am not at all ready.  But what a good feeling to get this written down. Our days are short now, but as always we are grateful to be here in Africa. So glad we came.