OUR "NEW" ASSIGNMENT (Temporary)

We were notified late in May that the temple would be shutting down for an elongated period of time to replace the roof and repair the air conditioning. The temple will be closed from July 16th to September 18th if the work gets completed on time.  If not, the closing could go to the end of September or early October. So what to do with the temple missionaries.

There were two temple missionary couples who were scheduled to go home in August and September who instead will be ending their mission and returning home on July 16th.  The Birds, who have Delta "connections" will be returning home and coming back late September.  They were allowed to extend their mission by two months in 2013.

The remaining 5 temple missionary couples, were interviewed early June to determine what our backgrounds and interesst are in hopes of finding something for us to do during the shutdown.

Well, today July 28th we met again with the area office HR Director and were given our assignments.
Three couples will be working with local stakes in member activation. One couple is working with the IT Department in training. Jenee and I have been given two assignments.

One assignment will be working in the Area Office with the Employment Department. We will be working with the Bedfordview, the Soweto, the Johannesburg and the Centurion Stakes with members who have or are trying to be self-employed but are having difficulties or are failing.  It will be our responsibility to work closely with these members to determine the causes of their difficulties and to make recommendations and assist them in getting their businesses back on track or up and running successfully.

Our other assignment will be working with Elder Carl Cook, a counselor in the Area Presidency. Several weeks ago Elder Cook asked if I would forward to him some of my ideas concerning the lack of temple attendance and YSA temple marriages. In that information I suggested that the area hold a forum with the YSAs to address this matter and try to determine the reasons.  I received a letter yesterday from Elder Cook where he included a copy of a letter he sent out to the local Stakes, requesting a meeting with their Stake Councils to discuss the YSA problem throughout the area. We have 50,000 YSA ages 18 to 30, comprising 43 percent of all of the adults in the area who are not regularly attending the temple and are not pursuing marriage.  The Area Presidency wants to determine the reasons, causes and traditions that are contributing to this issue - hopefully to understand what the area is up against and then develop a program to address the issues at hand.  We will be traveling with Elder Cook to these Stake Council Meetings.

We start our new assignments on July 16th and are excited for this opportunity and new adventures to be out among the saints here in South Africa..

Botswana & Mosetlha Bush Camp

Saturday morning June 16th at 8 AM Brother/Sister Bird, Jenee, and I set out for a weekend trip. Joining us was Sister Matswagothata (Sister "Tata"), a single sister temple worker who lives in Gaborone, Botswana. She wanted to go home to visit her kids so we invited her to come along. We headed out for Gaborone where we planned to meet up with Sister Tata's son Clement, wife, 2 daughters, and then see some of the sights in Gaborone before retiring at the Peermont Mondior Hotel where Brother Bird had previously made arrangements for us to stay Saturday night.

Gaborone was a beautiful city of about 200K people. The city was clean, the streets were double wide going both directions, all updated construction. Botswana (Ruled by England) became an independent country in 1961 after defeating a move by South Africa to annex them into South Africa and getting the approval from Queen Elizabeth to leave English protectorate and become their own country.

We tried finding a couple of spots we had targeted but got lost.  We called Bishop Matswagothata, Sister Tata's son for directions and still got lost.  Well, he finally found us sitting on the side of the road and escorted us about town to see some of the sights he felt impressive (and they were) before we called it an evening and invited he and his family to join us for dinner at Spurs before calling it a day. We were so impressed with Bishop Clement Watswagothata and Gail had a very lengthy conversation with him re: the problems of the YSA's and lack of marrying. As we parted, Gail gave him a firm handshake and told him he felt sure that Clement would be the 1st Stake Pres. in Botswana some day!  Curretly the 3 wards in Gaborone are in the Jo'Burg Roodeport Stake.

Here are a couple of sights that we saw.

A memorial for the three local chiefs who were instrumental in getting Botswana's independence.

                            Jenee and Sister Bird outside the local craft shop in Botswana.

From there we went to one of their African craft shops to pick up a couple of items to remind us of our visit to Botswana.

            The #1 Ladies Opera House                                         Sister Bird, Sister Tata & Jenee                  

This is a memorial for the #1 Ladies Detective Agency located at the #1 Ladies Opera House which was built by the author of the books as a memorial of the great lady in the true story of her life.


We finally made it to our very nice hotel for the night before getting up to attend church and then head off to Madikwe Game Reserve.

                                             Jenee and I in the lobby of the hotel.

This is what the room looked like

                                                         
Sunday we went to church in Gaborone. Jenee played the organ and I conducted the songs during sacrament meeting since they had nobody there who could do either. They have an organ that plays pre-set Hymns while the members arrive for Sacrament Meeting.

We came to really love Botswana and especially Gaborone.  We all concluded that Gaborone would be a very nice area to serve a Member Leadership Service Mission.

After church we returned to the hotel to change and get on our way to Madikwe.  We had to be at the Administration area by 12:30 to be picked up.

We packed up and crossed the border (customs and all) back into South Africa.  We traveled approximately 15K to the Abjaterskop Gate the entrance to Madikwe Game Reserve.

The weather was a bit cool, that is why we have coats on.  They came in handy during the game drives.

Brother Bird and Myself                                                                                      Sister Bird and Jenee

The Mosethlha Bush Camp is just what is describes.  No electricity and, no running water. However the accommodations were beyond our expectations and the hospitality was even better.  This is one of the locations we are considering to take our kids to when they come to visit us Feb 2013.

The Dinning Area                                                                                      The Game Room and Library

The Bed Room                                                                                             The open fire area










The "rest rooms" are very clean, (porcelain toilet & sink), and odor free!  The shower is typically outdoors:  you get hot water from the donkey boiler and mix it with cold water to your liking then poor it into the shower bucket and THERE YOU GO! Both the toilet and the show are away from the camp in a fenced-in area, nicely built and maintained.

After lunch at 2:30 we put on our winter attire and loaded the game truck for our first game drive.  The first drive lasted from 3:30 PM until 7:30 PM.  It was cold driving in the open vehicle so we had blankets to wrap up in along with our own thermals, coats, gloves, etc. In a game park you drive throughout the park looking for game - so it is a take what you get when you see it.  During this drive we did not see much but did see the following.

The Lion shots were in the evening, not 8 feet from us!







After arriving from the game drive dinner was ready so we sat down and visited with other guest at the came during dinner time.  Then we either sat around the open fire and chatted or went to bed, which is what we decided to do.

Monday morning we were up at 6:00 AM to get ready for the morning game drive.  After downing some viscoti (hard crumpets) and hot chocolate we boarded the vehicle at 6:45 AM and set out for the morning drive.  Following is what we saw this morning.

 

                                   This is the vehicle we drove in and our driver Kay.

                               Sister Bird, Kay and Jenee enjoying hot chocolate during a break.

After the morning drive at about 11:30 AM we got back to camp where breakfast was waiting for all of us.  We then packed things up and drove back to the South Africa/Botswana boarder to pick up Sister Tata and return home.  All in all it was a nice trip with great friends.