May 17, 2014 - Shelley

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Well, Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore!  And I really mean it!!!!

We finished our week of training on Thursday.  It was all very good and we learned much.  One thing that has been hard is that we ate three big meals a day – usually two at the hotel dining room and then one in a nice restaurant at night.  And we sat all day!!!  I feel like I have gained at least 10 pounds in the last four weeks since we started this great adventure.  Probably not but it feels like it.

On Friday morning, we all went to the Johannesburg Temple, which was really a great experience.  It’s a very small but has four endowment rooms that all lead to one celestial room, so four sessions can be going on at the same time.  Each of the endowment rooms holds about 25 people, so it was a pretty intimate setting.  There have been two new temple films released in the last few months, but until Friday I had only seen one of them.  Afterward, we took a city tour on an open-topped bus around the city of Johannesburg.  It was interesting.  Downtown is definitely not a  place for white people, though.  There are areas that are more white people than black, but we were told that whites only represent about 15% of the total population.

With that said, I can see that we haven’t really seen the real Africa until today.  And maybe not even today – I don’t know.  We flew to Lubumbashi this morning.  The Kinghorns took us and stayed with us until we left for our gate – they were so great.  Brother Lee, too.  He paid for our extra luggage fee - $500!!!!  That was a shocker, but we were given a computer for our office and that gave us an extra suitcase.

The Korongo airplane, even though the name seems pretty crazy, wasn’t too, too bad.  Mostly business-type men were on the plane – and the B.O. was pretty intense.  We’re not even going to talk about the bathroom.  The ladies at the conference told me to go before I left the airport and not to drink anything, but I had to learn for myself, I guess.

The planes land away from the airport and there is a portable stairway, like in the olden days.  We were a little upset because Immigration took everyone’s passports – including ours!  Just then we recognized something – it was a yellow vest saying something like “Helping Hands” from the LDS Church.  It was worn by a tall, black fellow named Tom who was there to help us.  We would have been toast without him!  He ushered us out of a total chaos airport to where Brother and Sister Clawson were waiting for us.  She is the medical person for our mission and he arranges all housing and transfers of the missionaries.  Anyway, Tom went back into the frenzy of the airport, retrieved our passports and got our five suitcases!!!  The Clawsons paid him and then he was off with two friends who had helped him.  The Clawsons drove us to an open market called a marche where she bought some fruit and vegetables for us.  We also tried to stop at a grocery store but it was closed because today is some holiday.  We went to the mission home compound, where the Clawsons live and she took food out of her cupboard for us so that we would have food for a few days.  Pretty wonderful!

Brother Clawson took us to our new home.  It’s actually a very large house.  It’s in a compound-type arrangement with another building that has two apartments.  Elder Wright and his wife lived there when they were here (we corresponded a lot with him and they recently went home).  Anyway, there is a guard 24 hours a day who lets us in and out.  Right now I am sitting in the living room and can see the guard outside sitting by his campfire.  He will stay there all night.  We don’t have a car yet.  We were told that another missionary couple was living in the Wright’s old apartment.  It sounded like their name was Bailey – and I was excited because I thought it would mean we had someone to hang around with.  As it turns out, their name is Mbele – they are a black, French-speaking missionary couple from Kinshasa.  I realized very quickly that I should have been more diligent in studying my French!!!  They speak no English.

The house will probably be fine.  It’s dark – high ceilings and poor lighting.  Power goes in and out and sometimes there is no water.  And it’s pretty dirty.  For now, we put a few things away and are going to call it a night.  The Clawsons will pick us up for church early tomorrow morning.

Well, all in all, we’ve been treated royally!  Our experience in Johannesburg with the Lees and Kinghorns just couldn’t have been better.  They are such diligent, committed people who absolutely worked day and night to make our experience a good one.  We have much to learn!!!

The Lord has watched over us – in our travels, in learning new things, in calming our personal struggles and fears – in all ways.  We have been very, very blessed!