South Africa Johannesburg Mission: Mpumalanga Memories

We spent the weekend in the Mpumalanga Province. This is the area furthest away from our mission home and mission office. These 4 Elders live about 4 hours from Gauteng Province and it is always nice to connect.

We started by joining them in their Friday District meeting held at the Nelspruit Chapel.

Elder Hlpohe taught a wonderful lesson on "How to Avoid Burnouts and Ruts on a Mission."
Afterwards, Sister Black and Elder Benson practiced a musical number their are preparing for sacrament meeting. So great to see talents being shared and working together. They are also trying to put together a guitar and ukelele combo for street contacting.

The Zone Leaders joined with us for the District meeting
Pictured R-L: Elder Hlophe, Elder Wolfgramm, Elder Mbiriwiri, President Dunn and Elder Ratsimbazafy

We visited their new flat for the Nelspruit Elders. They had to move this month due to their other flat being sold. This is a nice, clean space and they are taking good care of it. "Green Card" flat for sure.

I brought a slow cooker full of beef stew for them to enjoy. We are doing this as part of interviews in the mission home the next two weeks. We do their interviews in Nelspruit due to the distance to travel, so we bring the workshop :on the road".

Also, so fun to drop in to the Black's flat and see their new addition...a beautiful upright piano. Sister Black is teaching piano lessons and helping with music at every turn. This is a wonderful gift Elder Black got for Sister Black!!

The Black's have made their flat a wonderful "home away from home." On the wall they have purchased a Kaross wall hanging. This art form is done by women in Limpopo and by supporting their work and purchasing their products you support and encourage micro- enterprise in the very best way.
https://kaross.co.za/

Later that day, President Dunn and I were able to pay a visit to some stalwart members of the Nelspruit branch, the Krugers live outside of Nelspruit and drive over 1.5 hours to get to church each Sunday. They run a potato and onion business in the town of Komatipoort, which is very close to Mozambique. Their brother and son, is serving a mission in Madagascar at this time. It was wonderful to be in their home.

On Sunday we headed to the Kanymazane branch and met up first with Elder Hosmer. We love visiting here and have come many times. They have broken ground for a new building site which will be much better than the school. We hope it happens soon for them. They have waited a very long time.

Elder and Sister Card do a great job serving here. There are so many great members helping the missionaries and working together.

Elder Benson and Elder Hosmer are tearing it up in KaNymazane. They were leading the mission last week in all their stats on "opening their mouth" It is paying off with a lot of new investigators.

We love being with them and congratulate these two on working hard in Kanymazane.

As we drove out of Kanymazane, I could not help but notice the classic retail shops and signage along the road. Hair salons are very popular. So, are fruit and vegetable markets off the side of the road.

There is some sort of supermarket at every turn. People are resourceful in small villages and townships to put businesses in front of their dwellings.

Wherever you are, it seems a taxi pulls in front of you loaded with people and stops and blocks your car for a moment. Gotta love 'em!

We ended our Sabbath Day with a visit to the Nelspruit Branch, just in time for a very special baptism after church. Elder Black was asked to baptize this wonderful man, Amos Lesibana Bambo whose wife, Sister Thandiwe Bambo and family have been members.

The program was held in the cultural hall where they have a baptismal font. Their beautiful daughter, Nolwazi Bambo, who is turning in her mission papers today, gave one of the talks.

Nolwazi is so stunning and ambitious. She is planning on becoming a pilot after her mission. She has high academic marks and is so outstanding in every way What a great missionary she will make.