October 2020 SAJM 2014-2017 Reunion

Dear fellow SAJM 2014-2017 Missionaries,

We are thrilled to announce a virtual SAJM reunion on Oct 4, 2020, at 12:00 PM MST (Utah Time).

During this unique time in the world's history, we are grateful to have the means and technology available to see all of you!

Since it is the most universal for the majority of us, we will use Facebook to host the event so use the link below to join. You don't have to have a Facebook account to join us.

We also need your help in reaching as many SAJMers as possible so please SHARE or forward this message to as many missionaries as you know.

We are so delighted to see you soon!

https://msngr.com/pQ-BmfE4vF5KOl9j

Love, President and Sister Dunn 

Celebrating Brother Tshabala at the time of his passing

On Wednesday July 29, 2020 Brother Tshabala will be laid to rest in Johannesburg, South Africa. We were so blessed to come to know and love him as a family member during our time in the South Africa Johannesburg Mission from July 2014 to March 2017.
Brother Tshabala was the endearing spouse of Irene, who worked and served in the SAJM mission home. We were the 5th mission president couple she worked for. We felt like Irene was aa family member in every way., She shared the mission home with us most weekdays and taught us about South Africa, history and food and people. Irene, with her dear husband visited us in the mission home on many occasions over dinner.

We honor Brother Tshabala and his role as a convert, devoted church member, bishop of the Soweto ward and friend to all who knew him.

Sending all our love to Irene and family.
We send our love 

See. this first post of the Tshabalala family when we first arrived:
https://dunnsinjoburg.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-son-returns-home.html

Kisakye Maria and Benedict Kairu tie the knot!

Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Benedict Kairu
married on March 28 in the Bugembe Ward in jinja Uganda. What an amazing couple.

We have been communicating back and forth for a few months with Benedict about their plans to get married. Many things kept delaying them, but we were so happy to hear that everything finally went through. Sending all our love to this amazing couple.

The Lord of the Ring

On March 24, 2020, Elder Dunn gave a devotional message for LDS Business College. Due to the Coronavirus, the devotional was given to a virtual audience.
Check it out here:

What is your COVID-19 Mantra?

COVID-19

Try This at Home: Choose a COVID-19 Mantra.

We love mantras. Each year, we choose a mantra for the year, as we discuss in episodes 57 and 59, and we also might choose one-word or one-phrase themes for the year, as we discuss in episodes 26, 151, 201, 208, 254…we love this exercise.

We’re now doing daily Instagram Live "Coping with COVID-19 Conversations" Mon-Fri at 4 pm ET. (If you miss one, you can watch the replay for up to 24 hours. Follow me on Instagram—I'm @gretchenrubin—and click on my profile image to join once we’ve started.)

In one of those conversations, we started talking about our COVID-19 mantra, and we continue that conversation here.

Elizabeth's mantras: "Closer, Stronger, Lighter" and "If not now, when."

My mantra: "Put down the clipboard." I mention being an Upholder in my "Four Tendencies" personality framework. If you want to know if you're an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel, you can take the free, quick quiz here.

A listener wrote us that her mantra is "Don’t treat a gift like a burden,” an idea that we've discussed before.

On Happier in Hollywood episode 153, Elizabeth and Sarah also talked about COVID-19 mantras.

Coronavirus connections

March 2020
We send our love to all of our beloved missionaries. We are concerned about the health and safety of all our SAJM returned missionaries across the globe. This s one situation that we are all involved in, no matter where we live.

We have the world in our prayers and feel blessed to rely on our faith to comfort us and prompt us to the right actions during this time of quarantines and lock downs.
We were blessed to have a chance to have South African visitors in the month of February and March.

WE will add pictures here on Lynne and Tyler Van der Hoven, visiting from Centurion, South Africa.  We had them with us for a week and the time flew by.

Later in March, Andy and Charnell de Kock visited and we had the pleasure of having Corbin, Nate and Andy and Charnell enjoy an evening and dinner with us.

Pictures coming.

Taft Asay gets married

On Saturday November 2, 2019, Taft and Makinley are married. It was so wonderful to be able to attend the sealing and reception. What a great couple they are and we are so happy for them.

It was great to see Camron Wood and Tyler Carpenter at the sealing. Tyler has a brand new son, named Grayson, born just 3 weeks ago.

It was wonderful to meet Taft's mom, Eunice. What a gem she is. I enjoyed communicating with her on the mission and it was so wonderful to meet her in person. Taft's parents are as wonderful as I knew they would be. Such a pleasure to be part of it all.