SMILE~~~~IT DOESN’T HURT August 7–12, 2012

We picked up Elder Gama returning from an European mission on Thursday.  While in the bakki going to the chapel to release him we were talking about the experiences of his mission.  He made an incredible observation of the people whom he served among.  He said, “I couldn’t figure out why they wouldn’t SMILE – IT DOESN’T HURT!  They always asked why I was smiling and I answered that is what I have always done.  The Swazi’s smile.”  I told him that was going to be the subject of my next blog.  Why don’t we all smile more…..it doesn’t hurt.  Swazi’s of all people, probably have the least to smile about, but they are always SMILING.  While we are walking down the street, or driving in the car, shopping in the crowded mall or in Manzini Market, anywhere, they smile, say “Sawubona”, and greet us with love and acceptance.  We all could learn from these amazing people.  Life may be hard but it doesn’t hurt to SMILE and it can make the world a better place.

A warm smile is the universal language of kindness

   

A smile happens in a flash, but its memory can last a lifetime

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity

Smile, it is the key that fits the lock of everybody’s heart

Count your smiles instead of your tears

A smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks

It is impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside

Start everyday off with a smile and get it over with

Smile – it’s the second best thing you can do with your lips

Remember even though the outside world might be raining, if you keep on smiling the sun will soon show its face and smile back at you

Greet each other with a smile

Tuesday, August 7^th, started very early. I arose before the sunrise to make rolls to take to the elders in Nhlangano. Lunch was going to be provided after their DTM. It was a great meeting. Dennis and I have asked the district leaders if we could be given some time at these meetings to remind them of the things they learned in Zone Conference and bear testimony of the work they are doing. How we love these elders that we serve with. They are our future and we are in good hands! On Sunday, we promised Babe Hlope (I hope that you all remember these people, haha, baptized a few months ago) that we would visit him and bring him a new tie because he only owned one. We love visiting there. What a strong testimony he has. He told us that his wife is stubborn so he doesn’t want to push her but wishes she would listen to the missionaries. He was a kombi driver until a little over a year ago when he got sick and was fired. He was down for about a year but is now feeling better and trying to get back on as a kombi driver. His wife is a hairdresser. He has a lot of people living on his homestead. There were some young adults (we found out they were his nephews) doing their wash, children playing the “draft” game with a board they made up (Dennis played the young boy), little children making fun with whatever they could find and his mother came out to say “Hi”. The family here is of utmost importance and you take care of each other even when you have nothing. Bro. Hlope passes the sacrament but is frightened to bless it but told Dennis that he would bless it with Dennis by his side. Dennis said that he would be honored to bless it with him. So we told him that we would be in Nhlangano for church on Sunday.

Elders Masaya, Zsemberry, Cauble, Sele

Bro. Hlope and his new tie

We then visited Make Zungu and her daughter, Tem. Tem and Bro. Hlope were baptized on the same day. Make was not in church on Sunday when we were there, so we wanted to see her. What a wonderful reunion. I asked Tem why she was not at the YSA activity in Manzini and she told me that she was “afraid her clothes were not good”. How sad. If only we could help all these wonderful people with their simple needs. I told her next time she was to come because it did not matter how you were dressed. I promised that I would be in church on Sunday with pictures of them! They love their pictures. They said that if we were in church on Sunday, she would bring us avocadoes.  And boy did she ever.  A huge bag of them!

Then it was on to Brother Dludlu’s home. Remember, we attended his wife’s night vigil (funeral) about a month ago. We had visited just before she died and had promised to come back. We were keeping our promise. Dennis and I were the ones that were spiritually and emotionally fed by this “giant” of a man. He was the 1^st branch president of the Nhlangano branch in 1991 and has stayed faithful inspite of hardships. He told us his story and I will not share it with you at this time but I took 4 pages of notes. He was a preacher in the Methodist church and gave it up for the gospel. But he is still respected among the other preachers in all of Swaziland. He was so cute and funny and we had a marvelous time. He is alone now and kept telling me he was an old man and I told him he was 84-years-young and he would laugh. He asked us to come again and told us he would never forget “this afternoon”. Dennis and I will never forget him!

On our drive home we listened to Hugh B. Brown’s ‘Profile of a Prophet’. I have forgotten what a masterpiece that is. I recommend that all of you look it up and listen to it. How can anyone doubt that the Prophet Joseph Smith was a true prophet, seer and revelator. Also, if you have time listen to his talk entitled, “Father, Are You There?” Another good one.

Both Manzini and Ezulwini’s districts have their DTM’s on Wednesday – 10:30 and 11:30, respectively. I made a lemon cake for them, so we drove to Manzini’s at 10:30 and just had time to drop some cake off and let them know we loved them and would attend next week. Then we hurried to Mbabane where the other DTM was being held. It was also very inspirational. There was an awful lot of participation which was great to hear. The Gundersons were here doing PEF work so we met up with them in their hotel room with pizza, homemade apple crisp and a deck of Rook cards to play games. (Thanks Shelly for the cards.) We had hoped to see some Olympic events- which we have seen zero – but they were not on. We had to wait until the next night, Thursday, to see the men’s 200 meter final and the women take gold in Soccer! We had a great evening.

Notice those boots of mine – a comfort from home

Thursday, August 9^th. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARA and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY CAMEO and JEREMY!! Three wonderful people are celebrating without us! Sara is turning 10 and Jeremy and Cameo are celebrating their 6^th anniversary. Wishing you the best of everything and may you have the desires of your heart!

Sara Arkell – Happy 10th Birthday

Cameo and Jeremy – Happy 6th Anniversary

I made cookies and spaghetti sauce all morning but it took me a lot longer than it should have. The elders from all over kept showing up. We love it but it does take longer for us to get our responsibilities done. Elder Muzi Gama was arriving from his mission at 1:30. We picked up Mancobe Shongwe, a friend that wanted to be there, and we made it to the airport to join family and friends to welcome him home. While we were waiting, I started taking pictures of some children who were there on a school field trip, and all of a sudden they were all surrounding me trying to get in the picture. They literally started pushing and shoving and I was nearly knocked over. We ended that quickly. Another funny statement Elder Gama made was when we were driving him to the chapel. He looked around and said, “I haven’t seen dirt roads for two years!” Funny what people miss about their homeland. I am not sure I am going to miss the dirt roads when I leave here, but who knows. Maybe I will. After Dennis released him we hurried home because we had 4 young men waiting for us. We had called a meeting to discuss the Swaziland mission reunion that we are having. There are a lot of return missionaries that have become inactive and we want to rekindle the fire they used to have. The others want to have a reunion like all the rest of the LDS missionaries have back in Salt Lake. So on August 25^th we are having our reunion! The plans were made and assignments given out to Machawe and Mancoba Shongwe, Xolani Sithole, Lucky Khoza and us. We then had dinner of spaghetti, breadsticks and apple crisp. They then wanted to listen to Profile of a Prophet that Dennis had told them about. We enjoyed listening to it again. We then went to the Gunderson’s hotel to see some Olympics. Yea!

Gotta love that SMILE

Officially released

The children that just about knocked me over

Our reunion meeting – Xolani, Mancoba, Machowe, Lucky

Listening to ‘Profile of a Prophet’

My father is 95-years young today, August 10^th. He is in the hospital because he fell a week ago and broke his leg. Happy Birthday and get well soon. My sweet children and grandchildren surprised him with a birthday party!  I am so grateful the Lord gave me His very finest who married people just like them and they are raising children to be even finer.  I am so proud!

Friday started marvelously and ended sadly. Baking seems to be my morning routine which I did again with cookies. (I burnt a whole batch – 15 cookies – because I was busy talking and forgot about them. Now you will have realize how precious these cookies are. They were Cowboy cookies with chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, craisins, raisins and mini chocolate chips. These ingredients are hard to come by and some are clear from America and I was devastated when I burnt them. ) We had lunch with Phile Ntslangase, a return missionary, in Mbabane. What a privilege to be asked to mentor these strong young men. He has been called to be Young Men’s president and we discussed things he could do with his calling and his mission experiences. I wish I could bring these young men home with me to find young women to marry because they will make marvelous husbands and fathers and for some reason they are not getting married here. (Another reason for our missionary reunion.) He helped us find some new phones for the elders and walked around the mall with us till we separated. We had errands to run – dry cleaning, pick up scriptures, etc. Then home again to get ready for a braai with the Ezulwini elders and a game of Mormon Bridge with our Rook cards. The sad news—Elder Maclean and Elder Mokoena told us that one of the young men that was just baptized, Musa Towala’s 6-year old niece had gone missing a week ago and was found dead in the river by their homestead. She was outside watching her younger siblings when 2 ladies approached her with a treat and that was the last they had seen her. Apparently, she had been brutually killed and Musa was having a very difficult time with the news. How do you comfort someone with news like that? The elders were struggling also. Not only with how to help their friend but how such a thing could happen. We will never understand how someone could hurt a precious child. We discussed how grateful for the gospel that gives us knowledge that young girl will be with her Heavenly Father for eternity and Musa has the gospel to comfort him and he can in turn comfort his family with his new understanding and testimony.

Phile Ntslangase

Elders Shipalane, Maclean, Bangerter, Mokoena – me wearing my tan jacket as always. I’m always cold in my home.

Saturday, August 11^th started with a walk to talk about how to best help Musa. We started with what would we do if we were home. We would call the Bishop, Elders Quorum President and get the ward supporting him. So that is exactly what we did. We called the Branch President but he was busy. So we called Mancoba Shongwe, Elder’s Quorum President, and asked if he could join us when we visited Musa at 10:00 today. Along with the elders, we picked him up and went to see Musa. What a visit with power and comfort. Dennis discussed scriptures with him about the love the Savior has for little children and how they will be with God in the celestial kingdom.  This is where his niece will be and bore testimony of that. The elders, also, shared their thoughts, followed by Mancoba. I bore my testimony that I knew the Lord was aware of his situation and he would feel His arms surround him during this difficult time. I, also, told him that he now had an additional family to help him through his sorrow—his church family. Elder Maclean and Elder Mokoena will be transferred and we will leave in a year, but Brother Shongwe and his church family will be here forever to help assist and sustain him and help strengthen his testimony. He then bore his testimony and expressed that he felt better and knew the Savior would help him and his family. Then he asked us to continue to pray for them. The spirit was strong. Dennis asked if he wanted a blessing and he did. We went from outside into his one-room home where Dennis gave a powerful blessing. I wonder why I am so lucky to be part of all this. My testimony is growing leaps and bounds because of these people and their simple faith. We then drove Musa and the elders to where his sister lives so he could see her and give her comfort. Musa and 3 other of the Lobamba boys are going to receive the priesthood tomorrow and another young man is going to be baptized. Musa doesn’t have a white shirt or tie, so Dennis and I bought one to give to him. These are times that we wished we could be two places at the same time…..Nhlangano and Ezulwini. There is one baptism in Nhlangano which we promised to be at and 2 in Ezulwini plus ordinations! We will continue to help him through this. He did say that his home teachers came yesterday to visit him. Of course, they are two of his very best friends – Zweli and Maxwell. Cute, huh? Dennis had to attend a council in the Ezulwini branch all afternoon, so I made homemade bread and wrote my blog.

Look at the burnt field – it looks like this all over

This is how people get their water – from Taps like this

A foot bridge we found today – I was leaning a little on it for the picture and it gave way

Elder Maclean, Musa, Mancoba, Elder Mokoena

Smunga – being baptized Sunday – at the Lobamba boys Snak Shack

Inside the shack reading his Book of Mormon

Making bread the way I used to – kneading by hand – oh, where is my Bosch

The final product

It is Sunday evening and our power is out…again.  Three times in the last 24 hours but this time it has been probably 7 hours.  But we can’t let this dampen our Sabbath day spirit.  Of course, we had a family coming over for dinner that we had to “uninvite” because what I was cooking needed an oven.  That was disappointing for us.  I was looking forward to getting to know them. They moved really close to us from the Mbabane Branch. The thought just occurred to me that most of the people we know here live this way daily – no electricity.  How can I complain when it happens just for a few hours for us.  I forget how blessed we are.

Early this morning we drove to Nhlangano just to find out that Bro. Hlope found a job and he had to work today so was unable to bless the sacrament with Dennis.  Another disappointment for us.  But Dennis was able to confer the Melchizedek Priesthood and ordain to the office of an Elder a young man in the branch, Khethane Vilane.  Then we stayed for the baptism of Tenetile Motsa.   We hurried home so I could prepare for our guests and Dennis could attend his District meeting.  Now, the lights are out and the elders and us are trying to figure out what to eat and do.  The baptisms in the Ezulwini branch went well and the ordinations were great.  All is well in Swaziland!

Elder Cauble, Tenetile Motsa, Elder Sele

Tenetile has a lot of church friends

Khethane Vilane and Dennis

Sis. Zungu sitting in church with her grandchild (Tem’s son) on her back

Our avacadoes

Smunga and Hlobisle Lukhele - Ezulwini branch

Elder Maclean, Mokoena, Smunga, Hlobisle, Elder Bangerter, Elder Shipalane

Priesthood Ordination

Mbongiseni, Maxwell, Musa (like his new shirt and tie), Muzi

Lobamba Boys that have joined the church

Zwali, Maxwell, Mbongiseni, Musa, Elder Mokoena, Smunga, Muzi, Zwali’s cousin who is getting baptized in two weeks, Elder Maclean – in front is a counselor in the Elders Quorum

Tem and the Mabusa sisters

SMILE—IT DOESN’T HURT.  Look at the smile of those girls.  It is contagious so let’s go spread it.