WHAT WILL I GIVE CHRIST THIS CHRISTMAS? December 10–16, 2012

In Sacrament meeting today, a young man was speaking of the importance of the season and said, “This Christmas we shouldn’t ask “What will I get for Christmas?” but ask, “What will I give Christ this Christmas?”  So this year I will give Christ my life as a missionary bearing testimony of Him and our Father.  I will give Him a willing heart and all my “might, mind and strength”.  I will give Him separation from my family at this wonderful holiday season.  I will give Him my love and serve Him diligently in any manner that he would desire of me.  I will give Him this because He has given me so much and has always been there for me.  I love Him kakhulu!  May we all look into our hearts and decide what we can give Christ this Christmas.

Monday, we woke early to an phone call from Elder Maclean telling us that his companion, Elder Mabena was not feeling well.  He has had stomach pains for a few days so we have been observing him.  He had a bad night so we thought it was time to have a doctor look at him.  We met them at the Mbabane clinic.  After an hour wait, they finally eliminated appendicitis, gallbladder problems and diagnosed it as extreme amount of gas in the stomach.  Medicine was diagnosed and they went home.  We stayed in Mbabane and took a broken washing machine to get repaired and went to the post office to pick up a package.  Yea!!  At home I baked homemade bread and banana bars.  Then off to visit Manqoba at work for his birthday with bread offerings and the Msibi family.  They have added 5 extra children to their family – cousins and I do not know for how long.  They also have a lot of new puppies from their dog.  I will never understand.  When we got there Thandazile was scrapping her toenails with a rock to get the polish off.  We asked what she was doing and we found out that there are men wondering the homesteads for the king collecting money and making sure they are living as tradition dictates……no pants (they cut them if you are wearing them), no earrings, no polish on nails for the women and I have no idea for the men.  They were terrified.  They kept telling me to take off my earrings.  One of the cousins (about 5 or 6) came running up through the trees crying because she had seen the men and she had pants on.  She flew past us, ran into the room and came back with a skirt on.  All this goes along with the tradition of “incwala”.  The king secludes himself for two months to renew his powers.  While he is doing this, the men of the country go to the ocean in Mozambique, gather water and comes back with it to renew his power.  Then they start wondering the countryside terrifying people and collecting money. You can’t blame them for being frightened – no man at the homestead to help protect them.  We stayed around for a long while in hopes they would come while we were there, but they never came.  We left them E20 to give to the men in hopes they would leave them alone.  We haven’t been back to see what happened.  I really feel like they just waited until we left to visit the family.  We had seen some of the men before but did not know what they were doing.  They wear the traditional Swazi men clothing – you can’t miss them.  We hurried home because the Lobamba boys were coming over for their discussion. 

Manqoba’s birthday

Masabandza (oldest boy) was not there

They love to look at the pictures after we take them

Tuesday we had visitors from the Lesotho and Bloemfontaine areas of the mission, Elder and Sister Holt and Wyatt.  It was delightful meeting fellow senior couples.  What a blessing to have so many wonderful couples serving and moving forward the work of the Lord.  Before we met up with them we did Manzini boarding checks and attended their DDM.  It is Elder Sele’s last DDM with us – he is being transferred.  Then we took the Holts and Wyatts to the Silver Smith Shop, Ezulweni Market and Gone Rural.  Gone Rural was awesome this time.  They had a lot of ladies out weaving their baskets, a lady weighing the straw, another one coloring the straw in pots and then drying them on the racks.  The ladies were so cute and fun.  They enjoyed our visit and we loved visiting them.  After we had them over for dinner.  Great day!

We met Thanda – a lady in Ezulwini Market that used to come to church as an investigator then her husband told her she could not come anymore.  Apparently he tells her he can start attending again, so she and her three children came on Sunday.  Look at that sewing machine she works on.  It is by hand – no electricity and she does beautiful work.

This man from Ezulwini Market carved this Big 5 statue that we bought.  We need to quit showing the markets to people that come….

Gone Rural – they are amazing women.  Life is not easy, but they are so happy.

December 12 (12/12/12 – amazing, huh) started with sending the Mbabane elder’s boarding to outer darkness.  We have no idea how to inspire these elders to take care of their boardings.  Bribery, threatenings, Celestial boarding certificates with a huge candy bar, telling them the spirit cannot exist in a filthy place, is not doing the trick.   Any other ideas?  We then met up with some volunteers from Gone Rural that were taking straw to a group of women that do weaving up on the Tea Road – a place far from civilization.  We were going to follow them because we are purposing a water project for them.  At this point they have no water.  They get it from the streams.  This project would benefit 600 hundred women and children.  We got started and had to turn back because the roads were too wet.  There were two bakki’s that were already stuck.  We were so disappointed.  Another day!  Dennis met up with Pres. Jerome Shongwe to take Christmas cards to the people that were at our Public Affair dinner last month.  He saw the Prince, Council of Churches, etc.  I stayed home and cooked and wrapped presents.  We had some extra time before we were to meet up with the Wyatts and Holts at Summerfield, so we went to visit Patricia and meet her daughters.  Darling girls.  The youngest – 5 – ran up to us like she knew us.  How cute is that?  Enjoyed our short visit with a promise to come back.  Then to Summerfields for dinner.

Patricia’s family and missionaries that were there

Wyatts and Holts and our cute waiter

Thursday we spent the morning at the Cultural Village with our guests enjoying the dancing and singing of these wonderful people.  The tour through the village learning of the homestead traditions was very interesting.  We had been there once before but it was a while ago.  Dennis joined us after the tour and just as the dancing was beginning.  He had taken Elder Kinyaka to the dentist because of a bad toothache.  They want to pull it but Elder Kinyaka is worried about loosing a tooth at such an early age.  But we do not do root canals here.  They gave him some antibiotic to help the infection and will pull it next week.  Back to the cultural village.  The dancing was amazing.  They had two young boys that were so good and stole the show.  I have footage but again, do not know how to upload it so we can share.  After the dancing, they sang Amazing Grace and then some traditional songs.  We had such a great time.  Excited to bring Trina and Brian back next week so they can experience it and we get to watch it again. 

The Cultural Village

Me, Sisters Wyatt and Holt

Our guide standing in front of the head woman’s home

Off to Joburg on Friday morning.  We left early but apparently not early enough because we had an hour wait at the border.  This is the first time ever we have not been able to just go through.  But it was nice visiting.  The thing I enjoy most about Joburg is the temple and seeing our “senior couple” friends.  We had a list of things that people from Swaziland wanted for the distribution center, so we got them, then visited with some friends and then off to the temple for a session.  Oh, how I miss attending the temple weekly.  It was a totally full session.    When  we entered there was a beautiful blue sky and we came out to pouring rain.  Of course, we were not prepared.  We also realized that we had no phone numbers of those who we were staying with.  We had to inquire at the temple and got the Webb’s number and called, but no answer.  We later found out that his phone is lost.  Finally, they called us and we met up, went to dinner, visited and shared mission stories and pictures.  The best ever!!!  The Webb’s go home on December 31st.  We will sorely miss them.

 

Sister and Elder Webb – alias, Carol and Norris

Saturday, December 15th Trina and Brian arrived in South Africa!!!!  Can’t begin to explain the inexplicable joy of seeing her coming out the airport door.  This is got to be what the reunion in heaven is going to feel like.  Trina and Brian had a long but good flight and they looked marvelous for being cooped up in an airplane for 26 hours.  But we gave them no time to rest and remember how tired they were.  We wanted to show them the temple and we had to buy some things at the distribution center.  Then we drove to a Lion Park where we saw lions, giraffes, zebras, ostriches and cheetahs.  Not bad for just being in Africa for 5 hours!!  We had a great time enjoying the “big game” in Africa.  Then off to show them our beloved new country – Swaziland.  We arrived with rain and rolling thunder.  They were impressed with the thunder.  You really need to experience it – it is so different from our thunder in Utah.  They fell asleep almost as soon as we got home.  That’s okay…we have two weeks to get caught up!

Trina and Brian arriving

The happy reunion

Joburg airport foyer – who says they do not celebrate Christmas?

Introducing them to our “bakki”

Trina doing the “Gina” pose

The Johannesburg Temple

The Christmas statues in front of the temple

The LION PARK

Mama lions nursing their little ones

Cheetahs

HAPPY BIRTHDAY  CASSIE.  December 16th is Cassie’s birthday.  We so love having Cassie as part of the family.  From the beginning, it has felt like she belonged to our family.  We are so grateful that Heavenly Father led her to Koy which consequently brought her to the rest of us.  Hope you had a wonderful day!

You know how I always say that I love Sundays…..now Trina and Brian understand why.  They also love Sundays in Swaziland.  They are the BEST!  We attended the Ezulwini branch and they were so excited to meet them.  We have been talking about them coming for months and one elder told us the night before we left to pick them up that we were going to bring back their sister!    After Sacrament Meeting, we were showing an investigators daughter where Primary was and lo and behold – there were no leaders in Primary.  So the three of us took the opportunity to teach these darling children.  And it took the three of us.  I am not good at doing things impromptu but with them there it turned out fun.  We talked about Christmas and then we acted out the nativity scene.  They had a blast and so did we.  We tried to sing but they did not know any songs that we knew.  We went outside and played a dance game that one of the young girls knew, returned to have them draw the nativity scene.  Wow – what amazing pictures some of them drew.  Children never cease to amaze me.  They loved Trina’s hair and Brian’s prickly face.  After church, Dennis had a training meeting for the new youth program for all the branch youth leaders and Sunday school leaders in the district.  Trina and Brian slept…jet lag.  When Dennis returned home we ate and then went for a ride so they could see some of Swaziland in the daylight.  This was just the beginning of their Swazi experience.

Spending the Sabbath day with the children of the Ezulwini Branch

Our star cast of the Nativity scene – can you guess which one was the angel?

 

Dancing to “Dance baby dance”.  I have video of Dennis, Brian and some of the kids dancing but again, someone needs to teach me how to upload them.

On our ride we found this new palace that the King is building which is an extension of an existing one– SHAME on you King

Yes, this Christmas I will give Christ my service in the mission field doing anything I can to proclaim the gospel to his children.  But if I really think about it, it really is not a gift to Him…..it is His gift to me this Christmas.