Pumba / Missionary work / June 24 - July 1

Pumba game reserve and the aloe plant that we see everywhere in full bloom

This is their favorite food the leaves which grow among the thorns. Oh, yum!

Hi to all,   Every 6 weeks the senior couples in the West Cap and East Cape of the Cape Town mission  get together and we enjoy a new South Africa attraction in our area.  This last week we got to enjoy the Pumba game park.  It is a huge game park. Come to find out that in South Africa there have been enclosed game parks since 1800's.  So no free roaming wild life since way back then. We saw so many giraffe They are becoming my favorite.  I love to watch them eat, walk, run and interact with their little ones.  Here are a couple of pictures.

Such a magnificent animal, and did you know that the spot patterns are different on
every single giraffe?

Baboons are everywhere and do they move fast when the white lion is close. If you look real close you will see the baby hanging on to his mother.

The White Lion and her 1 year old cub stocking their prey, the Impala and Zebra

The one year old coming up from the left as they try to surprise their prey.

Just walking from bush to bush, they make sure the wind is at their blowing into their faces so their prey can't get the lions scent.  The white lion is easy to see as they move through the brush.

This is my favorite picture, just waiting and creeping up to their prey.  They are very patient animals, but today they were not successful.  They only
got a warthog. They really wanted the Impala or Zebra.


I'm being blog challenged to day so I will hope can read the small print.

Missionary work!  Though we have the opportunity to see this beautiful country our main purpose in being here in South Africa is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and be of service to the people here.  We do that in may ways. Mainly through the George branch, which is a unit of the church.  It is a small unit but they are growing.  Some days we have so many at church that we think we are going to need a bigger building, but for now it is adequate.

George is a very clean town and here are a few reasons why.  These are the street sweepers and you see them all over town.  They each have their own small area that they keep clean.  Saturday I was at Curves and a lady was coming into the parking lot and she ran over a glass bottle and it just popped.  When we came out 1/2 hour later it was gone!  The "street sweeper" had it all swept up.

Elder Richins does a lot of training.  When you have new members they need to learn the "ropes", and that is what he is very good at.  For example, Auditing, ward clerk, executive secretary, ward news letter, sharing Family Home Evening with the families of the branch, home teaching, visiting teaching, ward activities, playing the piano for primary, doing prelude in sacrament meeting , giving talks when asked, visiting members that the branch president assigns us, teaching institute.  So along with these activities comes the preparation.  We also support the full times Elders by going to appointments with them when asked, making sure they get a good meal each week, since they don't get asked to homes very often.  There budget each week is not that great and they really do a great job of making it last.  I would say that a mission teaches the young men how to budget and make their resources go a long way.

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Our dinner guests today.  Elder Pearson, Elder Richins, Elder Sheward, Elder Speed, Branch President Matsaluka, Marshall, and Elder Dladla.  We had spaghetti, green salad, french bread and apple crisp.  Great company and good conversation.

We needed to to buy a flash drive so we could put pictures on it.  As we were getting ready to buy one a street vendor came up to our car and said he had a 32 G flash drive and it was only 120 Rand.  Lynn said he would give him 80 Rand.  The guy didn't bat an eye.  The deal was made and Elder Richins was really pleased with himself.  We came home and told the Elders all about the "deal" and they said well I hope their is something in it.  Elder Richins said he checked it over really good and the package hadn't been tampered with.  But when we put it into the computer also it had no memory.  We were scammed, so back to a legitimate store to get the real thing this week.  NEVER BUY ELECTRONICS FROM A STREET VENDOR!