Dear Family,  I never get tired of taking pictures of the people in the back of trucks.  I have been programed to believe that it is a problem, and there are so many accidents on the road.  These boys would have been thrown far in an accident. 

Always moving forward

Dear Family and Friends,  Welcome to Namibia.  I would guess that most of you have never heard of Namibia.  It isn't on most peoples destination lists unless you like to hunt big game or visit dunes.  I reminds me a lot of Arizona, though they have my favorite cactus which I can't spell at this moment.  We are in the beginning of summer and are "enjoying" temperatures in the upper 80's and low 90's.  We have our fans and a small box air conditioner in the living room.  We must thank the Smith's who are going home in March for giving up this flat.  They have moved into one of the Elder's flats for 4 months.  At the moment we have no young elders in Namibia, the government doesn't want to give them visa's.  We hope that we will be staying also, Elder Richins hasn't obtained his visa and he has two weeks to obtain it.  There is someone in the Public Affairs committee that  rejects all of our applications.  A few years ago there was a small group that came in here and got a lot of the people interested in their church, had them pay a lot of money and then left the country with it.  It is hard to convince them that all we want to do is share our message.  It is up to the individual to make the decision to join.  One of the excuses is that these young men are coming in to take the jobs of the people in the country.  It doesn't seem to matter that we are not doing that, we come at our own expense, we bring in money, we don't take it out.  If you are so inclined we would love for you to add your prayers that we can get Elder Richins visa, and also that the young elders can come in also.

Now to what we have been doing for the past week.  Today was a awesome day at church.  It was the Primary children's turn to do the program in our sacrament meeting.  For those of you who have never been involved or listened to a sacrament meeting program, I highly recommend it.  The little ones between 3 and 12 prepare music and little parts to say.  The theme this year was CHOOSE THE RIGHT, each month they learn a new song and then each child prepares a short part to say.  Most of the children had their parts memorized and they stood up and would say (for example  , Dear Brothers and Sisters my name is Sam, I can choose the right by being kind to my family and obeying my mother and father, in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.
I took these pictures after the program in the primary room.  The group was so large and the room so small I had to take two pictures.  The picture includes the children and the teachers.

Windhoek Branch Primary children and teachers

Last weekend we were in Swakopmund.  It is a seaside down with a German presents.  We went from 80-90 degrees to 60 degrees.  I was grateful I had a light jacket.  We met with 2 couples and their children.  We call it a group, they are meeting in the Noble home but we renting space in new business section, it is being made into a church setting with a chapel, classrooms, kitchen, clerks office and branch president's office.  So we will be going to Swakopmund in December to buy TV, frig and things like that.  Everything else will be shipped from Salt Lake. We hope to have an open house in January.

The Hercules and Nobles families, Brother Smith and the Richins

The church is renting the bottom floor of this building

We visited with several members that live in the area besides the Nobles and Hercules.  One of the things that amazes me is how often the families are split apart because of jobs.  One sister lives in Swakopmund, she has a very good job with public relations in the health field, her husdand lives in Windhoek and he is an engineer.  Another young mother lives in Walvis Bay which is south of here and her mother is raising her daughter in Windhoek. It is very common for the grandmother's to take the kids and raise them.  The Young Men's president is working here and his family, wife and 3 children are living in Zimbabwe.

So you don't think we spend all of our time at the church here are a few pictures of our adventures to, at and from Swakopmund.

A ship wreck off the Atlantic coast

 We enjoyed walking around Swakopmund.  It is relatively a small town, I would say smaller than Carpenteria.

Does anything look out of place in this photo? 

This "little" guy flew on my back while I was sitting on the pier.  Just to let you know I didn't panic.

On the way home Sister Smith saw a sign directing people to the 2nd largest sand dune in the world (I think) So we went off the main two lane highway and on a roller coaster road that was often covered with a dust of sand.  It was only 11 kilometers, which seemed like forever when you had huge semi trucks constantly coming out you.

Please stay on our side of the road!!!

When we got to the #7 dune Elder Smith got out of the car, when to the nearest table took of his shoes and socks and started climbing to the top.  He is very strong, very big and very fit.  He said that going up the sand was hot on the top but if you burrowed down it was cool, so he stopped often to cool off his feet.  I only went up a few yards, it really was to hot to climb and I wasn't dressed for the occasion.
 Enough for today,   Have a great week.
Love, Elder and Sister Richins

Welcome to Namibia

October 21-28, 2012

We arrived in Namibia at dusk.  The sky was beautiful.  It reminds me  of Arizona.  The weather is very  warm right now , in the 90's each day but cools down at night.  The mornings are wondferful.  they are just starting their rainy season which lasts until about April.  I went out to water the plants on Saturday and it started raining.  Not enough to even get me wet, so I just kept watering.

This picture was taken on our way to Windhoek.  The Smith's who picked us up said that they would often see giraffe and baboons along the side of the road, but not tonight.  We did see baboons the next day as we were traveling down the freeway, but I didn;t have my camera ready.

Our first impressions have been that we are back in California except most of the people are from somewhere in Africa.  Kenya, Angola, Zimbabwe ect.  There is the language of Afrikaans  but most everyone speaks English.  We are constantly asking people what their last name is.  They can tell you but they usually just go by first names.  Looking at the branch membership list is difficult because you are looking for 1st names because no one will give you their last name,  which is easier to find because those are  alphabetized. The little ones are precious as you can see in this picture.  These kids are about 18 months to 3 years old. 

This was a short one because of internet challenges.  Please see November 3rd posting.

Sister Richins

I will finish tomorrow this connection is too slow to night.  Sister Richins

October 21-28, 2012.

More from Namibia

Hi everyone,  So sorry that the last posting was so short.   Internet problems last week.

This tree is just around the corner from the Windhoek chapel

Up close the flowers look pink.

Life as gotten much busier.  Thank heavens the Smith's are here until the end of January.   All of our young missionaryies

Farewell to South Africa

Hello everyone, It is good to be back.  I hope you received our email last week.
Yes the headline is correct.  We are leaving South Africa.  We are being transferred to Namibia.
At the moment we know that everyone says you will LOVE IT!  I also know I will be in the heat
come Wednesday.  Elder Richins and I are excited for this new adventure and looking forward to
the challenges and opportunities we will have.  It is bitter/sweet.  We love the people here in George.
When you work closely with people for 7 months they become like family.  Here are a few pictures
of the people and things we will leave behind.
Elder! ELDER!

When they see the white car the kids start running.  We can be two blocks away

Elder Richins has started bringing a garbage bag so the kids can pick up garbage before they receive their sucker. We especially have a soft spot for the little ones.

We literally ran into these beautiful birds as we rounded a corner in the industrial area.  They were pecking away in the street and the roadside.

I know that red bottle brush is common in California, but I had never seen pink before.

This was a very overcast day but the kids were having great fun in the waves.  I will miss the ocean in Namibia, we are going to be inland.

We will miss these friends.  These are the women I have the opportunity to learn to read English.  We had them over for a Family Home Evening and game night. 

We will miss the uniqueness of Thembuletu

If you look closely you will see they are sitting on chairs in the back of this truck

The yummy meats sold on the street and very glad I only had to eat it once.

No it isn't Elder Richins and I.  Though it does look fun.  Just another sign that it is spring

New life, new beginnings, proud parents.

O the joy of having to set up a new banking account and learning a new money system.  Thank goodness the exchange rate is the same.

This young boy was chasing this pig around the corner as we drove by.

/Do we have any architects or city planners in the blogasphere?  If you missed the road by a foot you would be in the side of this house.  We pass this house at least once a week and have often asked our selves the question.  Is this really a good idea?

 We will miss this part of God's beautiful creations.  The people, the colors, the animals, and the Indian Ocean.
What new adventures await us as we travel to Namibia?  Only time will tell and my camera..  Have a great week.

Until next time.
Love,  Elder and Sister Richins

Up and Running again with our blog.

Hi everyone,  Thanks to Miss Moe I am hopefully up and running with my blogs each week.  I appreciate so much those of you who are enjoying our two years here in South Africa.

 

A test!

Elder and Sister Richins

September 24-30, 2012 - Finding a little California in SA

A beautiful rainbow in the mist of the rain.

Hi everyone,   We are trying to have spring here in South Africa. We have beautiful California weather temperatures in the high 70's, the in plunges to the 50's.  Yesterday we say a complete rainbow it was awesome. My photos couldn't quite get the whole thing.

 
Elder Richins and I had a cancellation to day so we decided to go for a walk.  On the walk I saw some beautiful golden poppies and they reminded me so much of home.  Going up the Grapevine to Bakersfield especially.

It has been an interesting week.  We had some sadness here in George, one of our missionaries had to go home, really in chose to go home to take care of some things.  We hope he will be back.  That has made our 3 sets of Elders in to 1 companionship of 3.  They have a lot of extra work to do because they must take care of Thembuletu and the George area. At the moment I can't remember if I told you that 1 set of missionary's flat was broken into and they stole all their electronics, cameras, and suit coats, watches and sunglasses.  They didn't care about anything except the camera that had all his photos for his mission.  Now that is said, you can't replace them.

Monday we had the opportunity to go golfing and this rake caught my eye.
It looks as ancient as the golf course.

Well lets not dwell on the sadness, lets look at all the good stuff that we had done.  Golf was a good thing, it got us out and about.  Elder Richins was able to buy about 20 balls @ about 1 Rand each which is about .14 each.  I guy in the field next to the golf course came over and Elder Richins was going to offer him 20 Rand for 6 balls and they said here and gave him the 20 balls for 22 Rand.  Good balls that people have hit to far, including yours truly, Elder Richins.
We also were able to to go Mossel Bay and have a great Family Home Evening with Eunice Alexander.  Her daughter who is 8 is precocious and outgoing.  We told them to invite whomever they wanted, just let us know.  We had the lesson with 4 extra children and 4 extra adults.  When we got to the game Don't Eat Nephi each time someone had a turn we seemed we added a couple more children.  We ran out of Smarties (M&M).  It was a fun and successful eveningl  Sister Alexander even fixed us dinner, a yummy rice dish and a meat patty of some sort.  It was good.

Don't Eat Nephi

Sister Pangel and Sister Moyo

Tuesday was a hard day.  We didn't go to Mossel Bay because of the 3 elders.  I went visiting teaching with Sister Moyo to help her get started.

Sister Day and the missionaries.  She invited us all over for tea, sandwiches and cake, yum!

Now this is an interesting story.  Sister Day has been a member of the church in George the longest.  It has been about 35 years.  She and her husband raised their children on a farm here and then she moved to town.  Their were 4 ladies that belonged to the church and the would get together each Sunday praying that some missionaries or priesthood would be coming through so they could administer the sacrament.  They would have an opening song and prayer and if no one came they would have Relief Society.  She remembers that often their prayers where answered.  She is in her 80's and still comes every Sunday to plays the piano for sacrament meeting.  She has arthritis in her legs but not in her fingers.

I am out of GB for photos on this website.  I will have to figure out how to either delete some of the old blogs or something.  Any help will be appreciated.

It blog won't be very interesting without pictures I'm sure.

Any help will be appreciated.  You know me and technology.

We hope everyone has a wonderful week.
Love, Elder and Sister Richins

PS Is there any way I can save my old blogs and start fresh?