2. The Elephant at the Park
3. What was left of the Kudu after the lions dinner.
August 12, 2010
Dear Family Friends & Loved Ones,
Greetings again from beautiful South Africa. It is really beautiful country here and we love it BUT we still miss home and family so much. Well for Sister O birthday we had a really good steak dinner at Spurs in Grahamstown with 2 other senior couples. We had to leave a little early to come back to PA as I had a couple of interviews I had to do. We had our district meeting this week on Thursday instead of Friday because we had the Robinsons (another senior couple) staying with us on Thursday night and they along with the Plateros and us were going to meet at Fish River Sun for breakfast on Friday morning, then back to PA to play a round of golf at our "Royal Port Alfred Golf Course." We are still celebrating Sister O's birthday. She is not in the BEST of moods as she just tuned 69 which is just to close to 70 (for her) She tells everyone she is 84 and just turned 85. But that is OK just as long as she is not 70. The 3 Sisters are going to play golf also and the 3 old men will follow. I am anxious to see how Sister O does and enjoys the game.
Well we all had fun, enjoyed the day, we were tired BUT we all had fun, then we went to eat chinese food for dinner. We have a good chinese restaurant in PA that we enjoy. On Saturday I had a few meetings in the AM and then Sister O and I had to go to a town called Peddie about 11/2 hour from PA. We had a good friend who was our branch mission leader in George that asked us to come over and wanted me to help him give his mother a blessing, who was dying in the Hospital. He asked me to give him a blessing as well. What a wonderful privilege we can have holding the Priesthood of our Father in Heaven. Isn't it wonderful that we are blessed with the restoration of the Priesthood and the gospel here on earth again and can enjoy its full blessings and the fulness of our Heavenly Fathers love.
We had a service project to do for an investigator of putting hinges on a gate so that the gate would work. I didn't get home in time for this so I guess it will have to wait until next week. We always enjoy doing service for the people when we find the opportunity.
Sunday, August 1 was fast Sunday which I always enjoy. For some reason it seemed to focus on LOVE. Love for each other, Love for the gospel and showing our love by the service we give. We had another setting apart after church. Our Branch is small but we really have a wonderful family of people here in PA and even though there will be problems I can see things here in SA and in PA getting better. On Monday for P-Day we didn't really do any thing for fun as most of the day was spent at my desk doing my favorite thing "PAPER WORK" Then the Elders from Grahamstown came over because they had to do a baptismal interview and of course Sister O always does her wonderful thing of fixing them a dinner like a Sunday dinner. It is a lot of work for her but she seems to really enjoy it! Of course they all want her homemade salsa (me included). It is soooo GOOD!!
We have been working hard with the Ndlambe Municipality to do the annual worldwide "Mormon Helping Hands" service to the community. We finally gave up with them and our new RS president found us a very good service project of working on the yard and putting in a garden for a large homeless children's home.
It is really a good project and one that we will all enjoy working on.
Pres. Probst was here on Saturday August 7th for interviews and will be her for church on Sunday and take care of some Priesthood interviews etc. that he needs to do. We also had a counselor from the Stake Presidency here to set up a seminary program and sustain & set apart a seminary teacher. I believe the Sister that was set apart will really be excellent. We are really excited about the organization that is taking place here in the Port Alfred Branch. We had the largest attendance for our branch on Sunday August 8th. We had 54 in attendance. We have only a membership of 52.
When we left to come on our mission we left from our Pinetop ward. I wish we had left from our Gilbert ward as they are all interested in our mission and correspond with us regularly. We never here from anybody in Pinetop and we really love to get news of what is going on at home. It would be much more enjoyable to report back to the people in the ward that seemed to be interested in what we were doing on our mission. I'm not sure the Pinetop ward will even know who we are when we get home. OH Well 8 more months.
Well on Monday the 9th for P-Day we went with 4 other senior couples to "Addo Elephant Park" You see a lot more at a private game reserve BUT we did enjoy the company of visiting and being with the other senior couples. We only saw 8 to 10 elephants plus several groups of greater kudu, jackles and 9 warthogs. We also saw the remains of a lion kill of a good kudu bull. After this we had a very good lunch at a reasonable price at a restaurant at the elephant park.
Well it is about time to close for now. I'm still busy with meetings, interviews etc and the lease for a new meeting place finalized. We are trying to stay busy & we love the people here. We love our work here and we can't wait to come home. We love all of you so much. Time is rapidly flying by. We have only 8 months and one week, but who is counting! Ha
Love President & Sister O'Dell
Grandpa Woody & Grandma
Mom & Dad Woody & Linda
No comments:
Post a Comment