Christmas Begins

This guy hitched a ride on our windshield for 15 miles until we got home.  We don't have hummingbirds here because the bugs are bigger.  (my theory)

 Got home from Richards Bay at about 3pm on Monday and went grocery shopping and went to eat dinner so we could start our fast for the 40 day fast experience.  It was our turn to fast for the Ezakheni branch--everyone is taking a turn, each for one day.
   Missionary prep was Tues and it always takes about 31/2 hours from leaving to coming home.  We have a short-cut and it takes about 20 minutes each way.  We never start on time.  We ended the fast at 6:30 with the Browns dropping by.  They wanted to go to dinner, but we were so sick of eating out that we stayed at home and just had taco salad.  Good thing because it thundered and rained with hail and wouldn't let up.  They still had an hour to go home, so we sent them home quickly.  Storms can be very violent.  They said that they had hail, lots of wind and lots of slanting rain as they drove home.
   The reason that the Browns had made this little trip was kind of sad.  We had 2 missionaries go home for different reasons from different parts of the mission.  They made a few trips to pick up and take companions and had to take an Elder to Durban and another to an airport.  We are never envious of a Mission President's job.   The Browns were recently just put in the mission presidency and have stepped up their travel a lot.  They still  have from 8-10 missionaries and help the District president a lot.

   Used my new Belgian chocolate chips and they were great.  Since I had cookies we decided we would go see Melenghi and our Elder Swane at the bus stop in the middle of town.  They are off to Durban to fly to the Joburg MTC.
   We are fixing cookies for the Branch Christmas party at 2 on Saturday.  They had not had one for 3 years.  Wow!   What a spread.  They wanted me to bring a salad and "sweets".  I made a big fruit salad with all the different melons and grapes and tropical stuff I could find.  I put it on the serving table and it kept disappearing.  I started talking to the ladies in the kitchen and apparently a fruit salad even without dressing is considered dessert and they were waiting to serve it later.   Fruit salad--- joke on me.  I pulled it from the desserts and we ate it for dinner.

  The Braai (BBQ}was amazing.  They always do charcoal and 4 kinds of meat.  There must have been a lb. per person and that's counting  the babies-- 50 or 60 lbs at least.  Kent brought Mr Krueger's Christmas for entertainment but it wasn't long enough.  They wished for a full length feature because there was no other entertainment.  We got out of there at about 6 PM and all seemed pleased.  We didn't see a decoration or sing a Christmas song but then maybe they forgot!  We'll remind them next Christmas!


  Sunday I had a Christmas talk to give after being asked on Friday night with a text at 9 pm.  That seems the norm for our Branch Pres.  (Kent and I sang Silent Night with the guitar because it was in my talk.)  They have a hard time getting speakers so they wait till last minute and then really have a hard time.  We took Nelson home to a township that is about 20 km out of Ladysmith.  He is such a smart electronic guy and the church gave him a bunch of old DVD players that were broken and he has already fixed most of them and is going to resell them.  He doesn't have a job, but his wife does .  He can fix plumbing or anything.

We ate outside until it rained!  There really is no place to have a party in this building.