On the Rhodes Again: Cherity Never Fail

only 25 ladies ate cake--most took slabs home with

Feb. 19, was a regular Sunday in Primary in Ladysmith. A meeting was called at the end of the block for all RS ladies in the chapel to discuss food assignments for the upcoming RS birthday party day from 10AM- 2:30 the next Saturday. No one would make cake so I voluntered to make all of it. I told them it would not be decorated like a bakery, but would be iced and tasty. I thought I got the job!
It was rainy on Monday so we went to the Ladysmith museum that we both found interesting about the Boer war and the Siege of Ladysmith. Tuesday we had haircuts, prepared lessons and made white cake as an experiment ( Pillsbury cake mix- was not good just plain-now add pudding). Wednesday we had a webex at 10:30 with regional S and I leaders, but Kent participated I had to study for Institute lesson at 4.

My birthday was nice, Kent took me to the Royal Hotel for their buffet, and kids called all day. The special unexpected thing was that our 4 Elders in town dropped by at breakfast and sang happy B-day, so of course I promised them ice cream and cake that night and had to get to the store to make it.
The next day was Friday and I promised that I would have 2 sisters in our branch over to make cake. There was some miscommunication with Newcastle and they said they would pick up a cake from a store! But we would still teach this District Councilor and Ladysmith RS President how to make cake.
There is some mystical problem about baking a cake here and I decided to take 2 kinds of Pillsbury cake mix and show how to make a cake easily. (Their scratch recipes call for lots of egg whites because they have heavier flour I think.) I let them each make their own cake mix with canned Pillsbury frosting, with 2 different mixers that I had.

Sister Adams and Sister Shabalala

It turns out that that is what they don't have at home -- a mixer. Most of these ladies don't use their oven very much because they don't bake much. Their cakes turned out lovely, but they still had the leaders bring the R500 store bought cake and took their cakes home for their families. They might rethink next time -who knows. That is an enormous amount of money for a District to pay out twice for 2 big Birthdays in Newcastle and Ladysmith. Maybe next year they will be willing to try. (one of the sisters has already made another cake) They feel like they have to do everything like the church in America! I told the ladies that they should just do their own dessert that they like! Sis. Adams' comment was, "we have changed and learned so much to join this church -we want to learn to make cakes!"

Saturday came and the party was very nice, but there was tea and muffins and goodies at about noon and then a late lunch about 1;30 with all the fixins . Africans are big on chicken and chackalaka! We had a program about the origins of RS, read by our ladies and a VT discussion and roll play by Sister Brown. We don't have VTs or Home Teachers here. Attempts have been made and I see attitudes changing but I think there is a cultural block going on about people coming into their homes. We've about decided to just go every Sunday and visit the families because there are so many widows and single moms in the Ladysmith Branch.
Sunday we were at Ezakheni and hurried home to Ladysmith with Pres. Ngcobo for a traning meeting with the Brown's at the Ladysmith Chapel. We would fix lunch for the Brown's and Pres. Mashago and have a little visit a couple a few hours later.

Kent later toppled a termite hill to see what was inside.

Monday was a cool cloudy day but not raining so we decided to head for Spioenkop Reservoir for a day of reserve animals and adventure.

We got both with warthog family, giraffes and baby zebras.

This is our water source and the spillways are overflowing and have been for weeks. We are out of our drought at least here in the East. Capetown gets most of their rain in the winter so we will see if they end their water problem soon.

deserted park at the resevoir-no boats
or people

rare look at giraffe sitting for a while (hey look this way!)

we must have watched these guys for 45 minutes

On this same day we discovered Pig and Plough for lunch in Winterton, and museum with a 1918 African motor home of John Weston's. I bought the story of this motorhome but the cool thing was we got to go into it as it was parked in a garage in the back. There was a sink with water source and stove and it looks like an icebox inside.