A few weeks ago, Elder Ellis (Area Presidency) came into our office and talked to us for quite a while. He said there were problems throughout Africa trying to get Senior Couples here to serve. There are 2 missions that have been without an office couple for a few months. Anyway, he asked us if we'd be willing to have our mission assignment changed and go to Zimbabwe to be the office couple for the rest of our mission. We told him we'd do whatever was needed but he told us we could take the weekend to think about it before giving our answer.
The ladies at the office had a farewell lunch for Marva Peterson and I at 'Olives and Plates'
We did have one very large concern about going to Zimbabwe. JR, Tonya and their family were getting ready to come to South Africa to visit us in about 6 weeks. We really wanted to either wait until after their visit or get permission to come back to Johannesburg when they came.
Our friend, Gregg Weeks, who's a senior missionary attorney with OGC (Office of General Counsel), said we should take him with us to our meeting with Elder Ellis because he (Elder Ellis) is also an attorney and everybody knows you can't trust them. He said we should get everything in writing and that we'd have a lot of bargaining power because of them needing us so badly in Zimbabwe.
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| Gregg Weeks on the left and Paul Graf on the right |
When we talked to Elder Ellis and explained about JR's visit, he seemed very willing to let us return for 11 days when their family came. After that, it was just a lot of hurrying around to get loose ends tied up and also start some training during the time we had left before going to Zimbabwe.
There did turn out to be a rather sticky problem. In order to work in the office (or even just be a missionary) in Zimbabwe we would need to get the proper work visa, and that would take 8 or 9 weeks.
We had been to Zimbabwe before but had just entered the country on a 30 day visitor's visa. But OGC felt we shouldn't be trying to do actual mission work while on a visitor's visa. That issue went back and forth for over a week while they decided whether they could send us on a visitor's visa for two and a half weeks until we flew back to Johannesburg to be with JR Tonya and the kids.
In the meantime, Portia and Nomthi, our sweet girls in the Travel Department, worked so hard to help us get stuff ready for our visas.
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| Portia |
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| Nomthi |
When we found out that we'd need birth certificates, marriage license, school diplomas, resumes, priesthood ordination, current medical information with chest X-Rays, and a South African police report (because we'd been in country for over a year), we thought it was going to be impossible. Our stuff was in storage and even if Mike went to the storage pod, we had no idea of where to tell him to start looking.
But then Susan had some great inspiration. She thought maybe she had left some scrapbooks at the house in which she had put lots old papers and things. Mike and Tami found a U of U diploma and a priesthood ordination certificate. Hanging on the wall in the basement was our marriage license, and Mike and Tami were able to go apply for copies of our birth certificates. All in all, it was pretty miraculous we were able to come up with all the needed documents in so short a time (2 days).
Portia took us to the police station one day to get fingerprinted for our background check, then the next day ran us around to a clinic and then a hospital to get a check-up and our X-Rays.
The office made us a
schedule for three full days of training on what we needed to learn.
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| Rob and Martha Egan |
When we met with Elder Egan, who
is the one that works with the mission presidents and is the link between here
and Salt Lake, he said he wanted us to leave that same week.
We spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday meeting with different departments trying to learn our
different jobs. Anne-Mari taught us about IMOS (Internet-based Mission Operating System), Joy Bestor taught us about maintaining the mission fleet (they have 45 vehicles), then we went to the warehouse and learned about ordering supplies for the mission. Portia and Nomthi instructed us in the Global Visa Management System which keeps tabs on all missionary visas as well as how to book flights with the Church system.
After all of that we knew just a little bit about a lot of things. By Thursday morning the Area Presidency along with Elder Egan were still going back and forth with OGC about whether or not we could go before receiving our work (TEP) visas. But when we went back to our office after lunch, we found an email containing our tickets and flight information for Friday.
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| Our dear friends Dennis and Taunia Lombardi |
Because we were going to be coming back in 2 1/2 weeks to see JR and family, we didn't have to clean out every speck of our apartment. We also left all of our souvenirs there with the idea of sending them home with JR and Tonya.
E/S Lombardi had invited us for dinner Thursday evening, so after dinner we went to our apartment and started throwing things into suitcases to take to Zimbabwe.
SAYING GOOD-BYE TO SOME SPECIAL FRIENDS
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Our favorite waiters at the Del Forno Restaurant
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| The ladies at the hair salon. Susie, Gladness and Tamaran |
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| Ndanee, one of Walt's piano students, at the keyboard with her family. |
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| Teboho (in the suit), plus his brother and our friend Dolly. Teboho was Walt's other piano student. |
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| Morgan, our security guard at Daventry Court. He went out of his way to help us. |
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| There are beggars at every corner. This is our special friend 'Smiley' |
OUR FRIENDS IN THE AREA OFFICE
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| Phillip Moatlhodi, our Humanitarian Manager. He became a dear friend to us. |
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| Kenneth Mofekeng, the water specialist for the Africa Southeast Area, on the left along with the DTA, David Frischnecht |
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| Rion and Charlotte Needs were called as Auditors for theAfrica Southeast Area. They have been re-assigned to be the office couple in Mbuji-Mayi, where a new mission has been created. |
Just before we left for the airport, the senior couples joined us in the lunch room to say good-bye. There are about 20 couples in the Area Office and we love them dearly. We will miss all of our friends.
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| Brent and Charlene Lee are back to the Area Office to serve their 7th mission |
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| Chuck and Lisbeth Walton. Elder Walton is the Executive Secretary |
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| Clockwise - Gregg Weeks, Jennie Graf, Paul Graf and Taunia Lombardi |
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| Jann Powell, Sherrie Weeks and Gregg |
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| Karl and Margaret Blake |
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| Our sweet friends-Portia and Nomthi |
The flight from Johannesburg to Harare is about 1 ½ hours. When we were going through customs to
purchase our visitors visas, we were towards the front of the line of passengers. But by the time we were through, we were the
last ones in the room. The same thing
happened to us when we came here a few months ago to visit E/S McMurdie.
We could see the mission president and some Elders up in the waiting
room. They probably
thought we weren’t going to make it through.
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Walt busy at work
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| In Zimbabwe they use American dollars but they don't re-cycle them |
Because the previous office couple went home in January and didn't have replacements, President Mkhabela (he's from South Africa), brought in 2 young Elders to be trained in the office procedures. Elder Wilcken is from Washington state and Elder Shepherd is from Holladay, Utah. They really have done a fantastic job in running the office and learning most of the responsibilities of the office secretary and financial secretary.
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| Elder Shepherd on the left and Elder Wilcken on the right |
They have been great mentors to us and we've enjoyed working with them. When we came to Harare, President Mkhabela got rid of his two APs (one of them was ready to go home and the other he made a Zone Leader). He us using Wilcken and Shepherd as APs while they've been training us, but their title is "Special Assignment." Elder Wilcken has only been out for 7 months and Elder Shepherd just a while longer.
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| These two Elders have an enormous resposibility |
There are two other Elders in the office. Elder Mativavarira and Elder Gundani are both from Zimbabwe. Elder Gundani spends all day trying to take care of the missionary apartments while trying to keep landlords and missionaries happy. Elder "Mati" looks after the fleet of mission cars. It seems that the Zimbabwean Elders really don't know how to drive and they've totaled 5 cars just since we've been here. It's great having those 2 Elders here, because even though we're technically responsible for "fleets and flats," there's no way we could really do much to look after them.
OUR NEW HOME IN ZIMBABWE
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| We have our own backyard |
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| This is the park behind our flat |
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Our washer and dryer are outside
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| How hot was it this summer?? |
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| Our kitchen |
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| Bedroom |
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Our living room
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We've still got a lot to write about because we just had a visit from JR, Tonya, Savannah, Carson, Ashlee and Chase. But that will have to wait for another post.
We've really loved our mission and the time has gone by so quickly. We're so grateful for our many blessings, and the love and support of our family and friends.
