OUT OF AFRICA: July 2016

Larry and Debbie McMurdie are from Green Bay Wisconsin. They are a Humanitarian couple and we knew them well because we worked with them for 14 months when we were in Johannesburg.

Earlier in the year before we ever suspected we'd be moving to Zimbabwe, we came on a visit and spent 3 days with them looking at their projects and we saw them (their contractor) drill 4 boreholes in one day.

When we received our new assignment and moved to Harare, they took us under their wing, showed us around and were just so very good and helpful to us.

Larry and Debbie McMurdie

Miles and Marlene Diede are from Great Falls Montana. They worked with the Self-Reliance Department, helping people to prepare to find work and they also administered the PEF (Perpetual Education Fund) loans.

Miles and Marlene Diede

Both the McMurdie's and Diede's finished their missions and went home on May 16. President Mkhabela took all the senior couples out to dinner at an Indian/Pakistani restaurant called Fuzion Palace.

The other couple with us is Tom and Georgia (Gigi) Davis. They are from Pleasant Grove, Utah and have been on their mission since January of this year. They are Public Affairs missionaries whose job it is to train the local members who receive callings in Public Affairs.

Farewell Dinner for McMurdie's and Diede's

Seated at the head of the table is President Mkhabela and Sister Mkhabela. They are from South Africa and have been here since July of last year. On the right side of the picture are Miles and Marlene Diede and Gigi and Tom Davis. On the left side are the McMurdie's and Susan and Walt.

During the dinner, President Mkhabela mentioned several times, "If we could only talk the Peterson's into extending their mission."

We counted 14 repairs

One day as we were sitting at the picnic table in the background having our lunch, we started noticing the patches on the hose. We counted 14 patches on this (50ft?) hose. When we looked closely, we could see that most of the patches were just plastic bags tied around the hose. Each and every patch was leaking at least a little, and some a whole lot. The hose belongs to a company that is contracted to do the grounds.

Garbage bags for patches

Our friends from the office

We went to the Lion and Cheetah park with the office Elders, Robison, Gundani and Shepherd. The Lion Cheetah park is in two parts. The first part is several hundred acres where you are just driving around and the lions are all around the car. The second part (in these pictures) is more like a zoo where different groups of lions are just in cages. It was fun but nothing like being in the wild on a game drive.

Lion and Cheetah Park

An albino lion

Caterpillars

We looked down and saw the most amazing thing. If you look closely, you will see that this is actually a long string of caterpillars all hooked together.

This caterpillar string was about 4 feet long

Above, is a video of Elder Gundani jumping over Elder Robison (6''4' tall). It will only appear and play if you download the blog from the Internet.

They claim this turtle is 300 years old

He is a big turtle

BALANCING ROCKS

Driving back and forth to church we came across dozens of huge boulders near the road. Lots of them look like they've been stacked by some huge giant. We looked this up on the internet and discovered that there's a park nearby with some very amazing formations of balancing rocks.
We got a little brochure when we went to this park one Saturday.

"The balancing rocks consist of clusters of granite boulders piled one on top of the other. These granites in Zimbabwe are between 200 million and 300 million years old. Granite features and balancing rocks are caused by rectangular jointing. This occurs when granite, which is an igneous rock formed from molten magma within the earth, develops systems of fractures during cooling and crystallization. Where these rocks are exposed at the surface, the fractures form channels for water. This weathering eventually separates the granite into roughly shaped blocks, usually with rounded corners, which form kopjes, tors and finally balancing rocks."

On our way to Church

They really are big

The backside

Don't move!

All bunched together

Elder Shepherd giving us a thumbs up

Last month Susan was asked to help with an Auxiliary Training meeting for the eight branches in the mission. The training was for the Relief Society, Young Women and Primary. Susan was asked to instruct the Primary even though she has never worked in Primary. The meeting was just for the presidencies and there were about 24 women there for the Primary (an amazing turnout considering that they have to get on public transport and travel one to four hours to attend. One of the branches traveled 300 kilometers. We attend church at one of those branches so Susan started visiting their Primary each week to see how they did things. The Primaries in the branches are small so they have to improvise. The training was one hour long and she decided to do a mini Sharing Time as part of it. She made some simple visual aids for the lesson and singing time to show that they could easily make these things for their own Primaries. They also went over the basic outline of Primary and what each member of the presidency was responsible for. She was glad when it was over but I think she did an amazing job.