Cape Town, South Africa Mission

Cape Town Mission Field   10 November 2019   Day 700 Sunday Count Up => +14 We got up and enjoyed a nice omelette on the patio. They have a beautiful pond with some gorgeous Koi in it. We then traveled to the Hillcrest Ward and attended church with Elder Duma. We also met his parents and sister and Elder Gareth Leisch (sp?) who was in our mission during the period when the Madagascar elders were moved there temporarily during a plague outbreak. He recalled our boarding inspection at the Plumstead boarding where we pushed them to do a better job on cleaning the bathroom tile. Sister Courtright also met a lady (Kim) who is getting baptized next month. She read the Book of Mormon she found on the book shelf while house sitter for a member family who were on vacation. It really changed her life she said. We then went to Elder Duma's home where his mother fixed a wonderful lunch for us. Elder Duma's father is in law enforcement and unfortunately had to go to work...

Cape Town Mission Field   9 November 2019   Day 699 Saturday Count Up => +13 We left our hosts, the Zenger's, around 7:30 this morning so we could make the long drive to Durban. We went through the upper route to get to Mthatha. It was beautiful country and most of which looked like you were driving through southern Utah. We had to be very careful as there were goats, sheep, cattle, and horses grazing along side the roadway. We met the Mthatha elders for lunch at Steers. We had Elder Mofokeng, Ncube, Buyondo, and Farer. They are serving in the farthest point away from Cape Town. They are wonderful elders and we really were glad that we were able to see them one last time. We really love Elder Farer, he's got a great attitude and a wonderful sense of humor. We asked them to take the little gift we had for the Zenger's to the zone conference in hopes that someone could get it to them. We completely forgot about it and as we were leaving the parking lot I reque...

Cape Town Mission Field   8 November 2019   Day 698 Friday Count Up => +12 After eating some delicious bran muffins that Sister Zenger made we went for a walk up Blaser Mountain, so named by Elder Hodges when he went up the mountain with Elder Blaser who had been working hard to loose some weight in order to make the climb. After a 40 pound loss by Elder Blaser they went to the top! We then cleaned up a bit and went into the Mlungisi township and found a shop and got some Kota sandwiches. They were a wonderful meat sandwich between two slices of thick homemade bread. As we were waiting there were two ladies walking down the street who started having words with each other. Pretty soon it escalated into a fight. Elder Zenger walked over and began to insert himself between the two ladies and another lady came over to help calm down one of them. She took her away and things settled down even though they continued to yell at each other for quite awhile as they wer...

Cape Town Mission Field   7 November 2019   Day 697 Thursday Count Up => +11 We had a great omelette  at the BnB this morning then drove down to Nahoon beach and walked along the beach for a while picking up some nice shells. We then went to the Sanook Cafe and met with Elder Lawer and Bagley for lunch. We had a great chat with them. It was rather unfortunate for Elder Bagley when he twisted off the tomato sauce (ketchup) bottle cap it sprayed tiny droplets of tomato sauce all over him. For some reason it was under pressure. We grabbed some ice cream at Friesland before heading to Queenstown. We were surprised to see such fast open tracts of land for forestry and ranching (either cattle or sheep and some goats). It seemed strange to find Queenstown out in the middle of nowhere. Not sure what started this town, perhaps ranching. But at one time there were some nice boarding schools here. We connected with the Zengers (Eric and Teri) then went out to din...

Cape Town Mission Field   6 November 2019   Day 696 Wednesday Count Up => +10 We stopped for breakfast at our favorite spot in Port Alfred, The Penny Farthing. While eating we had some clothes dried right next door. We headed for Grahamstown and met the elders in the towns square and chatted for a while before heading up the hill through Rhodes University to the Settlers Memorial. We then headed for King Williams Town. We arrived around 1:00 pm so we grabbed a bit of lunch then met the elders at the chapel. It is an old catholic church that is in beautiful condition right in the middle of town. We then headed off to East London and checked into our BnB then met the Hodges at their boarding and chatted a while then went to dinner at Sandoos. We had a lovely evening with them sharing stories of our mission adventure. Grahamstown center, named after a Colonel Graham as established as a fort in the growing frontier. It is now officially called Makhanda after ...

Cape Town Mission Field   5 November 2019   Day 695 Tuesday Count Up => +9 We had a great breakfast and said goodbye to our friends at the Milbury. We made a couple of stops then headed off to the Addo Elephant park. We drove through the southern section and didn't see a lot. There were some Zebra and Warthogs and we saw 2 Bull elephants at a water hole. We did see some Hartebeest through the binoculars on a distant ridge. We decided to drive through the northern section instead of heading back and take another route around to get back to the N2. We noticed a large section in the northern half was paved so it should allow us to go faster and make up some time. before heading on that section we decide an a small diversion to a water hole and was glad we did as we come across about 150 elephants at a couple of large watering holes. We saw some playing in the water and a couple of bulls at words with each other and there were a couple of females that were upset...

Cape Town Mission Field   4 November 2019   Day 694 Monday Count Up => +8 This morning we had a lovely breakfast and said goodbye to Lew. We didn't get to see Rita because she was in Johannesburg attending to her father's funeral. We will miss this lovely couple and their fine BnB. We stopped quickly at the Heads in Knysna to show Kerry the beautiful inlet to the bay. We stopped at Jukani Big Cat rescue reserve. We learned a lot about the big cats. It was also interesting to learn more about Hyena's and how unique and dangerous the really are. We then continued on to the Storms River Suspension bridge and hiked to the bridge and back after grabbing some lunch there. The surf was really pounding the coast but it was interesting to see how the line of surf really stopped at the entrance to the canyon, it really quieted down. We then finished the drive to Port Elizabeth and checked in to our favorite BnB there, The Milbury. We then me the Burk's and Ha...