Busy, Busy Busy

It's been a hectic and busy time the past couple of weeks.  Much of our time has been taken up by three different projects...... first is a major effort planning a dinner and reception for high level government officials in Botswana in April; second to work on finalizing the tour schedule for the BYU Young Ambassadors next year; and third, to plan and attend the presentation of "Newborn Kits" to new mothers at the large regional hospital near Tzaneen scheduled for this past weekend.  The kit contains a blanket, a small supply of diapers, a pair of booties, and several other items which will help the mother during her baby's first week  (Picture).   Burt and Charla Neilson came along with us.  They are Humanitarian Missionaries from California, and have become great friends.

While in Tzaneen, Dian showed her great organizational skills by planning and carrying out a last minute reception for the newly called District President for the Church in the Tzaneen area.  It was huge success and included both friends, civic leaders, and even pastors from other churches.  The next day we traveled to the small school where we presented school kits a couple of weeks ago, and our film production crew joined us there to film them.

We did take a short side trip to see the world's largest Boabob Tree. (Picture)  It is a tree that is only found here in Africa and is sometimes called the upsidedown tree because it's top foliage looks much like a root system.  Radio carbon dating shows the tree to be over 6,000 years old.  Its hard to comprehend a living organism that old......... that was 4,000 years old when Jesus was born.

We arrived back home Friday evening,  and were up at 5 AM the next morning to drive up to Pretoria where the Pretoria Stake was conduction it's annual Helping Hands project.  This is a nationwide project that all the Wards and Branches participate in each year to spend one day helping some segment of the community in some way........ cleaning, painting, fixing, etc.  It is normally held in August, but there was a public employees strike in August last year, so the project was postponed.  The Pretoria Stake project involved cleaning and painting two local grade schools (Picture).  The local Police Commandant attended and was emotionally moved to see the work that was done.

We did manage to get out for a little fun.  We saw Riverdance at the Montecasino Theater with the Stonehawkers who are missionaries here from Calgary, and we have tickets to see Dream Girls next month. On Valentines Day, all the couple missionaries got together for a Bar-b-que (here they call it a "brai") and some fun games.  Dian and I won one of the games and were crowned with blue baloons (Picture).   I also managed 9 holes of golf at the Killarney Country Club last week.  My game's not great but as always, the company was great.  We are off to Botswana on Thursday for meetings to plan the reception I mentioned earlier.  It seems at time that life here is a bit of a blur.  Hopefully that means we're accomplishing something.