Last trip to Grahamstown

The Cleary Estates Elders came by last night to borrow shovels, rakes and seeds.  They have a service project to plant another garden.  Tis the season as it's spring here now and the weather is perfect for planting although this week end is rather cold and windy.

Elders Burton, Nance, Arthur and Muange in our garage to collect tools for their service project

Still no word about the couple who will replace us.   They likely will not arrive before we leave. So we are planning to drive to Cape Town on Tuesday, October 15th for our exit interview with President Wood.  Wednesday morning we will drive up the coast to see the penguins. Then fly out the next day. Someone from the mission office will take us to the air port.  We will arrive in Istambul at 2:55  Friday afternoon and meet up with the "Fun for Less" tour at the hotel that evening.

Lalitta, our Indian landlady, who placed meditations in
the foundation when they built the flat behind their house.

Tom with Khaya, 1st counselor in the branch presidency

This morning we drove up to Grahamstown to say Good Bye.  I took flowers to Lalitta, the Indian owner of the flat we stayed in while we were there.  She and her husband Edward have just retired and turned over their laundry business over to their son.  She gave me a pink silk scarf and a bracelet. She will visit us in P.E. before we leave and we will keep in contact.


She is very happy with Khaya who has been her gardner since we recommended him.  We teased him about finding a wife and suggested he get on with it as he is now in his mid 30's.
He said that he had someone in mind.

We returned ten DVD's and a book I had borrowed from Alan Bamford and gave him the items we had purchased from Makro at his request.  He was excited that President Wood had called and asked him to give a 30 minute talk on the Apostasy at the Zone Conference in East London.

He keeps a log of all the missionaries that visit him and showed us an entry for 29 September 2000 when Elder Viwe Sive Xozwa and his companion Elder John Welling visited him.  Brother Xozwa was featured recently in an article in the Church News entitled "Perpetual Education Fund a Growing Miracle."

Brother Alan 

As he is now living in Port Elizabeth Alan decided to call him.  When he answered Alan said,  "Do you Know Elder Welling?"

"Alan, is that you?" Xozwa responded.  They had not seen each other for thirteen years but obviously Alan is a man one can never forget.

Brother Xozwa became an IT consultant and then went on to study labor relations, corporate governance, business administration and advanced project management.  He is one of the success stories here and they enjoyed getting caught up.

We had lunch at Spurs and then returned to P.E. in time for the 4:00 p.m. Fire Side with Elder Cook from the African South East Area Presidency who will be the sacrament speaker in a combined meeting of Lorraine and P.E. Ward at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow.  We are busy preparing for Zone Conference on Wednesday and my last Institute class that evening.

A common sight in Grahamstown

Lalita asked if I were a decorated after we added a new light fixture and lamps in the living room, some pictures and new curtains and a bulletin board in our office/bedroom.   These were our Christmas presents to each other.  We loved staying here.  The biggest problem was the steep driveway and we had to open the gate at the top whenever we went in or out which we did a lot.  We were covering two assignments and were in P.E. at least twice, sometimes three times each week.  But the branch building was close.  Even though it was on the wrong side of the valley from the townships.