Boselwa, Mzini family, Lwando & Sister Sneke

Boselwa will have her  birth certificate and South African
national identification number in three months.
She will be able to get a job and continue her education.

Wednesday we took Boselwa and her blind old aunt back to home affairs.  The supervisor who sent her back for her primary school records spent an hour helping her fill out various forms.  Elder Stokoe stood with her at the counter while  I sat nearby with her aunt.

It was touch and go and did not look very promising until the assistant director came out of his office and shook hands with all of us. Then Elder S. took Boselwa off to get some I.D. photos.  They fingerprinted her aunt. Both were taken into a secure rooms where their testimonies were heard.  We have spent five months working on this including four visits to home affair and countless trips to secure out the information needed to get this done.  I asked what name she would be using now that she has an official ID?  It's "Boselwa Norongo." She would preferred to go by the name her mother gave her, Mineka, which means beautiful day.

I asked why her aunt poisoned her mother but Boselwa did not know.  She heard they fought a lot.  She was touched when I told her that my friends were praying for her and that Pat Butts put her name in the temple.  Boselwa hopes to have her mothers and father's temple work done as soon as possible.

Catherine Mzini and her daughter Felicia

Lwando Gomba and daughters.  His wife was working

We visited Sister Catherine Mzini and her daughter Felicia Mzini and her two children on Tuesday.  Catherine was baptised July 6th and is now the 1st counselor in the Relief Society.  Felicia is in the young women's presidency.  She and her 14 year old son Siphosethu were baptized in June.  We have been giving them all follow up lessons and they are sad to see us go.    I have Siphosethu in my young adult Sunday School class.  Sikelelwe is the four year old sister.  Felicia has never been married. Her mother told me that she is now engaged to Siyabonga Willie (who was baptised on August 24th.)  This is an answer to her mother's prayers.  She prayed that Felicia would find a worthy priesthood holder to marry. It's a good  match.  Both are strong members and very bright.

We visited Lwando Gomba and his two daughters.  Elder Stokoe taught him how to lead the singing in Priesthood.  This is the newest family in the branch.  Brother and Sister Gomba were baptised September 7th.

Thandeke Sneke was baptised on May 4th.

We paid a final visit to Sister Sneke, an awesome African woman who really knows how to pray.  I keep my eyes open so I can see her dramatic gestures.  She owned a huge house and a prosperous business until her daughter got sick. Relatives called in the witch doctors and they cheerfully worked on both mother and daughter until Thandeka became so ill she had to go to the hospital along with her daughter.   I do not know what sickness the young woman had but she died leaving her mother to raise Portia who is now  seven and in the third grade.

Relatives and the witch doctors divided up Sister Sneke's assets and moved her from her big house.  She now lives in a much small house in Motherwell with the grand daughter and her twenty-five year old son.  Her oldest son is a policeman in Cape Town.  He visits but I've never talked with him.  Wonder what he thinks about thinks about his mother's situation.

Sister Sneke is taking classes in religious philosophy at a local university and is very busy spreading the gospel among her friends and neighbours.