Mission President's Seminar- April 2012

Twice a year we have the pleasure of attending the Mission Presidents' Seminar in Johannesburg. All eleven mission presidents in our area and their wives are invited.  The Johannesburg MTC President and his wife also attend.  We look forward to this great experience and it never disappoints.

 It all begins as we fly into Johannesburg's first world airport and environment. What a welcome site for us.

  

This trip we stayed in a lovely hotel called the Sunnyside Park Hotel.  It was built in 1897 and is a national  historical site.  I really like it since I love antiques and old places.  It has gorgeous wood paneling and a nice Victorian feel to it. There are also beautiful gardens, fountains and paths on the property. It was fall in JoBurg and the leaves were fallling. The chestnut trees dropped piles of leaves every day. I loved it because it reminded me of my childhood days walking to school, crunching leaves under our feet as we walked through gutters piled inches deep with autumn leaves.

 

  

The conference itself was also held in the hotel. Along with the 11 mission presidents and wives, we had with us the MTC President and four members of the First Quorum of the 70.  Elders Renlund, Soares, Cook and Evans and their wives. What a wonderful experience it was to be with these people and learn from them. It was a time of great instruction and camaraderie.

  

We had one session of the conference where sisters and presidents met separately. We have come to respect and  enjoy these people immensely.
We also met Pres. and Sister Reber, the new MTC President in Johannesburg. He served as a mission president in Austria, where he followed Farrell Smith as president.

  

During one session the church attorney, Jeff Clayton, who works in South Africa, came to speak to us. This was a fun occasion for me since he and his wife, Marge, Julie Pingree Broadbent, the wife of the Kenya mission president, and I graduated  together from Highland High School. We had a little mini-reunion and it was fun to have this connection.  There are at least 8 people who graduated from Highland who are currently serving in the South East Africa Area. All but one of them even graduated in the same graduating class.  Amazing! Little did we know all those years ago in Utah that we would all end up in Africa!

  

We were also able to attend the Johannesburg temple. We've come to appreciate the ability to attend the temple having lived in the Congo where going to the temple is often a once-in-a-lifetime event or even a distant dream. It's a blessing to be able to attend when we go to Mission Presidents' seminar. 

We went a few days before the conference for some appointments and  then we had plans to do a little shopping to get things we can't get in Kinshasa.  However, it was a holiday weekend and most of the stores were not open or only open for a few hours. So, we decided to make a little day trip to Pilanesberg, an animal park a couple of hours from Johannesburg. Since the area office staff had been kind enough to loan us a car during our visit we had means to have this little P-day activity. The best thing about the trip was that we took Elder and Sister Evanson with us. They were Public Affairs missionaries who moved into our apartment in Burundi after we left our first mission. He has served as a mission president in Ivory Coast, after which he served as a counselor in a Canadian temple presidency. Then he served as a temple president.  After that they told us that they felt like the Lord had called them before, but now they needed to volunteer. So, they put in papers and were sent to the Lubumbashi mission.  After some time in Burundi they were transferred to Lubumbashi. It's unusual to be transferred as a senior couple, but after spending a few months in Lubumbashi they are being transferred to our mission. They will go to Yaoundé in May to continue as PA missionaries and also support our missionaries and our new district until the end of their mission in Sept. They stayed with us in Kinshasa and, knowing them, we are thrilled to have them transferred to our mission and so grateful that they are so flexible and willing.  We had a great time with them in Pilanesberg.

  

We saw a good variety of animals, but after seeing the Masi Mara, nothing seems spectacular.

Giraffes 

Kingfisher birds 

Monkeys 

Wildabeasts and Rhinoceros  

 

Warthogs
And Zebra, Zebras and more Zebras  

 

  

And then there was this guy. We have NO IDEA what he is.  Any guesses?

Bill,  who'd served in S. Africa knew that  he's a young Male Kudu.  Their horn are long and twisted when they mature. 

 

It was a good day, spent with new friends.  Missions have so many great moments filled with wonderful people. But then it was time to head for Kinshasa. Inspired and refreshed by our visit, we were ready to go back to work.  Those days in Johannesburg will always be remembered, but we're nearing the half-way mark on our mission and we have many things still to do.