Our Last Mission Presidents' Seminar

Wednesday we flew to Johannesburg for our last mission presidents' seminar.  These seminars have been a fabulous experience as we sit in company with the other 10 mission presidents, the Johannesburg MTC president, and the three members of the Area Presidency.  We are always buoyed up and inspired to be better people and to do our work with more commitment.  These have been very special times for us.

 Five of us will be released in July,  Broadbents, Padoviches, Jacksons, Von Stettons and us.  Each couple has served for two to three years and we have come to love them through this association. They are truly amazing people who have inspired us to be better at our job and in our personal lives. We'll really miss them.

 The Seminar was two days of instruction from the Lord's chosen leaders as they shared things presented at General Conference and matters related to our area.  They're remarkable men and women.  They have become mentors, leaders and dear friends during our years in Africa.  Pictured are Elders Cook and Renlund of the 1st quorum of the 70 and Colin Bricknell, an area seventy in Africa .   We love them and will miss our time with them.
It's strange how leaving these friends is perhaps harder than leaving friends at home before our  mission.  We will not likely pass this way again.                                   We stayed in the wonderful Hotel Westcliff. It was about as far different experience from our Kinshasa mission as one could get.  It always feels a little like a vacation when we go to Johannesburg, but we really enjoyed this place more than any place in all the world. It's located on the side of a mountain with a panoramic view of Johannesburg.

 Below is the view from our window.  The pink ball was our Liahona when trying to find our way home as we traveled around in JoBurg. Next to the ball are the spires of the temple. It's a beautiful sight.

The hotel was like a little village with flower-lined, winding cobblestone streets that lead from one complex to another.  Our rooms were beautifully appointed and the service was fantastic.  The restaurant was first class. We liked staying in this lovely place. It was a real treat in every way.

                                                                                                                                                   We had extra time in Joburg since there are only a few days during the week that you can fly from Kinshasa   We did some shopping for the couples, attended a session in the temple and enjoyed ourselves completely. We even had time to go with Richard and Annette Curtis and Dale and Ruth  Renlund to Cabano and Sons, my personal favorite African arts and craft shop.  There are just too many irresistible things to buy there.  Good thing that this was our last time in Joburg. 

A cute young clerk saw our name tags and told us that his name was also Jameson.  

So, we just had to get a picture of the two Jameson guys. 

 

On Sunday we spent the day with our good friend, Kathryn Diab, the purchaser for the church in S. Africa. We attended church with them and had dinner in their home. We've known her since she came to set up the Lubumbashi mission home and have become good friends.  Her parents are temple workers and we've seen them often in the temple. Her uncle works for the church and we've  also worked with him. It was such a treat to share Sabbath with this great family.

The last event for the conference was a temple session for the mission presidents and wives. We discovered that two of our dearly beloved returned Congolese missionaries were in the temple being sealed at the very same time as the mission presidents' temple session. It wasn't hard to make a choice.  We attended the sealing of Justine Kapele and Frank Bunda. Frank had served with us in Lubumbashi and Justine was one of our missionaries in Kinshasa. What a great joy it was to attend their sealing and see this sweet couple get the right start and become an eternal family unit.


The sealing was performed, in French, by our friend from Temporal Affairs, Georges Bonnet.
Frank and Justine live in Likasi, which is in the Lubumbashi mission. So, President and Sister McMullin also attended the sealing.  The two mission presidents acted as witnesses and the two mission Moms sat with the bride and groom in the place of their mothers. Sadly, almost nobody ever  has family with them. It was a great honor to stand in as the family for these two wonderful young people. It thrills us to see our returned missionaries making good choices and moving forward in life.

These mission presidents' seminars in South Africa have been treasured times for us.  We'll miss our couple friends and so many church employees whom we've known and loved for years.  It makes us a bit nostalgic when we think that we won't likely see many of them again.