Merry Christmas 2014

http://www.mormon.org/christmas?cid=HPFR112814529

The Smiling Details

SOUTH AFRICA.  "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way." (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities).

The Best of Times

Our wonderful friend Beth came to visit in September/October.  We had such a great time!  

 Soweto

Nelson & Winnie Mandela's Home, 8115 Vilakazi Street, Orlando West

Venda Women at Hector Pieterson Memorial

Entering the Apartheid Museum

One of our favorite drivers, Steven.  He is the one who fetched our family at the airport when we first arrived.  He spent a day touring with Beth and me and had his first visits inside the Mandela home and Apartheid Museum.  (He usually sits outside in the car).  It was beautiful to see how much those places meant to him.  He kept saying  "Please take a picture of me here so I can show my children (back in the village) that I was here."  

Happy Birthday, Beth!

At the Lion Park

Johannesburg LDS Temple

Jacaranda Season!

Beth and Michele enjoyed 3 magnificent days of game viewing at Notten's Bush Camp

See the leopard up there on the left?

  

 It takes patient watching...

...but eventually hippos come up out of the water!

Our beautiful friend, Jenny, was baptized!

Jeff, Michele, Jenny, Kathleen (who came all the way from Utah!), and John.  

What a joyful day!

We went to a potjke (Afrikaans dutch oven) cookoff at Jenny's new ward in Roodepoort.

Kate flying her kite

The way professionals do potjke

Elder & Sister Adams with Beth at the Bryanston Market (the Adams are self-reliance missionaries here in SA so Jeff works closely with them and my kids consider them their SA grandparents)

Jeff and I had birthdays!

We celebrated with friends

Epraim & Nomthi

Charles & Cheryl-Lee

Lincoln, Sam, Brent, Jenna, Cailin

Emma Has Arrived!!!

She is a 6-month old labradoodle, and she's the best dog in the world!  Emma is John's dog and she follows him around like a, well, like a puppy!

Emma had a horrible experience with the first groomer here who apparently didn't understand English language or metric measurements.    She was shaved to the skin!  Oh it was awful for all of us, especially her!  Here John and Kate are giving her her first bath.

Michelle (our wonderful au pair), John, Emma, Kate, Baili (our wonderful former au pair's daughter)

The Boys

Mike & Linda Dunn (new Joburg mission president) and Kathleen

Women's Lunch at Dunns' Home

(That's Charnell at the front and Jenny at the back)

From the other direction with Pam on my left.  

(Linda, Jenny, and I hosted this lunch and will be doing it again in the new year!)

 Thanks for all the support for John's Diepsloot shoe project!!  Enough was raised to buy 170 pairs of brand new shoes for students!

Arriving at Diepsloot Combined School this week

One of the G5 classes that received shoes

Kate in front of her awesome school.  Michele still serves on the board and has been busy helping do a business turn-around.  Lots of fun! 

 Kate's best school friend, Mosa

 Kate was recruited to play cricket for her school (the only girl).  She has learned a lot and really enjoys it!

Kate is still representing her school well in running events as well.  She has taken up running with bare feet!

Halloween decorations as you enter the gate to our neighborhood

Kate went trick-or-treating with our neighbors and I completely forgot to get photos!  (...She was an astronaut).

Jeff took this photo at the Lagos, Nigeria Airport.  Fortunately, we haven't had Ebola here in South Africa!  (Thanks for your concern!)

However, you know you're in South Africa when

1.  Rolling black outs don't phase you.

2.  You are pulled over by the police and you're surprised that they DON'T ask for a bribe.

3.  Your South African friend asks you with a straight face if you are de-worming your family every 6 months.   (And no, you haven't been!!)

4.  It takes 4 hours to create a blog post because the internet connection is so slow.

5.  You walk by a Parktown prawn and don't even get scared.        

     (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parktown_prawn)

6.  You have been working on VISA renewals since March and have just found out that your VISA applications which expire 31 Dec 2014 have been or will likely be refused by the SA government.  So you are making plans to visit the SA Embassy in LA or NYC in December and hoping then to spend Christmas in Utah!  

The Worst of Times

Arthur C. Brooks has observed that when using social media, we tend to broadcast the smiling details of our lives but not the hard times at school or work. We portray an incomplete life.  Please forgive us for only photographing and sharing widely the smiling details, but know that, probably like your life, ours has its share of tears and hard days.  On these days, the comfort of your friendship reaches across miles and helps us smile again!  You make our lives complete, and we love you!

Long Time, No Blog

It has been a full two months since we last wrote!  Here are lots of pictures and a few words!

Johannesburg experienced a small earthquake on 5 August.  Apparently all the abandoned gold and platinum mines under the city occasionally collapse and we get earthquakes.  Who knew?!

The earth-shaking continued when Kate turned 10 on 9 August.  She invited friends and their families to the Bryanston bike park for riding and a braai by Dad.  Very fun!

John has taken up jiu jitsu and is really enjoying it.  Kate continues to love best playing in the park behind our house with all the people and their pets.

Our family (+ John's friend Nate) spent 9 days over the recent school break on the island of Zanzibar.  It was AMAZING!  

Stone Town, Zanzibar

 Fish Market at Night

We all enjoyed this tour guide's interpretation of Stone Town's history and amazing doors (all, that is, except Kate)

She enjoyed the spice farm tour much more.  We got to eat cinnamon, cinnamon roots, cacao beans, turmeric, ginger, nutmeg, and lots of fruits we'd never heard of.

Cloves, Zanzibar Gold

The best passion fruit smoothies ever.  EVER.  At a little hole in the wall restaurant in Stone Town.

View from our hotel, the Mashariki Palace (former home of the Sultan's Imam)

Princess Jasmine, I mean Kate, watching the Muslim girls heading to school

Nate and John looking out from their side room

From Stone Town, we travelled across the island to the Baraza Resort where we were welcomed with bungo juice

John and Nate lining up the best photo

Welcome to Paradise!

Kate slept on the "sultan's day bed" in our villa but we all loved to hang out on it

This is a local restaurant called The Rock.  You must take a boat to access it.

The owner of The Rock who promised Kate she could hold her wedding reception at his venue.   No date yet, but hold the location!

The Baraza kids club had fun activities everyday.  (The French boy on the left was fond of picking flowers for Kate.  They couldn't understand anything past "Bonjour" and "Hi!")

John and Nate snorkeled a lot

Kate loved beach combing

Just before a scuba dive

Memories:  Nate getting sea urchin needles in his knee the first time he went in the ocean (you need papaya juice and a needle to get them out).  Banana chocolate smoothies available all day long from the Baraza traveling bartender (John and Nate each had 6 one afternoon).    Kate in water (either ocean or pool) for 5 days straight.  The curry.  The sound of men being called to prayer 5 times/day in Stone Town.  The poverty.  Playing UNO in the Nairobi Airport.  Mosquito nets and Maloril.  Everyone's favorite friend:  Natasha from the UK.

Despite extreme caution in not drinking the water etc, Jeff picked up water-borne and a food-borne bacterial infections so he spent the first night back from the trip in the emergency room!

A cool experience has been helping our friend Clive prepare for a mission to Durban, SA.  He entered the Missionary Training Center last Thursday and Michele enjoyed being the one to get to process his paperwork.  Clive is the first missionary for the LDS Church from the informal settlement of Diepsloot.  He's truly a pioneer!

Clive with Nomatter, his sister

Elder Ncube and his new companion in the MTC cafeteria

Our cleaning lady Susan had her 12-year old daughter Michelle visit from Zimbabwe last week while the kids were out of school.  One day, Kate took Michelle ice skating.  She had never done that before!

Susan is amazing!  She saw a lady on the taxi studying, so she asked her how she could do that too. She found out about a local online university and signed up.  Then she bought a 2nd-hand computer so she could complete the coursework.  She is perservering despite challenges with English and the discouragement from almost everyone she knows that she is "too old" to be going to college to try to change her career from domestic work.

John assembled a desk and chair for her and helped her get the computer set up in our domestic quarters.  At just this time, GE started a free 4-week "intro to computers" course on Saturdays, so we signed up Susan.  Then she found a night typing class in her neighborhood.  (Let's be very clear:  Susan has never typed or used a computer before in her life!  She had never used a microwave, dishwasher, etc before coming to work for us).  So she just finished the fourth week of the GE class and guess what they gave every student who completed the 4 weeks?  A laptop!  Susan was overjoyed!  Here she is showing it off.  Yesterday, she wore a beautiful peach suit to work and I said "Susan, you look so professional!  Why are you so dressed up?"  And she said, "Because I want to look like a woman who owns a laptop."


Our friends the Calls invited us over for games last Friday.  How cool is this "Settlers"-themed relish spread?

We had several of the young single adults from our ward over for dessert and games the other night.  John introduced them to his famous cc cookies with ice cream and Wacky Sixes.  It was a really fun night!

Kate took her friend Jude to a place called Acrobranch over the break.  Here they are preparing to zipline.

On Monday (the last day of semester break), John and some of his church friends went to the Diepsloot Combined School to measure the feet of 125 G5-7 children who need new school shoes ($8/pair).  For his Eagle Scout project, John is raising the funds to deliver shoes to these kids in the next couple of months.  (BTW, if you want to donate, please let us know :)

Now the kids are back to school and we are getting back into a routine of trying to be in bed by 10pm and arising at 5am.  It's hard to believe this is the last term of their school year.  On Dec 5, they will have completed another year of South African school!  Time is going so fast!