Sunday, April 13, 2008
2008 04 01 - posted the 14th!
Dear Everyone:
I’m so-o-o-o sorry I’ve been so absent from this blogspot! We really are still here, and still involved in missionary work. Maybe you can assume that when I’m late on making a new entry, I’m REALLY busy! (Come to think of it, that’s true!)
The most unusual and exciting thing that has happened lately was a surprise (to Steve and Morgan, anyway) visit from Hayley. Hunter and I were in
We had already scheduled a few days of family vacation while the boys are out of school, so we threw Hayley into the mix, and went off to Oribi Gorge, where she threw herself off a 33-story cliff, swinging through the air at the end of a rope. Very exciting! (See pictures above.) Then we went up to Karkloof where we all ziplined through the tree-tops. That was fun – and even Morgan, and heights-hating Hunter did it! Elder and Sister Dalebout came, too, and we all had a great time.
A little curio shopping, and sticking our feet in the Indian Ocean, and Hayley was off home again – only to leave her luggage in London – not by choice – on the way home. Hopefully it has arrived by now. We are hoping Hayley will be just the first of many visitors???
I’ve been tweaking our training powerpoints over the last few weeks: as an amateur powerpointer, it takes me a lot longer, and I find myself doing things over and over at times, but it’s fun. The hardest part for me is finally saying “OK, I’m done.” There’s always one more picture that I find that would be even better… But Steve is making frustrated noises, so I guess I’m done…
The sister missionaries are still on the move: Sister Essma has been transferred from the Kenya Mission to the Uganda Mission. She is really getting around! I know she’ll do great there – and will be joining some of our other sisters again.
We had another month of a good amount of baptisms: the elders are discovering that baptizing a family takes a little longer, but it’s nice to have a baptism of 4 or 5 instead of 1! Just about all the companionships are teaching families now, and we hear of branches with 80 in attendance: 21 investigators. It’s pretty exciting! The Church needs families SO much here – the cultural traditions and habits of having children out of wedlock, and living together without getting married are really strong. I don’t think we’ll see a big change even with the Church members until children start growing up in active families.
I got a wonderful birthday card from the sisters in River Heights Ward – thank you! And LouAnn Hoffman is a great visiting teacher – she emails my messages every month!
Love to everybody –
Grandma/Mom/Sue/Susan/Sister President Mann
Monday, March 3, 2008
2008 02 March - Are we there yet?
(From the President)
Well friends and family, I’m sorry I haven’t written for a while. It has been a busy, rather hectic last 6-8 weeks, but a really rewarding time in the mission. In that time, in addition to the normal busy schedule, we:
* created two new districts
* created one new branch
* reorganized 4 branches
* held a fantastic couples conference
* held 30 min interviews with all the missionaries to review their new goals
* created powerpoint training programs for branch presidents, elders quorum presidents, YM, YW, primary and RS presidents as well as membership and financial clerks
* and this week we participated in leadership training and the reorganization of the Durban Stake presidency with Elder & Sister Parmley and Elder & Sister Hill
While all this was going on the missionaries met all their targets: for new investigators, investigators at sacrament meeting, lessons taught with members present and (almost) investigators with baptism dates.
All across the mission miracles are happening. In addition to meeting all the key indicator objectives:
* we have moved from teaching 80% young girls to teaching 80% families and men over age 18. (note from Susan: this is very good...)
* two branches have nearly doubled attendance in the last 4 months
* two sets of Elders are teaching pastors and one set is teaching the pastor’s congregation
* last week Swaziland had 17 baptisms and most were families
* Stanger, a small town up the coast had 15 investigators at sacrament meeting
* Mpumalanga had a blitz with about 30 missionaries and members to seek out the less active and on Sunday had 20 of those less active came to Church.
* and these are just a few examples
We are being incredibly blessed as a mission and it is due to the faith, hard work, obedience and listening to the Spirit of the missionaries. They are the greatest miracle. They come full of excitement, sometimes get a little discouraged after about two or three months of dealing with the realities of Africa and missionary work and then something happens. They transform from young missionaries into men of God who contact fearlessly, teach by the Spirit and devote all their energy to serving the people of this area. Getting called to the office or to be an assistant is almost viewed as punishment because they can’t be out teaching all the time.
In case you can’t tell, we are loving the mission. Even Hunter and Morgan seem to be at long last settling in.
For those of you who have not yet gone on a senior mission, you don’t know what you are missing. Our couples are the backbone of this mission. They write and deliver training programs, they coach branch presidents, auxiliaries, and district presidencies, they serve on district councils and as mission area specialists, and most importantly they minister to the people in a thousand different ways. I think you could ask any of our couples and they would tell you that being on mission has far exceeded their expectations and blessed their families. Many left difficult family situations at home but they are getting resolved. The Lord blesses those who serve.
Well, tomorrow starts this cycle’s series of Zone Conferences. Our theme is the Book of Mormon and we are taking key scriptures that answer questions of the soul and EXPANDING them, which just means looking at every word and reference and context. Then we EXPLORE them, telling the story through a whole series of scriptures. Then we STUDY them by having chapters and passages for the missionaries to study that would answer investigators questions. Susan and the assistants have put a lot of work into getting this ready with a lot of research and some amazing powerpoints. Wish us luck.
We are in the middle of summer here, hot and humid. From what we hear, however, this year has been far better than last year. We have had rain every few days so it breaks up the heat. What all the rain does is make everything grow. Some areas make Hawaii look like a desert. For those of you with four feet of snow, eat your hearts out.
We miss you all.
Dad, Grandpa, Steve, President Mann
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