First week in Africa

It's hard to believe it has only been a week since we arrived in South Africa. It seems like we have crammed a lot in the first week here.

The first few days we spent in the office with the Kirschbaums, who came into the country with us while they met with the couple they are replacing.  The Kirschbaums are going to be the Humanitarian Couple for South Africa, which includes, South Africa, Soweto, and Swaziland. They will be working in the same office we work. The couple they are replacing were going back to the States the end of the week so they wanted to have a few days to talk about some of the projects that need to be completed. So we spent Monday-Wednesday training with them. Each day we were taken out to lunch which was very nice.

In between training those first 3 days we:

• Attended a morning devotional on Monday morning at the Africa Southeast Area Office
• Had a tour of the Area Office, where our office is, which included getting ID badges that would get us in and out of the office building, filling out applications for our Bank Cards, meeting with the fleet department who would be getting our car for us, meeting with the IT people who would be setting up our office computers.
• We each had the wonderful experience of learning to drive on the left side of the road, while sitting in the left side of the car
• Attended our first Family Home Evening with the couples, after the meeting some of the couples mentioned they had some things I needed for my apartment so I took a shopping cart that was parked outside one of the couples apartments and collected, a garbage pail, crock pot, hair dryer, clothes hangers, and outlet adapters from 3 different couples, I even came home with some chicken one couple had just taken out of the oven.
• Got our internet, and Vonage hooked up in our apartmentArranged to have someone come hook up our new oven and stove top that had been installed before we arrived.
• Made our first withdrawal form the ATM.
• Visited the mall across the street to buy groceries ( purchased our groceries with rand instead of dollars)
• I started walking with a group of women for an hour every morning from 6:30-7:30

On Wednesday the Vanwagoners arrived for 3 days of training before they headed to Burundi where they will be the Humanitarian couple.

•  The Lee's took us all out to a very nice  dinner at the Hotel where the Vanwagoners were staying.
• We were in training for about 8 hours a day but it felt more like 12 since all of us were still jet lagged and exhausted from our 2 weeks of training at the MTC and the long plane ride.
• The Lee's took us out to a nice lunch and then it was back to training at the Area office again
• On Saturday after training we made a quick trip to the mall again for some electrical adapters, a converter and a Garmin
• Saturday night couples potluck and game night
• Sunday we attended Church at our branch in Orange Farm and Bruce and I were both asked to speak.

I am exhausted just typing this post

Here is a picture we took at church on Sunday with the Young Single Adults. The church is held at a school and this class meets on the lawn outside. It was so awesome when we entered the area where the school was we saw several people dressed up waiting for the services to start. It turns out they weren't all going to our church service there are two other churches that meet in the area. While we were singing Sacrament Hymns we could hear the tribal drums beating in the background then a beautiful chorus of voices singing outside joined in outside somewhere. The women in our congregation sang out the songs with so much joy in their hearts it was really beautiful. The little classroom we were in was filled to overflowing with people standing in the hallways peering through the window to hear the Sacrament talks. It was a beautiful day.