HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Hi Everyone:
It's so hard to believe it's Thanksgiving this week.  Still in the low and mid 70 s.  I am going around singing "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" and I'm afraid it will definitely be a dream this year.  The flowers are unreal beautiful right now and the jacaranda are still blooming their heads off! Today was our Stake Conference in the Soweto Stake,  Our Temple President is the former Stake President of this Stake so he and his wife asked if they could go with us.  They also invited the 1st counselor and his wife,  Poor Dad had to drive the van with both of then in it, in tons of traffic and pouring rain!  But he did great and we arrived without incident one hour early!  It was a great conference.  It was broadcast from Salt Lake and we had Elder Bednar, President Uchdorf, and Elder Gay of the Seventy.  The talks were amazing.  It was just to the saints in Africa,. The stake house was full a good half hour before it began and many people stood thru the whole thing,.  When I heard those hundreds of African Saints sing "Redeemer of Israel" it brought tears to my eyes...in fact I've about given up mascara...I seem to always cry when they sing....it's so beautiful.  We have had a whole week of rain!  Yes it is the rainy season but I had no idea it would rain every day.  But the flowers and trees and grass are so gorgeous right now...it's definitely needed.

I guess our Thanksgiving will be rather short.  The temple is open that day so we will have a Thanksgiving lunch and get back to work!  But I will be thinking of all of you and the pumpkin pie and turkey and especially the sweet potatoes!  We are so short handed at the temple right now and we are losing 4 workers in December.  We are praying that we will have some more couples by the first of the year!  Tell everyone they are needed more than anyone knows!

We have had a great week.  Saints from Congo, Madagascar, Cape Town, and Durbin have all been here and it has been glorious.  We love the work but miss you all like crazy...especially right now.

Take care and write when you can.

Love,
Mom
Grandmother and PaPaJoe
Kathy and Joe