September in South Africa
Greetings friends and family;
Is it really September? Well it may be Fall for you but we are just starting into Spring in the Southern hemisphere. September is similar to March in the US...well sort of...no Spring snow storms but wonderful rain and thunder and lightning storm! In fact I just heard that Johannesburg is the lightning capital of the world. I don't know about that because the lightning on Cedar Mountain was pretty impressive! We have had another wonderful eventful month here on our mission. Things at the temple have been incredibly busy. We have had not only many groups arriving at patron housing but many individuals and their families coming from near and far. There are never two days alike in the temple. Each day brings new challenges but also incredible spiritual experiences and even miracles. We have also been blessed to have our Granddaughter, Kirsi, come to visit us for10 days. She was able to serve in the temple with us for her entire visit. What a wonderful blessing it was for us and how the temple missionaries loved her. We are so short handed at the temple and her help came at the perfect moment when we were experiencing illnesses among several of our temple missionaries. Anyway it was a very tender experience for us and we will always cherish it. We did have two "p days" with her and took her to Pilantsburg, a game reserve, where she had an amazing "elephant experience". It was a little unnerving but oh so exciting. We were able to visit a cultural village where we witnessed dance, music and foods from many different tribes.
The time passed so quickly and we had to put her on a plane back to Utah way too soon.
We have been in Johannesburg for a year now but there are still some things that we find a little strange and scarry. The combi drivers (who drive taxi/vans) who never stop at a red light and cuts you off on a daily basis. They are built to carry about 8 people but we have seen 16+ in a van at a time! Random police checks where you are pulled over and demanded to show your drivers license and then expected to pay a bribe or be detained for a few minutes; unreal traffic which you can never judge a "slow time"; some of our South African workers and patrons complain about 2 hour commutes and even more. The complex we live in is a short 5 -10 min. from the temple....what a blessing! Still not used to not finding brown sugar, mapleine, ranch dressing, salsa, green chilies, graham crackers, chocolate chips, cream of mushroom soup, cream of chicken soup, well you get the idea and actually there are many amazing subsitutes right across the street at the Pic'n Pay.
As I have mentioned before we have patrons from all over this great continent. Many spend several days and their life's savings to come to the temple. This week we added Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, and Reunion Island to our guests. Did I mention before the number of languages we have available here? Well here is our list; English,French, Malagasy, Portuguese, Swahili, Shona, Africaans, Zulu, Spanish, German, Korean, Japanese, Zulu and Dutch. AWESOME!
Perhaps I have mentioned before about our wonderful temple president, President Eppel. He is probably the most Christlike person I have ever met. He is so loving and kind to all. In our daily prayer meeting with him we are blessed to feel the awe of this work and his genuine love for us. We are so grateful for this great opportunity to serve Heavenly Father's children and to be in His Holy House each day.
Last week we celebrated our 55th wedding anniversary! We figured out that we have been married over 20,000 days. Is that all? On our Pday we visited the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens and it wad so beautiful. Everything is beginning to bloom and the birds are pairing up and singing their songs to Spring. We are thankful for our dear friends, our wonderful family, good health and the most amazing grandchildren in the whole world.
Thank you for your love and prayers.
Love,
Elder and Sister Jarvis
Mom and Dad
Joe and Kathy
Grandmother PaPa Joe
