Well here we are again! It's supposedly Spring here but this week the temperatures have been in the 90's. Certainly not like last year's Spring! The people are telling us it's because of El Nino. We will be having an extra warm Spring and Summer. Lots of exciting thing happening in this part of the world! Hope you were able to see the World Report between the sessions of Conference. There was a great piece on Mozambique and the growth of thechurch there. We were blessed to welcome many of our Mozambique membersto the temple last week. Also the country of Gabon has just opened up and we had 3 couples who were endowed and sealed this week. We have a new senior couple from Idaho serving with us and we were so excited to welcome them. Such a small world. Their granddaughter is serving in the same mission that our grandson, Joseph, just returned from. The Alpine German Speaking Mission. We are so excited that our grandson, Nathan,will soon return from the Canada Toronto mission. Our grandson, Zach is serving in the Jamaica Mission and had escaped two major hurricanes this month. We are so grateful!We continue to be quite safe here in South Africa but have suffered several "power shedding days" this month. As I mentioned before every few weeks they cut the power to certain areas in the city because they can't begin to supply enough to this city of 15 million+. So it's a little hard to come home from the temple at 9:00 p.m. and the crock pot dinner is cold and raw! I celebrated another birthday last week and my fellow missionaries took us to a fun African restaurant where we were able to taste some fun African delicacies i.e. roasted springbok, ox tail soup, malva pudding, and many more yummy offerings. There were dancers and singers who sang Happy Birthday to me in Zulu. Fun day! Wasn't Conference just wonderful? We were so blessed to be able to see it here even though the Sat. and Sunday afternoon sessions were on at 10:00 p.m. and went until midnight. In our ward we are getting ready for our Primary Sacrament Meeting program and our Primary children were so excited to hear the tabernacle choir sing "I Know that my Savior Loves Me". Wish you could all see the beautiful children in our ward. All of them have their parts memorized and the program isn't until Oct. 25th. One of my piano students is the chorister for Primary and I get to play for them. I love it.
Last week the temple missionaries were invited to attend Temple Bethel Emmanuel and their celebration of the Feast of the Tabernacle. The Rabbi and his family had visited the temple grounds during the 30th anniversary of the dedication of the temple last week and they extended the invitation to us. I was unable to attend but Joe found is very interesting. We had about 30 Area Missionaries and most of the Temple missionaries in attendance and the Rabbi seemed very pleased. Oh yes we also had a "Tail Gate" party on the day of the BYU/UCLA game. We had a braii (barb-que) and everyone wore blue and white and we sang the fight song....well sort of. Our temple president found it a little strange but he loves us so it was O.K.
Because of the Anniversary celebration we have had a wonderful, busy month. Many people at the temple during the week of the 24th to celebrate the dedication. We were able to do over 1700 ordinances on Thursday the 24th of September. Friday and Saturday were record days too. It has been very exciting to be here at this time. Many of the Africans wore their tribal clothes and the sisters especially were so beautiful in their colorful dresses and headdresses! So exciting to see them in the temple. On our Pday last week Joe took me to the botanical gardens again. So exciting to see all the beautiful flowers in bloom and the colorful birds in their mating plumage. You can't believe the trees here. They all seem to have flowers! Even though we have had so little rain everything is celebrating Spring! The jacaranda trees have begun to bloom this week too and it is a haze of purple everywhere. They are so very beautiful.
Thanks for your messages and emails. We love hearing from you. We are well and enjoying each day. We have been so blessed through our service. Each day brings such amazing experiences, We send our love to all. Until next month.....
Love,
Kathy and Joe
Elder and Sister Jarvis
Mom and Dad
Grandmother and PaPa Joe
