Interesting Creatures We Have Seen!!!!

As we travel I keep me eyes glued to the sides of the road so I won't miss any of the Animals or other creatures that can be found here in South Africa.  You can imagine my surprise when we came upon these fearsome and funny creatures.   I love them.  We see them every time we go to Welkom.  

I think this one is upset about
a really bad hair day.

Minnions have made it to
South Africa.

The Sunrise This Morning

These were taken on the way to Welkom.  We were picking up Elder Farmer, Elder Mudzurawona. and Elder Khutledi.  They went with us to make sure we made it to Kroonstad.  "Elder Garmin" had led us astray the last time we tried to go there.  On the way we saw a beautiful sunrise.  

                             Sunday, March 23, 2014

Thank you mothers for giving me an appreciation for the beauties of nature.

Lesotho: A country inside a Country

There are three branches in the country of Lesotho.  There is Maseru, Masianokeng, and Leribe.  These are institute students, plus one little girl that wanted to be in the picture.  They are from Maianokeng.  We have been to Maseru once but could not get pictures.  We have not yet gone to Leribe.

A serious picture after a really good institute class   

This picture was just for fun

Cactus surprise

 I was never so surprised as when someone offered me some prickly pear cactus fruit.  I guess I just figured prickly pear where just in the USA.  But to my surprise there are lots of prickly pear and other cactus in South Africa.

The value of a three ring binder

I never in all my imagination thought I would be missing three ring binders when I came to South Africa.  We have all kinds of binders here in our apartment for all kinds of paperwork but the only one that is a three ring binder is one that contains a lesson manual.  All the others are two ring binders. Now you may be asking yourself what difference does that make.   Up until know that would have been my question, but I have the answer.  It makes a lot of difference.  The binders here have only two rings in the middle which allows, and maybe even encourages the papers to slide either up to the right or down to the right.  I do not know if you get the picture but the papers are alway sliding around in the binder.  I never realized the value of the third ring. Oh the things we take for granted.

Van Der Leek Family

These wonderful People are The Van Der Leek Family.  They have a standing invitation for all missionaries in the area to come to their house every Thursday night for Dinner.  They are a faithful Afrikaans family.  They are a lot of fun to be with.  Sister Van Der Leek teaches seminary for the Bloemfontein Ward and Brother Van Der Leek is a councilor in the Bishopric.  He is fond of telling the young missionaries if they are late to dinner he will hit them with a big stick.  He is a big man.  I think I will surely let him know if I am going to be late.

Welkom

Welkom is the Afrikaans word that means welcome.  We first went to Welkom on the second Sunday we were in South Africa.  It was February 16, 2014.  This was the first place, "far away from home"

that we went on our own with only our GPS, "Elder Garmin" to guide us.  We left early in the morning, About 6:30 so we could make sure we would be on time for church at 9:00.

The drive was beautiful.  We could not believe all the beautiful fields of sunflowers and corn or maze as they call it here. In between fields of corn and sunflowers were massive areas of grassland, rolling hills and herds after herds of beautiful cattle of every kind and colors of white, black, browns, tans and rust.  I have never seen so many different markings and colors on cows before.  There are some really massive bulls that are unbelievable beautiful.  There where some smaller herds of maybe 30 or 40 and some much larger herds.  Dad would have loved to see the wide open spaces with so much feed that it is almost criminal.

Free State National Botanical Garden

Welcome to Free State           
National Botanical Gardens

The Allusive Hadeda

       

Almost from the beginning of our time here in Bloemfontein I have been intrigued by the sound, size and behavior of this one particular bird.  Even it's name, hadeda or hadada, deepening on who you talk to or where you look on the internet, has been a curiosity to me.  

I heard the bird every morning, and often during the day, but I could not identify it at first.  Finally I saw it near the front gate of the housing development  and I asked the gate keeper what it was called and he told me hadeda.   Of course I did not have a camera with me.