Welkom Christmas

On Tuesday December 23, 2014 We had District Development Meeting with a bit of a twist.  We had made and hidden these stockings full of goodies in another room waiting for them to be discovered by the missionaries after DDM and lunch was over.

We made the missionaries line up down the hall and wait to go in to see the surprise.  This made Christmas seem a bit more usual for us.  This is what our own children had to do each year on Christmas morning.  The kids had to line up youngest to oldest and walk in together to get their Christmas presents.  I don't now about the missionaries but this was a lot of fun for me and they cooperated with my attempt at creating some Christmas spirit.









This is the whole group of missionaries after they got the stockings.  They were really surprised and I think they liked them.

















These are the elders that live in Kroonstad.  Elder Agyeman is from Ghana.  That is where Elder Edington's Parent served on their mission about 20 years ago.

Elder Kaizer is from Johannesburg.  I admire Elder Kaizer so much.  He was only two hours away from home but he did not even consider going home for Christmas and he was teased a lot about doing just that.














 Elder Rasmussen is from Utah.  He and his companion, Elder Matalala are the District leaders.  They do a wonderful job and are fantastic about being to DDM on time.  It is a welcome relief to start on time or very close to it.

Elder Belnap or (Benlap) as I keep saying and even wrote incorrectly on his Stocking, is from the US.  He is a good sport about having his name mispronounce and misspelled.

Elder Human is from East London South Africa.  His uncle Gary Human is one of our S&I bosses.  They are both very gentle minded and great men.

Elder Mantambala is from Uganda.  He left to go home the middle of January.  He was an amazing missionary.  He helped a lot with the institute program in Welkom.

Elder Willombi  is Mantambalas companion.  They worked in Thabang which is a difficult
area because of the gangs and so much crime but there were several convert baptisms from there.









We were grateful for the opportunity to serve these Elders and hopefully made their Christmas a little easier.  I know that by spending our time doing things for them and for the other elders it really helped make our Christmas away from home a wonderful experience.