First week in Johannesburg, South Africa

Wow, what a wild adventure so far.  The last time I blogged we had been set apart as missionaries (28 Feb) and had started our mission adventure.  We went to Utah March 1st to spend a week with Lisa's family in Saint George, Utah.  We stayed at a beautiful home that dear friends, Bart and Liz Warner (Nick's mission president when he did a service mission in the Dallas Texas Mission) let us use.  We then spent a few days seeing my family, going to various temples in Utah (Manti, Logan, and Ogden in addition to St. George when we were there).  Each temple is unique and yet special.  My favorite was Manti.

We went to the Little America Hotel on Saturday, March 14th to get ready for our temple training.  We went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Sunday morning performance in the Salt Lake Tabernacle.  It is officially called "Music and the Spoken Word".

After that we spent some time on temple square and then I went exploring other places (to include the conference center and Beehive House where Brigham Young lived) while Lis rested at the hotel.
   Monday, March 16th we "officially" started our mission.  We went to the Salt Lake Temple where we received training over the next 3 days by President M. Richard and Sister Kathleen Hinkley Walker.  They had been the temple president and matron for the Salt Lake Temple in 2005-08.  It was wonderful and even though we didn't really learn anything new, it was a spiritual feast that got us ready to go on a mission.  We learned a lot about the Salt Lake temple as well plus some neat stories the Walkers shared.  Sister Walker is President Gordon B. Hinkley's oldest daughter so they shared some fun things about President Hinkley.  One thing she shared that I found interesting was she said growing up, she and her siblings just knew there dad was gone a lot and spent a lot of time in the temple and doing church work.  It wasn't until they read a biography on his life that they appreciated some of the things he had done.  She told President Hinkley that if she had know that was what he was doing she would have given him more respect.  She said to her he was just dad.

We left Salt Lake Thursday, 19 March at about 11:00 and after changing planes in Atlanta got to Johannesburg, South Africa Friday, 20 March at about 1730 hrs.  Yes, we were tired and had major jet lag.  It was good being here but it took us over a week to get over the jet lag.  It is a 9 hour difference from Salt Lake.  Our first Sunday was at the Kagiso (Ka-He-So) Ward in Soweto Township.  Here we are in front of the church and we are even awake....I think.  

We are working with some wonderful temple missionaries who we are growing to love.  We were picked up at the airport by Elder and Sister Firmage (David and Zan, short for Alexzander) and when we got to our apartment Elder and Sister Jarvis (Joe and Kathy) had dinner waiting for us.  We have also made good friends with Gerald and Donita Christensen, Larry and Marylynn Morris.  We also have Mark and Shirley Taylor, Richard and Ansie Dalldorf (local missionaries), and Sis. Kato who is also local.  I will update more later but enough for today.  It is wonderful to be here and we are excited to serve.   I am going to start doing this on a more regular basis.  We did not have internet access for the first 10 days we were here in Joburg so I am just trying to get this going........