Oh boy, we had the Newcastle Primary Children's Sacrament Meeting Presentation during November -- with only two weeks notice and one week being the only practice with our one primary counselor before we did it. The counselor came up to me and said "Sister Dibb, the children have learned their song and I promised them that we would do the program in November. When it was over, it was surely known that it could have only been done with help of our Heavenly Father.
I got to sit down with two more of our Branch Relief Society presidents and do a one-on-one individualized Visiting Teaching Leadership instruction meeting. Times like this you are so thankful for Who you and serving and the love and the direction that you receive.
We were able to get some songs organized to make and burn a CD as a handout for our District Young Women Conference of which I was responsible for as the District Young Women's President. We had 65 excited girls attend for our day-long conference. Elder Dibb was in the library during the conference trying to burn 15 or more CD's for the big turn out of girls. It was a wonderful and exciting day of games, classes, activities and food for them.
On a sadder note, it became necessary that Elder-Pres. Dibb release one counselor from each of the Madadeni Branches because of inappropriate behavior. It even affected Buyi, but I think the trial is making her stronger.
President & Sister Mann were staying with us during their trip up for the Newcastle Zone Conference and since it was Pres. Mann's 60th birthday, I also invited the other couple missionaries: the Klingler's, the Uffens, and the new missionary couple, the Wilson's to join us for dinner. They also came for breakfast the next morning. At Zone conference the next day, Pres. Mann gave a wonderful oral express of love for Elder Dibb and me.
Pres. Mann assigned the Klingler's to replace us as the missionary couple in Newcastle, and the Uffens to replace us in our boarding to serve in Madadeni.
During November, we also had our District Training Meetings. For a part of my YW training, I did it on Personal Progress and had invited several of my Seminary YW students to come in and share their feelings of the program and how they got started. Once these girls got started they really took off. I really wish I had thought of counting how many total signatures I had in the girls' books. I would guess close to a hundred of them because of their diligent work and effort. Some of them had a goal of getting as many sign-off's done by me as possible.
Two weeks before we were leaving, I announced to my Seminary class that we would be leaving the mission soon. Among the many comments of surprise, one of the biggest was when Dolly said "who will help us with Personal Progress?"
With the ending of our mission was also the ending of a year of Old Testament with my Seminary students. We had nine students graduate from Seminary. I was given permission to have a Seminary Sacrament Meeting on our last Sunday there, and asked the students to please give a talk of their choice [from a list of suggestions]. They did so well and I could not have been any more pleased with them and I am sure our Savior was pleased.
Just to give you an example of the wonderful people that we got to serve with, please allow me to tell you that one of the suggested topics was 'what do you do when someone is trying to bully you'. My youngest student had just become aware of gross incidents happening to his older sister on her way to school. I couldn't believe the courage he displayed as he talked and used the example of Joseph of Egypt in fleeing. This is one example of the lives and the power of these students.
After the Sacrament meeting, I had so many people come up and give me big hugs with plenty of tears -- and you need to understand these women are tough -- they rarely cry. Another thing is that they have no money, yet these young sweet Madadeni Seminary girls and the Newcastle Relief Society sisters gave me beautiful precious gifts.
As if I weren't already emotionally drained from this, Lungile came up to me and needed to talk. After a few minutes I realized we needed some private time together and as we were on our way outside to talk, Elder Dibb called me into a classroom to be with Buyi because she was crying and she also needed a priesthood blessing.
I guess I was thinking that our mission would end with the fairy tale ending of "and everyone lives happily ever after", but it wasn't meant to be. Nor did it make it any easier to leave. You are just so needed.
We did have our last Monday FHE Dinner with all of the missionaries in our home on our last night there. They have been such a blessing in our lives. We actually had a few more times together with meals than usual with little acts of love and sharing with them. We also exhanged journal entries.
We then travelled to Durban to finish up our mission and to have our exit interview with Pres. Mann. He gave us our "letter" and had also written a letter for/to our children. This is such a small and simple example of our mission president. He became more of a friend to us, and we took he and Sister Mann to the Durban revolving restaurant on our last night there. Since Pres. Mann loves sailing, it was such a tender mercy for us to see from our up-teenth floor view the regatta of sailboats out in the Indian Ocean. Sister Mann is now planning a cruise for us and all of the couple missionaries for when they get home in 18 months. We were fortunate to serve half of their mission with them.
A personal goal of finish reading the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon was completed.
On the 20th of November, we flew from Durban to Johannesburg, then into London. We later learned that we were very fortunate to have made the decision, at the airport, to rent a car at the last minute. In the three days were in England we got to attend three temple sessions, ride the train into London, get to see the play Wicked, and attend the Stake Conference. Another bonus was staying in the temple patron's housing and getting to attend the fireside given by a temple presidency counselor and his wife about their missionary experiences in Nigeria.
From England we flew back to the USA and then into SLC. We tried twice to go to the SL Temple, but it was closed for the Thanksgiving Holidays. With Steve we had a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner and with our niece, Angie. We all got to attend the Legacy Theatre Show and see the Temple Square lights light up.
From Salt Lake City, we flew to Minneapolis, MN where we were greeted with three wonderful grandchildren holding handmade Welcome Home posters for us, assisted by their parents and Uncle David and Aunt Rebecca. While in Minneapolis we got to spend some great time with our families there.
We picked up our car there and we are now in Nashville, Tennessee staying with Gregory/Melinda and Amelia & Nicolas. Then we are heading to Atlanta to begin looking for a home. We received an email that two of our Madadeni branch missionaries have received their mission calls to go to the Cape Town Mission. We now will look forward to hearing where the other two local to-be-missionaries will be called go serve.
We had great experiences as missionaries in South Africa and were very blessed.
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