On February 23rd, our good friends, Brent and Nena Rawson arrived in Johannesburg to spend a week with us. I had arranged a substitute IFR to fill in for me while they were here. LaDawn just squeezed her work in when possible and then worked really hard for a couple of days after they left to get caught back up. What an amazing and wonderful week we had together!

When the Rawson’s called and we discussed their visit, two things were clear. All four of us wanted to see Victoria Falls and Cape Town. There is only so much that can be done in 8 days, so we jumped in and made the best of the time we had. LaDawn played travel agent and made all the arrangements (she is very good at it).

The Rawson’s arrived late Monday night so we arranged a ride for them to our flat with one of the Area’s trusted drivers. He delivered them safe and sound around 11 pm. While we were tempted to sit and talk, we were all tired and knew that we had a big day on Tuesday, so it didn’t take long before we all went to bed.

On Tuesday morning we made our way to the airport with an UBER and caught a flight at 11:35 am to Victoria Falls. We stayed at the Waterfalls Lodge. A very nice and well run hotel. The rooms included a free breakfast which we really appreciated. We ate dinner there for two nights and that was also excellent.

Tuesday evening we enjoyed a dinner river cruise on the Zambezi River. That is the river that Victoria Falls is on. We were probably 1 mile upstream from the falls. One side of the river was Zimbabwe and the other side was Zambia. We were clearly in Zambian waters but since we didn’t get a stamp in our passports, we are not sure it counts. 😊. The water was beautiful at sunset and I was able to catch a nice photo. We also saw a couple of crocodiles, a number of hippos, and lots of birds.

The next morning we headed to Chobe National Park in Botswana (we definitely got passport stamps!). Shortly after our arrival we took a river safari. We were on the Chobe River which eventually runs into the Zambezi and becomes a part of the 4th longest river in Africa (Nile, Congo, Niger, Zambezi). On that short cruise, we saw hippos, crocodiles, baboons, impalas and Cape buffalo. Here are a few pictures. The hippos were especially photogenic that day.

In the afternoon we did a land safari. We got cut a bit short because it started to rain, but we saw some awesome animals, my favorite was the lioness.

It was the next day, Thursday February 26th that we made our way to Victoria Falls. As it turns out, it was in walking distance of the hotel. What a magnificent experience to feel the power of those falls. As we were coming into Victoria Falls on the plane, I was able to snap a picture of the falls from the air. It provides a good perspective of the size of the river and the falls.

It is so interesting how the Zambezi comes to a point where it looks like it just disappears. If you look at this picture, you can see the length of the falls which measures just over one mile (5,604 feet). This is twice the height and length of Niagra Falls. As the world’s largest sheet of falling water, this immense width (length) combined with a height of 354 feet creates one of the seven natural wonders of the world on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. In fact, the original local name of the falls is “Mosi-oa-Tunya” which when translated is “Smoke that Thunders”. And believe me, the name is appropriate

While in the picture from the air it appears as if the river completely disappears, that is obviously not the case. After our visit to the falls we stopped and ate at Lookout Cafe which provides a nice view of the gorge from which the Zambezi escapes the falls. There are a couple of zip lines and a bungie jumping facility that are destinations for adrenaline junkies who are looking for a thrill.

In 1905 the Victoria Falls Bridge was completed linking Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) with Zimbabwe. In included both a railway and a roadway. Completed in just 14 months, it was prefabricated in England, shipped to Beira Mozambique by water and then transported overland to Victoria Falls. Here is a good view of the falls from the air converted into a map with the key with key viewpoints notated.

Here are two maps and three pictures to give a better perspective of the Falls and the surrounding area.

You can see Lookout Cafe on the map below from where the picture of the two gorges was taken. The picture of the bridge was taken a the other yellow circle further upstream

The majesty of these incredible falls began me to thinking about another song that in my head I had already named “Living Water”. Below I will tell you about our trip to Cape Town and when I coupled the power of Victoria Falls with the ocean waves at Cape of Good Hope, the feelings I was experiencing gave way to words and phrases that began to describe the spiritual stirrings within me. Later I refined it a bit more and put it music using an AI tool called Suno.

I’ve seen the beauty of the falls
White thunder spilling over walls
Plunging to a hidden deep

Where ancient secrets move and sleep.

And in that roar my heart now learns

It is to Him that I must turn

And like the falls the waves do roar
The crashing seas against the shore
So rolls His grace in endless tide,
 
Redeeming all I used to hide.
The storms within, He stills with love;
 
What drags me down, He lifts above.

As oceans surge and rivers run,
 
The Father sent His Holy Son.
 
He floods my soul with Living Water,

And grows my faith with all He offers

He seeks me in my wandering ways,
 
Through wasted nights and fractured days.
 
Despite the heat and pounding sun
Like rain the mercy falls and runs
Into the soul of who I’ve been,

He makes me clean and whole again.

As oceans surge and rivers run,
 
The Father sent His Holy Son.
 
He floods my soul with Living Water,

And grows my faith with all He offers

Its Living Water that flows to me
Just like the river to the sea
It brings new strength, restores my sight,
 
And turns my darkness into light.
He brings me newness, strength, and power—

Like gentle rain to waiting flower.


As oceans surge and rivers run,
 
The Father sent His Holy Son.
 
He floods my soul with Living Water,

And grows my faith with all He offers 
He brings me newness, strength, and power
Its Him I feel each waking hour

He brings me newness, strength, and power
He floods my soul with Living Water

We arrived back in Johannesburg on Friday afternoon, February 27th around 3:30 pm. That was enough time to go back to the apartment and wash some clothes. LaDawn made a yummy dinner and we visited until bedtime. The next morning we were up bright and early to catch our Uber around 6 am. We were in Cape Town by 10:30 am. Cape Town is actually quite an amazing place. Rather than provide a chronological order of things we did and saw, I will just make a list, followed by pictures of each highlight.

• Penguins at Boulder Beach in Simon’s Town
• Cape of Good Hope (South-western most tip of Africa)
• Church at Mowbray Ward (first branch of the Church in Africa)
• Cable Car ride to the top of Table Mountain overlooking Cape Town
• Chapman’s Peak Drive
• Slangkop Lighthouse in Kommetjie
• Milkshakes at Gibson’s (over 207 different hand-spun milkshakes)
• Dinner at Bo-Vine Restaurant at Camps Bay
• Sea Lions on rocks along the M-6 on our way to Chapman’s Peak Drive

What a marvelous few days we experienced in Cape Town. There was some rain upon our arrival, but most of the rest of the time we were there it was cool (well cold on Table Mountain) and cloudy. There is a lot to see and do, and we did as much as we could in the short-time we were there. We stayed at a Marriot Protea in Downtown. More like a BnB as the rooms were quite spacious and included a kitchenette and a washer/dryer combo. Here are pictures to match the list above.

We returned home on Monday evening after a really great weekend. On Tuesday, Brent and Nena met up with Brother and Sister Christoffel Golden Jr, an emeritus General Authority, who served in the Area President when the Rawson’s served in St. Petersburg as mission leaders. The Golden’s took them out to see the Voortrekker monument near Pretoria and then they enjoyed a late lunch together. There is quite a history of what is often called the Great Trek. I have linked to Wikipedia for the full explanation. Down below I just took a snippet from Wikipedia’s page to give you a high level perspective of this vastly important period in South Africa’s History.

The Great Trek was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape’s British colonial administration. The Great Trek resulted from the culmination of tensions between rural descendants of the Cape’s original European settlers, known collectively as Boers, and the British. It was also reflective of an increasingly common trend among individual Boer communities to pursue an isolationist and semi-nomadic lifestyle away from the developing administrative complexities in Cape Town. Boers who took part in the Great Trek identified themselves as voortrekkers, meaning “pioneers” or “pathfinders” in Dutch and Afrikaans.

After the Rawson’s left, things returned to our “normal” very quickly. I am grateful to Peter Sackley who spent 6 months as our IFR in West Africa who filled in for me over the week. We didn’t realize how valuable a week away, being with good friends and enjoying the beauty of this land, would be to us. I’ve concluded that it is something we should have done long ago. The nature of the work of an IFR essentially means dealing with difficult issues every day. Over an extended period of time, especially when it is every day of the week, every week of the month, and every month of the year, the work can wear a person down. The temple is our refuge, but sometimes just a good break away from it all is a healing balm. We are grateful to be serving and we know that there will be challenges as the Lord accelerates the gathering of Israel, especially here in Africa. The work needs to be done. Young missionaries have spent much of their lives without very good healthcare and cultural norms that oppose the culture of Christ. It takes time to help them come to know and understand just how big and important this work is. The good news is that significant progress is being made across Africa. And the reality is that growth has its challenges as well.

The next Sunday in the Forest Hill Branch where we attend (in the Centurian Stake), a sister came up to me after church and said “Do you know who I am?” Everything pointed to a sister we served with in Sierra Leone who was from Cape Town, but I was afraid to say her name and then have it turn out to be someone else. Well the good news is, once she told me her name, that it was a confirmation of who I thought it was. I quickly brought her over to LaDawn. It was a sweet reunion. Sister Senoane served in the apartment next to ours in Kenema. She was a great missionary and since we are friends on Facebook, we knew some of what was going on her life, but we never expected her to move to our little branch. She brought her younger sister with her (she is a teacher) and Sister Senoane will be working for the same real estate company for which she worked in Cape Town. It is a simple reminder that these relationships we have formed, and are forming here in Africa are eternal in nature.

On March 22nd, we held our regular Come Follow Me lesson in the Ruth Room. The lesson that day was day by Izak Hearn, one of the Area’s IT specialists. He is very good. His mom, dad, sister, and brother-in-law also joined us that day. Izak did a nice job and certainly had the nicest set of PowerPoint slides we have seen. I guess we should expect that from him. 😊 In the picture below, Izak is sitting on the second row all the way to the left. His mom is sitting behind him and dad is standing.

With March coming to an end, we have hit fall in Johannesburg. We have had so much rain the last few weeks, we are happy to see that it has finally tapered off and ushered in fall weather. The weather here really is quite magnificent, even with the regular rain showers. As we walk each morning, I couldn’t help but snap a reminder of the season we are in.

Since our last post, I have worked on 106 cases that have required follow-up. There are a number of issues that come across my desk I can handle with “one touch and done”. I like those. Here is a list of a few experiences at a high level over the last couple of months.

• A senior missionary elder in one of our missions got really sick and the doctors could not figure out why. He was transferred to a much better hospital in another country. They still struggled to figure it out. Finally a lab tech noticed malaria cells on a blood smear that had previously gone undetected despite numerous tests. Turns out the elder had cerebral malaria – this is the kind that kills. Fortunately that discovery saved his life. The doctors were able to get him on the right medication and within days he was healthy enough to travel home. No one is above the laws of nature. If you don’t protect against malaria you are going to get malaria. This senior missionary had stopped taking his doxycycline and the results were not surprising as we have too much experience with malaria in these two areas of the Church. We are grateful this good man is alive today and all because of an attentive lab tech who was committed to finding the problem. A miracle? Of course.
• Two of our African missionaries were riding in a public transport van. The van attempted to pass another vehicle and hit head on with a small bus. 4 people were killed including the man next to one of our elders. Our missionaries were bruised and shaken, but no significant injuries. The mission president reports that these are good hard-working, obedient missionaries. A miracle? Of course.
• We continue to have struggles with missionaries who do not have the ability to resolve conflict any other way than throwing a punch or in one case a shoe. The young people often grow up in homes where discipline is associated with the physical “laying on of hands”. The result is some of our missionaries bring that with them into the field, and when it finally erupts in a companionship, the aggressor(s) will always go home. There is zero tolerance for fighting.
• We had a missionary called to Guyana, a country in South America that borders Venezuela and Brazil. It took a while to get his visa but it all finally came together and the day arrived when he was put on a place to travel to his permanent mission (he had been serving in a temporary assignment). He arrived in Nairobi and changed planes, taking KLM to Georgetown. Except the gate agent would not let him board and sent him home. No good explanation given. The travel team made sure he had every single document associated with his call, visa, and invitation letter and sent him back. Again KLM turned him away in Nairobi with zero explanation. A new route that excludes KLM and Nairobi is now work in process. You might want to consider this experience next time you have a choice as to whether you fly KLM or another airline.
• A while back I explained the situation in the Eastern DRC and you can read about it here. We had 10 pre-field missionaries (elders) who were recently able to get out as things began to normalize in Uvira. However, we had two more that we had to further postpone because one lives in Goma and one in Bukavu. The problem is getting to Uvira which provides safe passage to Burundi and the embassy there. The roads to Uvira are simply not safe right now. We continue to look for ways to help these young men answer their mission calls.
• We have recently had two missionaries who arrived at an MTC over the age 25. The problem was that they had had someone change their birthdate on their membership record so they appeared to be younger than they were. Unfortunately for them, a good MTC president recognized the discrepancy between their stated age and their passport age. We had a third one who actually told his stake president before he was set apart that he had done the same thing. His mission was cancelled. We love the desire these young men have to serve as missionaries, but teaching integrity is so much more important and if they will learn from this experience, it will bless them and their future families.

There is one other item I will mention. I have talked before about the challenges we have in the South and Central Areas with temporary assignments. These are often the result of documents not being gathered and sent in to the Travel Team so visas can be arranged. In Zimbabwe we especially have an issue because there are so many young people choosing to serve missions Unfortunately, many end up coming back to Zimbabwe on temporary assignments because they have not submitted their documents (passport, school diploma, police report, yellow fever card, Seminary and/or Institute certificates, resume, priesthood ordination, etc). The missions in Zimbabwe are now bursting at the seams because not only do the missions have those who have been permanently assigned there, but now they have these temporary missionaries coming back. We have two missions in Zimbabwe, and the one in Harare will be split in July, but the problem we are facing is happening now. I was so happy to learn that the Area Presidency sent a letter to all priesthood leaders in Zimbabwe telling them that until all the documents for a missionary are gathered, they cannot be set apart. This is a big step forward. Following the distribution of that letter, I took an action out of our monthly visa meeting to get Travel, Prefield (in Salt Lake), and myself into a conference call to discuss how to operationalize this new policy. The result was essentially setting a deadline 2 weeks before they were to leave to have all of their documents submitted. It is only then that travel to the MTC will be arranged. We are praying this sends the right message to priesthood leaders regarding gathering these documents as soon as a call is issued. Because LaDawn is now processing over 200 missionary applications a month, the visa process becomes more and more important as the number of missionaries increase.

Lastly I will mention that I am really enjoying the Come Follow Me lessons on the Old Testament. I will listen to the “Talking Scripture” podcast in the mornings as we walk and then read the chapters afterwards. This continues to enlighten me and helps me to put the Old Testament in perspective. The love I have for this book of most ancient of scriptures is growing! Just one more blessing of Serving in South Africa!