Thursday, February 6, 2014

First Sunday in Johannesburg

Church services on Sunday were enlightening. We arrived late because we couldn’t find the chapel—another senior missionary couple was driving us since we haven’t had any “driving lessons” yet (left side remember) and they hadn’t been to that chapel either. We were very, very impressed with the speakers in sacrament meeting (since it was fast Sunday, a number of people get up to speak.) The many young people who came up to share thoughts were especially so. The Sunday school and Relief Society lessons were equally excellent, not only the teachers themselves, but also the comments from those being taught. My daughter Rachel and Las Vegas friends will understand when I say it was like having a whole ward of Lynette Sorenson’s (Lynette is my very intelligent South African friend who is so knowledgeable of the scriptures and, of course, sounds just like these guys J Some of the members here come from families that have been in the church since it was established in Johannesburg in the late 1800’s but many, many more are first or second generation members because the church is growing so rapidly here and in all of Africa.


The meetinghouse is a beautiful brick building with lots of wood in the interior. The grounds are also beautiful with lots of subtropical foliage surrounding it. Like the neighborhoods, security is tight at the chapel. A tall secure fence surrounds in and each incoming car is allowed through a rolling security fence only by punching in a code. Sunday afternoon was spent organizing a little and just relaxing, trying to convince our bodies that the light outside meant that one o’ clock was not bedtime J

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