Johannesburg, South Africa Temple

Yesterday we went to the Johannesburg temple for the first time. At least we went to the temple grounds--the temple is closed right now for two weeks for cleaning. We had actually been on the property a couple of weeks earlier but didn't realize it. Johannesburg is very hilly and on the temple property, the offices and distribution center are at one level and then the temple is practically up a mountain just to the side. There's a beautiful garden between the two with stepping stones that go up the the temple, but because the foliage is so thick you can't see the temple at all from the lower buildings. Anyway, for this outing we took our son Dan's family with us--

Dan's (PegBuddy) family in front of the temple--I couldn't really get far enough away to show the whole temple unless I went outside the gate.

Dan spent time at the koi pond watching the fish and relaxing.

Robyn was exploring the gardens with the beautiful flowers.

Benny liked this little bond with the waterfall

Cameron liked this bigger pond with a bigger water fall (it's the brother competition thing I guess :) 

 Gabe was running up and down the stone steps the entire time and of course he never got tired. They build a lot with stone and brick here.

 Lauren really liked the temple grounds itself with all of the beautiful flowers and gardens. Because it's so moist here, any grassy areas are more perfect than any golf course I have ever seen.

I walked up a couple of levels of stone steps, some of them pretty steep, and I still hadn't got to the level of the temple. This is a view of the city from that spot so you can see that the temple is quite high compared to the offices and compared to at least this part of the city.