A New Grandbaby! and a few other recent happenings in South Africa

Topping our update this week!

Our 19th grandchild was recently born:

Congratulations to 

Joe and Breana Berg & 

welcome to

Madison Grace Berg

Born 12:58 pm on Thursday, 

November 6th 2014
6lbs 12 oz 20 inches long

Breana Berg with Brooklynn Berg taking a peak at her new sister Madison.

Here she is!

Brooklynn looks a bit apprehensive holding Madison.

I wonder what Brooklynn is thinking right now?
What a happy family! 

Joseph is a happy daddy!  Two daughters now!

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Some people have wondered about where we are and what our area is...

The picture below shows the Africa Southeast Area. 

The church has a presence in all of these countries and Public Affairs has couples in Kenya, Zambia, Madagascar, Durban SA and Johannesburg (us).

New members in the DR Congo are being baptized at the rate of 150 per month!

I have been asked if we have had Ebola in South Africa so I found this picture of the true size of Africa so that others would understand of how massive the Continent of Africa is.

We don't have Ebola in South Africa or in any surrounding country.

This last week we had the opportunity to visit eNCA a South African 24 hour National news company.  

We had previously hosted at the area office one of the principal directors of the news.

The Control Room

We are at the news desk.  At left is Gareth Armstrong.  He is the Church's area social networking expert.

We took a day trip with Elder and Sister Shupe to see some sights.

I had to take this picture of Millys restaurant because I have a granddaughter named Milly.

Here is Elder Shupe showing us the Trout Pie this restaurant is known for....no I didn't try it...lol

Would you believe we had to walk over 200 yards through this pitch black tunnel to see Waterval Boven?  Yes, we sure did!

Sister Berg, Sister Shupe, our guide, and Elder RQ Shupe.

Sharon and me overlooking Waterval Boven

Yes, this is Waterval Boven

Sister Shupe, Sister Berg and our guide in the back...nice young man.

After Waterval Boven we took a short cut (remind me to tell you the short cut story later) to the town of Dullstroom to have some of Harrie's pancakes (they are famous in South Africa).  The pancakes were something like a thin crepe rolled up with fillings....all kinds of fillings... I had mine with a filling of savoury mince (spice up hamburger) ...very good.

Then Sister Berg then dragged me to see what she could buy... Here are some of the things we saw.

dolls

warriors carved from wood

carvings

These were large carved fish.  too big for my suitcase.

We recently had the opportunity to visit with Leonard Thebe, our National Public Affairs director from Botswana.  He brought his daughter and a young lady to be trained by Sister Berg on how to post on the Botswana Facebook page...she is now the administrator of the page... she does very good work

On left our boss Sean Donnelly, the Area Public Affairs Director and Leonard Thebe on the right.  Leonard is the Botswana National Public Affairs Director...  Very nice guy.  Sean is one of the most spiritual persons that I have ever met.  He was previously the Mission President in Madagascar.  His passion is saving the Rhinos and mounts expeditions to tag them to save them from poachers.

On left is Nemetso, the facebook administrator in Botswana, Sister Berg in the middle and Leonard Thebe's daughter on the right.

We are scheduled to visit Botswana in about three weeks to do some training with Leonard and his council.  We also hope that we can meet with the National TV station to see if they would care to broadcast Music and the Spoken Word. 

 On Sundays we attend a branch of the church in Secunda South Africa.  It is 110 km away and takes about an hour and a half to get there.  We had a baptism there of Brother Steven Kadawu.  

(L) Elder Johnson, Stephen Kadawu and Elder and Sister Berg

Branch President Soko on left with Stephen and his wife.
Stephen's testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is amazing.

We had a gathering of some of the missionary couples at Bryan and Tina Jackson's home.  Bryan is the Area Legal Counsel in the  OGC (Office of the General Counsel).

Here are some of the missionary couples.  Sister Heaton is in the middle and Elder Heaton is to the right.  Their son is the Bishop of the Shadow Creek Ward in Pearland.  They lived in Houston for many years.  Elder Heaton sits on the Visa committee with me and several other individuals.  He is very good at what he does.

Sister Barnes with our hostess Tina Jackson.  Tina volunteers in the area family history center and is a home interior designer.  Their home is very beautiful... their home might be described as minimalist modern.  

Elder Heaton, our host Bryan Jackson (center) and Elder and Sister Barnes on right.  The Barnes are currently homeless as they sold their home to go on mission.  They will buy a home in Logan when they return from mission.  They are church history missionaries interviewing members and writing histories.  When they heard that Sharon's dad, Gordon, served a mission in South Africa in 1950 and again in 2000 with his wife Carolyn they sent church history missionaries to interview them in their home in Sandy, Utah.   


They also manage the 32 apartments that have missionary couples in them...  If anything in the apartment goes wrong we just call them up.  Great people...he is very funny.



That is all for now...  I will post soon on a more regular basis...I hope.
Elder Berg