We're HERE!

I am sorry to be so slothful about keeping the site up to date. Hopefully we have all of the major problems solved. We landed in Cape Town, South Africa on Monday, Sept. 27th at 10:30pm.  President and Sister Probst, our Mission President and wife, met us at the airport. We spent the next few days catching up on jet lag and took a bus tour of Cape Town on Friday. Saturday found us driving down the left side of the road on the way to George.
It was a beautiful drive through agricultural country much like Idaho, however we only saw one set of irrigation equipment. Many times we were close enough to the coast line to see the waves breaking. We encountered herds of sheep, cattle, lambs and most exciting: ostriches. It was about a 4 hour drive and we stayed on the correct side of the road the entire trip.
We were welcomed warmly on Sunday at the George Branch where 80 saints meet each Sunday. President Matsaluka is an engineer who serves as Branch President. He is such a strength to the branch. The entire branch was waiting for us to come, so we really felt welcome. The names of many saints who live here have a run of consonants that are joined together only to give us extreme difficulty with correct pronounciation. Here is a sample of the surnames of some: Mbokazi, Simbelane, Gqagqa, Mtyobilie, Ndela, Ngcanga, and Nkonjane. The list goes on and on. Many of the saints, have adoped English first names to help us out like: Stix, and Valencia.  When we meet someone we write their name phonetically and then practice on each other before we get to church. The people here in the branch as well as South Africa are so friendly. They all love the Savior and when they see our name tags, they say, "I love Jesus Christ."
It has taken the better part of 2 weeks off and on, to get our bearings here and get the apartment with all the essential items. We had a good beginning, but needed to bring it up to date. 
We have been going to the Internet Cafe in order to correspond with our banks in the US and our children. Through many miracles the land line which was supposed to take 21 days only took 3 days to install. However, they installed the wrong land line for internet. We don't know how that happened. That change took another few days and then to get the internet installed was to take 3-10 business days beyond and it only took from Sat. to Monday. Elder Ladle deserves a great deal of credit here. He spent the better part of last Monday on the phone with no less than 5 people trying to self install the internet. Finally one woman discovered that he had been given the wrong password. That is why he was not successful. So we sent an email to her supervisor saying "THANK YOU" and "you should pay her more." Elder Ladle just kept being transferred from one person to another to another, all of them saying that basically it was his problem.  It is difficult to understand some of the people and especially on the phone. So, he would preface the conversation with, "I am a foreigner and am having problems understanding so if you could speak slowly it would help. I realize that I have an accent, but to me, it sounds as if you do." That would usually soften up the people, but sometimes it took two of us to decipher what they were saying. So enough for that.
Some NEW THINGS about South Africa. Grocery shopping took hours at first because I would see what I wanted to purchase and then divide by 7 to find out the "actual US price." There are about 7 RANDS to one dollar. If I find something I want, I will usually buy more than one because it may not be there next week. Celery has been difficult to find as well as zuchinni. Zuchinni is walled "baby marrow." And they are baby size. I asked one of the grocery people if they didn't have zuchinni and he went to get the manager. I told him I saw the "baby marrow" and wondered if he had any "papa marrow." He nicely smiled and said, "no".
One of the best things is that when you park your car there are men who help you know where a parking place is and then guide you in. They watch your car (for a small fee:1-2 Rand) and then help you back out of the spot. What a deal. No rear end collisions here.
I saw the sun for the first time last Tuesday on our way to Zone conference in Port Elizabeth. The area has been cloudy so I was thankful to see that the sun is in South Africa. Everything is oriented different: the big dipper, the north star. Thank goodness Heavenly Father is the same. Love to you all and more to follow in a timely manner. Sister Ladle