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| Little Finley William Allred was born today, January 25, 2014 at 4:08 AM, 7 lbs 10 oz and 20" long. Such a blessing to have another grandchild. It is a bit difficult to not be near at this blessed event, but we were able to Skype and share in the joy through modern technology. |
Finley joins a brother and sister, Cooper is 4 1/2 and Sawyer is almost 3, and we have three other darling grandchildren, Avia almost 9, Rylan 6 1/2, and Beckham is one.
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On Monday we attended a departure dinner for the Hansens who are going North to Polokwane to finish the last year of their mission, the Heyens who served for 18 months in Seminary and Institute, the Heatons who were at the Area Office, and Elder Wadsworth, who honorably finished his 2 year mission. A lovely potluck dinner was held at the mission home.
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| It was still light when we arrived, and out the kitchen door was this beautiful vine. |
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| Out the front door of the mission home is this beautiful tree. We are really enjoying the foliage here in South Africa. |
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| The Heyens |
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| Elder Menendez, Sister Dunn and Elder Wadsworth |
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| Some of the guests. Sister Taylor, Elder and Sister Cloward, and Sister Thompson |
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| Sister Jones, Elder and Sister Taylor |
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| Sister Hansen, Elder Jones, and Elder Hansen |
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| Elder Allred and Elder Malapula |
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| The yummy buffet. Fresh fruit, green salad, green beans, loaded potato casserole, shish kabobs, and cookies and ice cream. Plus Sister Dunns famous lemonade and homemade root beer from the Clowards. |
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| After dinner, we all gathered and President Dunn showed us the original blueprints of the Johannesburg Temple. He received them from his daughter in laws father, who helped build the temple. He is going to have them displayed in the mission office. Then testimonies were shared by those going home. |
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| President and Sister Dunn presented a framed document with a photo of Elder Wadsworth and his assignments during his two year mission. They also presented all departing missionaries with a South Africa Johannesburg Mission pin. |
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| Elder Malapula is ever helpful! |
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How does Elder Menendez do that?!
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One last photo of the original office staff, before the Hansens left. |
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Saturday we moved into the Hansen's old flat. This flat is across the street from the mission office. We are able to just walk to the office each day and can even take a break and go home for lunch.
The following are a few photos of the new flat.
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| Kent is standing by the entrance to the flat |
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| The Bedroom |
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| Lots of closet space |
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| Our courtyard. On the right is the flat where young elders stay. On the left is one of the laundry rooms. The young elders use this and we can also use it. There is another one around the corner we can use. So we have two full size washers and dryers. |
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| Our door is to the left of the flower pot. The brown framed window is our kitchen window. |
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| Our front gate. |
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| The walk to the office. On the right is our side yard. You can see the entrance to the campus where the mission office, MTC, S & I (Seminary and Institute), and meetinghouse is located. |
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| Looking at our flat from the guard shack at the mission office. Our flat is across the street on the left. The house has been divided into four flats. The Thompsons, the young elders, us, and an employee of S & I and his wife and baby live in the front flat. |
We had a wonderful Sunday at the Cluster. Spiritual messages were shared and we visited several less active families, shared a message with them and invited them to return and worship with us. They were very receptive and we pray they will all return. One of the families has a non-member father and we invited him to come next week and we gave him a Book of Mormon to read. All-in-all a great week!
