Cape Town

Meetings, Miracles and Marvels in Cape Town

Meetings

We had a great opportunity this weekend as we went to beautiful Cape Town and met with many awesome people.  We had a meeting with President Merrill, Cape Town Mission President and his financial secretary, Elder Peterson.  We met with our Assistant Area Auditor, Rodney Siems and he and his wife treated us to a lovely dinner at the Cape Town Fish Market.  We spoke briefly at the Coordinating Council and we attended a fireside put on by Elder Cook for the Bellville Stake. All this left us feeling inspired and enriched and we hope we were able to provide valuable information and be of good service to these good brethren.

Miracles

1. On Sunday we set off to find the Khayelitsha Ward, (where we had been asked to do an audit) but we mixed up the times and ended up in the Mandalay Ward.  Funny thing is, I think we were meant to be there! Here's how Chris put it in his letter to Drea:  

"We got to church this morning 15 minutes early like we planned only to find out we were actually 15 minutes late.  But we were in time for sacrament in the hall.  As we entered the meeting, the bishop sent a deacon from the pulpit to ask us who we were.  Before the meeting ended, mom and I  had spoken for twenty minutes."  

Ha ha!  Either the others didn't speak long enough or someone was missing but either way I'm glad we were able to be at the right place at the right time to help out.  So 

2.  A brother from our ward in Joburg is serving his mission here in Cape Town and just happened to be in Khaylitshi Ward!!  Elder Nature Malatjis was in our temple class in Joburg and we took him to the temple.  Twas fun to see him and he was really surprised!   Just last week we visited his mother while in Tzaneen!  I was glad we still had some homemade chocolate chip cookies left that we had brought with us and I was able to give them to Nature.

So between going to both wards and doing an audit, we were in church for 7 hours!!

Marvels

We wasted no time!  We crammed in as much as we could see between meetings and on our Pday (day off)!  We were grateful to see this beautiful area of South Africa.

Cape of Good Hope

Cape of Good Hope is where the warm Indian Ocean from the east
meets the cold Atlantic Ocean from the west.

We saw many wild ostriches and deer like animals. 

Penguins

There seems to be 1,000's of penguins.  We got there after the penguin beach was closed but the neighboring beach had some penguin visitors who looked like they were all headed home after a fun day in the water.

Don't see signs like this everyday!

Botanical Gardens

Table Mountain gondola ride

Up at the top of Table Mountain we could again see where
the two oceans meet...the Indian and Atlantic.  

 Waterfront and Robbin Island

Nelson Mandela's cell where he was prisoner
for 18 years.

 A bus takes you around the island and stops at the prison.  There were sooooo many gorgeous abalone shells all over the beach!  I wanted to stop the bus!  We also saw tortoises and many birds.

Chris by a tall century plant

The ferry that we were supposed to travel on was broken
so they took us over on the Dias, which they say is the
ship that prisoners were transported in.

The guide told us that some time ago Hilary Clinton and some other "important people" were coming for a tour of the island.  They wanted their own fancy bus instead of the regular one so they hired a helicopter to lift their special bus over to the island.  On the way over the cable broke and the bus fell into the water where it still lies today.

Two Oceans Aquarium

Misc