SmithsAfricanAdventures

On Thursday August 25th, we helped Sister Swift teach Institute.  Her husband wasn't feeling well and we offered to take her there and help out.  These are the two elders assigned to the YSA Ward.  The one on the left is from ..."a small town in Utah" - where elder?  Magna!  The one on the right is from Zambia.  They are really fun. Sister Swift put a name of a famous person on the back of each person and they had to ask questions to see if they could guess who it was!  Lots of fun. This was a short lesson - introducing the class that will begin the next week. The last game was building a tower out of spaghetti and marshmallows!  Each table had a bag of each and it was fun to watch everyone participate. This table was the winner - with the tallest tower standing alone built in 10 minutes!  Two of the young women as we were cleaning up to eat asked if they could take the spaghetti home. Sister Swift said of course - I thought they meant the un...

  Friday afternoon one of the senior Elders said he was going to the Military Museum on Saturday, and asked if anyone wanted to go with him.  Elder Perkins joined and so did we!  Then our neighbor in the apartment next door wanted to go also.  We were surprised turning into the parking lot - it was full!  We had to park on the grass! We found out it was a Memorial Service for the 61 Mechanized Battalion Group.  Here is Elder Sims looking into a tank.  There were German planes and tanks, South African and Italian and American.   Here are the banners of the individual groups in the 61 Mech - as the announcer said.  Sister Swift and I got tired of looking at big guns that kill lots of people and we wandered over to the program.  People were very nice and asked us to sit down. This is Marcus - a military dog - he had medals and patches on his back. When they laid wreaths - he had one around his neck.  His handler called for him and...

  The Annual Dam Jam the second weekend of August was a huge success - even brought some rain to the dry land!  Here are two pretty women with their darling one year old sons - Julie and Silas Smith and Lindsey and Zain Fairbanks - love all! Same - just wanted to post as many pictures as possible - we were there last year and hope to be next year!  Such a fun, happy, family event!  Thanks so much Hewson family for doing this!! Two first cousins and Luna - Stan's dog - someone crashed on the stage for a nap!  I hope these two can be friends as they get older. This picture is my favorite!  love, love, love these boys! Polly sent this darling video of Reid, three years old.  He is saying: "You'll be happy if you walk in puddles."  Polly titled it: Reid's philosophy of life!!  Let's all go find some puddles to walk in!!! More of the cutest one year olds around! Five of our wonderful children - so happy when we can get a few of us together.  ...

  End of the game - I don't like that the first pictures I select aren't the first ones published!!  The teams played hard and here they are shaking hands and chatting!  All Blacks were amazing - running, passing and scoring!  Final Springboks 23 - All Blacks 35!  Our African friend who helped set up the outing and drove the van said on the way to the game that the All Blacks had lost three in a row - he could not remember any other time when they had done that.  He predicated they would be like wounded animals and play their best - they did! Playing Rugby!  The pitch or field is huge - 100 meters by 70 meters.  One of the best players for South Africa got a yellow card in the win the week before in Pretoria - so he is out for four games!! Lining up at the beginning of the game - All Blacks performing their traditional dance - the Haka, before each international contest - they have been doing that since 1905! The South African team lined up and wa...

  Scoreboard at the south end of the huge stadium! Elder and Sister Smith, Elder and Sister Richman, Elder and Sister Perkins on our 'nose bleed' seats!  We were about 8 rows from the very top!  It was loud and rowdy and fun.  Although Elder Smith about half way through the match told me: "I can't believe I let you talk me into this - I hate crowds!"  The stadium holds more than 60,000 - 62,597 I just looked it up!  It was the chance of a lifetime!  These are the two best Rugby teams in the world - both are the only teams to win the Rugby World Cup three times!   We bought ice cream bars from the vendor in red behind us - we all drove our cars to the Area Office and then car pooled to the church that is a 15 minute walk away from the stadium - and has 24 hour guards!  I brought my sun hat but we sat in the shade the whole game.  Both teams came out to practice on the field - pitch.  We arrived at 3:45ish and the game started at...

  On Friday, August 12, the day before we were going to attend a Rugby game - these kind men from the Area Office meet us during the lunch hour to explain some of the rules - so we could enjoy the game more.  Sandile Makasi, Hyrum Soloman, and Mawande Mendu. The two pictured here both played high school rugby they loved it!  Sandile worked at a rugby stadium all through high school - all were very happy to help us learn.  Brother Mendu explained that this is a four team tournament, the teams should play home and home.  New Zealand is not allowing any teams to come in ...so the All Blacks will play both games in South Africa.  They first played in Pretoria on Saturday, August 6th. The Springboks won - 10 - 26.  Their highest difference in points ever playing the All Blacks! Our teachers had video the showed on the big screen of some of the plays - it was very interesting and educational.  Our Devotional Room filled with senior couples trying to lea...