August 18-25

What a busy, but fruitful week.  

We taught Career Workshop to 10 people ranging from the ages of 20 to 30 on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (4 hours per day).  These workshops help them learn how to present themselves to potential employers, referral sources and overall networking.  We cover introducing and selling yourself,   building and growing a network, interviewing skills and being successful in your career after obtaining employment.  



Unemployment/underemployment is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to Self Reliance in Africa ( 40 to 50 per cent depending on different stats). 

Our students all spoke a measure of English, but the young man, Sam, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo was hard to understand, he speaks 5 languages, but English is his least accomplished.  We admire the tenacity of  these young people.  5 were members of our church, 5 not.  (3 of them are studying the Gospel, as well)  They speak the Queen’s English which also takes some concentration to understand. 

Saturday, we taught the second session of a Self Employment Workshop to 7 individuals in Pretoria. This is a picture of the Pretoria First Ward Chpel.  It has a pipe organ, and was probably build in the 50-60s. They are attempting to start businesses and we actually taught the parts of a business plan:  Business Idea, Marketing Analysis, Marketing Strategy and Financial analysis.  Then we got them started on writing their individual plans and did some presentations and critiques.   What a range of abilities and ideas:  everything from street vendor to accounting/ business service.  One young man in this group just moved here from Uganda and is studying the Gospel and trying to get a job or start a business.

Wednesday night Margaret helped in the Family History Center with indexing with a youth group.  Elder Brimhall, Managing Director of the Family History department was in town as part of a world tour trying to determine how to get more than 2.5 per cent of church members doing family history,  (I must do better)

This Sabbath day, we attended Church in the Mamelodi ward.  The lighter brick building is the Mamelodi Ward building.  All buildings are gated and locked with bars over the windows and doors. Margaret played the music in Sacrament Meeting.  (of the 5 sacrament meetings we have attended, Margaret has played for three of them.  The other two requested her service, but had no piano and the power did not work for the keyboard we carry with us.  However, they sing well and enthusiastically without accompaniment.

As we drove home today and passed a mixture of “upscale housing, then medium, but very small  housing, then a township largely with “shanties with tin roofs”, I thought how blessed we are temporally, but even more so, spiritually.  We want to invite all here to Come Unto Christ and be perfected in Him:  work towards Self Reliance both Spiritually and Temporally!!

Here are a few photos of the Area Office Garden, which is adjacent to the temple and our offices.