After a great time viewing the animals, I thought we would have a pretty quiet week to follow. Not so. It was a great, but very busy week to say the least.
We enjoyed a very nice Easter Sunday - starting with Sacrament Meeting where we had two great talks on the Savior's atonement. The Young Men and Young Women sang a beautiful hymn and did a very nice job.
Right after church Jeff and I gave a *fireside* for the Young Single Adults. Since it was Easter, we thought that only a few would show up but we ended up having 30 attend. We did it on The Proclamation on the Family and it turned out to be a nice time with these good YA. They are sponges when it comes to learning the gospel and soak up whatever we can feed them.
And speaking of food... again.... we enjoyed a lovely Easter dinner and program with the Senior couples at Duke's Court. It is always a feast to be with them!
This is Bishop Sehloho and his wife Emily on Easter Sunday. They are such a great couple and do so much good for the ward.
Just outside the church, some of the youth were practicing before Sacrament Meeting. They sang: I Know that My Redeemer Lives and did a beautiful job.
This is adorable Ritoo who is the baby daughter of our Bishop and wife. She is sooooo adorable and look at that cute outfit!
For Easter dinner, we ate with the Sr. Missionary couples over at a flat at Duke's Court. It was a great feast - as usual - and we had a nice time with everyone there. Elder Cook spoke briefly and there were a few musical numbers.
Monday was still a holiday and no one was in the office (except Jeff). We invited our new DTA over for dinner and had a wonderful time getting to know Georges Bonnet. He is an amazing man and has had a lot of previous experience in Africa and all around the world. This is his third time on assignment in Africa. On Tuesday, he gave an incredible talk at our Area Devotional. We are so lucky to have him here and look forward to learning from him. His wife will come next month after a son's wedding so we hope they will both sit at our table often.
Wednesday was the Missionary District Conference where the Area Presidency reported to the missionaries on their training at General Conference. After the Area Presidency and wives spoke, we enjoyed a nice Sr. Missionary Dinner in the Canteen.
For a few weeks now, we have enjoyed having Jared Turner here with us in the OGC (Office of General Council) to help Jeff with the overload of work. He is a young, single parent from Utah and was gracious to come here from Kirton, McKonkie law firm, to help out for a month. His time is almost gone but we have enjoyed him so much. We have tried to show him around with some of the local culture.
Here are the lawyers at the Organic Market in Bryanston, having lunch.
...and at Moyo's restaurant - acting a little more reserved at dinner and eating Springbok, Ostrich while enjoying some great African culture.
Our lawyer in Pretoria, Shawn Boshoff, who is also a young Stake President there, invited us and Jared over to Pretoria to introduce us to an incredible man who is a sitting judge on the High Court - Judge Bertelsmann. Shawn and the judge are good friends and the judge knows quite a bit about our church and our work to preserve religious freedom in the world. Judge Bertelsmann also works to preserve religious freedom in So. Africa and he is an intelligent, wonderful person.
 |
| View from the Courthouse in Pretoria - looking toward Church Square |
To our great surprise, the judge met us outside on the steps of the courthouse in Pretoria. I don't say *courthouse* lightly. This is THE COURTHOUSE that is very famous and well known in South African history as the very place where Nelson Mandela was tried and sentenced back in the 60's.
 |
This is Jared Turner standing in front of the courthouse in Pretoria.
|
 |
Entry floor and side door
|
We were mesmerized listening to the judge talk about the trial and about Mandela himself.
In South Africa, no one ranks higher in esteem than Mandela who is truly the hero of the South African constitution and is felt to be responsible for ending apartheid in 1994.
 |
| Madame Justice |
Inside the courtroom, Judge Bertelsmann called me "Madame Justice" when I sat in the Judge's chair - which he graciously invited me to do. From that vantage point, I looked down at the place when Mandela sat during the trial and pictured exactly what happened there.
 |
Just to the right of Jeff is where Mandela sat during the trial. We were listening to Judge Bertelsmann
|
In front of the defendant's bench is a stairway that goes downstairs into the cell where Mandela and others were held during that famous trial and we went down those steep steps and into the cell as well.
The cell is very well preserved and no one really goes there nowadays. In the basement there are tons of old files from who knows how long? It's dirty and dusty and I don't envy the poor people who have to clean it out one day.
 |
Jared - the Lawyer
|
Inside the cell looks like this....
 |
This is a lock-off gate to get to the cell. |
 |
| Entrance into the cell |
There is writing on the walls of some of the Freedom Charter which these prisoners were roughly drafting. I was surprised that the cell was so large but I think that there were about 17 men in there so it was probably not that large for them.
I recently read "The Long Walk to Freedom" which is Madella's biography and these places were so graphically described in the book. Now, they are indelibly imprinted in my mind and I will remember always what happened during those years of
oppression and difficulty in So. Africa. We are so grateful to Judge Bertelsmann for giving us this incredible opportunity to see some of South Africa's most important modern history.
