16-18 June 2017 SAJM Couples Conference, Nelspruit

16-18 June 2017 SAJM Couples Conference, Nelspruit

President and Sister Leavitt invited Elder & Sister Wagner, Elder & Sister Wells, Elder & Sister Hunt, Elder & Sister Jensen, Elder & Sister Black, Sister Willis and Sister Foxx to a couples conference in Nelspruit. We began at a dinner at the Protea Nelspruit Hotel Friday evening. After we gathered in a conference room and expressed appreciation for the opportunity and joy to serve a mission in South Africa and gathering together on occasion.


We stopped for a few minutes at Alzu Petro Station on the way and visited their water hole where animals come to eat and drink.

Before Nelspruit, we pass many fields of crops. Here are a few:

Dinner at Protea Nelspruit Hotel Friday evening.

Saturday morning we traveled to Kruger Park and drove through from Malalane Gate up to Skukuza, where we stopped and ate our sack lunch and went through the gift shop. We continued around the H4-1 until we reached the Crocodile Bridge Gate, where we met back together and discovered that the Elder & Sister Black along with Elder & Sister Hunt had an encounter with a very large elephant. The elephant put his head down on the windshield and pushed. His one tusk broken half off, pierced through their front windshield, with the long tusk going off to the side of the car. Then he backed up and he tried to lift up their car by its corner bumper but wasn't successful because of his broken tusk and Elder Black put the car in reverse until he backed into the mission van driven by Elder Wagner, who was also trying to back up. Only the van's front license plate received a small dent. Fortunately, the elephant walked off and no one was hurt by the elephant. Elder Black cut his knuckles a bit cleaning glass off the dash and came in contact with the pushed-in shattered window.

Below are some of the animals we saw in Kruger Park.

You will be rewarded for patience on the hippo video--he didn't like the noisy jeep that drove up.

We ate dinner Saturday evening at The Zest Restaurant about 15 minutes outside of Nelspruit.

On Sunday morning, 18 June 2017, some of the couples attended church in KaNyamazane and some in Nelspruit. The Nelspruit branch women made dinner to eat after the church block to celebrate Father's Day. The kids sang to the fathers before eating.

All the couples gathered at Elder & Sister Black's flat to visit and eat while waiting for President Leavitt to finish training and interviews with the branch president and our four missionaries serving in that area.