Gasefete-Mogopodi Wedding

Two of our young single adults got married on Thursday and then went to Johannesburg on Friday to be sealed in the temple. All couples have to have a civil marriage in Botswana before they can be sealed in the temple in South Africa. The ward had scheduled a temple trip for that day so about thirty people were able to attend the sealing. It was wonderful to see them get married and everyone was very happy for them.

According to Botswana law the wedding cannot be performed after sunset. Traditionally, brides are one to two hours late to their wedding. The bride, Gabalape Mogopodi, was only half an hour late. Elder Rands spoke at the wedding. Bishop Matswagothata performed the ceremony.

We have been teaching the groom, Onalenna Paul Gasefete, keyboard lessons for the last few months. Both the bride and groom have been attending our weekly Preparing for Celestial Marriage Institute of Religion class. We had them to dinner at our house this past month and had coconut cake for dessert. They asked us if we would make two coconut cakes for their reception. We made two coconut cakes and one chocolate cake. They were definitely not fancy wedding cakes. When we asked the woman in charge of the food where she wanted the cakes, she had us put them on the head table with the bride and groom.

After the ceremony there were comments by the bride, groom, best man, best lady, and relatives. There was also a very tasty meal. It was traditional Botwsana food - beef with mixed vegetables, chicken, rice with vegetables, baked beans, pumpkin, beets, potato salad, and macaroni salad. We waited for the cake to be served but it never was. Even the single adults who were serving were anxiously waiting for the cake. First one cake was taken away and we thought it was going to be cut. Then a second cake disappeared. The bride finally cut herself a piece of the remaining cake with her fork and then some people went up and she cut pieces of cake and plopped it in their hands to eat. We don't know what happened to the other two cakes.

Labola, bride price, is an African tradition of an arranged payment between the groom and the bride's parents for their daughter. It is based on the price of cattle and can be thousands of pula. It causes many couples outside the church to never marry or wait many years to marry. It delays many marriages of church members. The church very much discourages this practice. Onalenna said that he negotiated to have the labola delayed and will be making payments on it for many years.