Senior Couples Conference

Janet arrived back in Botswana from Utah on Sunday, 23 September. On Tuesday we drove to Johannesburg for a Church Education System Senior Couples Conference. We left early enough in the day that we were able to go to the temple that evening with the Alders, another senior couple with whom we went through the Mission Training Center. After dinner we went out to dinner together which made for a very nice evening.

Wednesday we met in the morning for training and in the afternoon the whole group went to the temple and then out to dinner together to Mike's Kitchen near the temple. It was especially nice to be able to go to the temple twice. When we arranged the Tuesday temple visit, we did not know that going to a temple session was going to be part of the conference on Wednesday.

Thursday before our meetings started we were able to visit the Johannesburg Mission Training Center and visit some of the missionaries getting trained from Botswana - Odi Majafe, Nyasha Mutoriti, and Oaitse Lepodise (one of our institute teachers). They seemed very pleased to see us. The Mission Training Center president's wife encouraged us to do this as she said it would give them a good boost. This day the meetings went the whole day. As part of the meetings we made a presentation on our Friday night activities. The group went out to dinner together again.

It is always fun to associate with other senior couples and find out what they are doing. Everyone has quite different assignments but many or our experiences are also quite similar. There were several new missionary couples at the conference. We are always surprised at how many missionaries in Africa are on their third or fourth mission.

When we woke up Friday morning, it was raining. Since April there has been one light rain in Botswana, so we enjoyed just seeing rain. By the time we started driving home, the rain had stopped so we had dry roads.