Day One of South Africa

After 24 hours of travel, we arrived in JoBurg SA. The next day we drove 4 hours to Blomfontein to where Philly was serving. We were a little late because neither one of us had S. African Rand and there were some tollways that needed to get paid for. The country was very dry and red and mostly farms. Every time we asked someone how far to Blomfontein, they would respond "Oh, too far," but never give us a time or distance. When we arrived, it was still sacrament meeting, so we walked in and saw Philly and his companion. He had the biggest grin on his face and all the members knew who we were too. The building looked like most churches here, made of brick and standard LDS architecture, we're told its to be a future stake center and is in a very nice area of town.
It was fast and testimony meeting and Philip was good enough to encourage us to bear out testimonies. So I did. After Sacrament we were finally able to greet him and his companion. There was a baptism after church of a little girl, so they were busy getting ready for that. Her name was and Philly baptized her. While we were waiting, the men in the back of the room started to sing hymns. We sang mostly hymns that had different parts for males and females and the men were much better.
After the baptism, we had lunch with Sister Pizzo and family. It was her daughter who got baptized and there were others from church there as well. The church is very far from where they live in the government housing. Here house was made of cylinder blocks on the outside and very nice on the inside. We were the only white people in site and got lots of waves from the kids. Also, the car we rented is what is used for taxis and buses, so people were always trying to flag us down for rides.
While waiting for lunch we were talking with some of the members about lebola. It's the dowry paid for women in the form of cows. I also learned that 1 cow=2 goats=4 pigs. Each woman in the room was able to state how much she was paid for. Philly says its a big problem in the church, because it takes longer for people to get married and they are not letting go of their non-church cultures. I asked how much I would go for, just for reference purposes. After showing my guns, the number 20 was agreed upon. Lunch was good, chicken rice, cole slaw and brownie.
After that we went to an Afrikaner's home. These are the white people who are of Dutch decent and speak Afrikans. The house was huge, 3 story with a grass roof. Brightly decorated with red and orange and gray tile. Very bright, but fun. We had some pudding with them. It was more like a non-bake cookie. The family was baptized when the mom and dad were a young couple. The boy, Willie, loved Philly. We had a nice discussion about politics (everyone here is an analyst)
Then we headed back to JoBurg and met up with Curtis and Tamara. As soon as we got to the hotel, there was a rolling blackout. Apparently they do these a lot in the big city. So for about 3 hours the lights were out, but we had a nice catch up talk with Philly boy.