Great Zimbabwe, Motobo, and Kadoma: A Road Trip with the Seniors

    

                                 Great Zimbabwe, Senior Missionaries Road Trip, 2023.05.05
    Happy Cinco de Mayo, Bruce and I presented another temple devotional and PowerPoint to the whole mission. We had a few technical difficulties with Zoom, but overall it ran smoothly. We talked about the temple site, HZT workers feeling the "spirit of Elijah" wanting missionary lessons, and our temple covenants. Bruce and I have sent over 50 referrals to the proselyting missionaries from the temple site. The Spirit is especially strong among the workers on the temple site. We hope our devotional helped the younger missionaries realize the importance of frequent attendance of the temple once they are able to be closer to one in operation. I love what Elder David Bednar said in a recent Church News interview: Repetition is how we learn!

    We ventured out on our senior missionary road trip shortly after the missionary devotional at 1100 a.m. on Friday. We borrowed the mission van and off we went with Elder Guy & Sister Roz Peterson, Sister Nancy Turley, Sister Bonnie Warne, and Bruce & I. Just a bunch of retired oldies off on an adventure! Sister Turley, a BYU linguistic professor teaching English Connect to the African missionaries, was an amazing tour guide and planned our trip and accommodations. We all were excited to learn a little more about Zimbabwe's history and see the ancient ruins. We did a lot of driving, but the company and conversations were great. It took about 4 hours to get to Great Zimbabwe National Park in Masvingo, which is outside of our mission.  Arriving around 4:00 p.m. left us only a few hours in the daylight, in fact, we hiked out during the sunset in the dark with our phone torches on. 

Elder & Sister Anderson, Peterson, Sisters Turley and Warne

Great Zimbabwe National Monument, Hilltop archaeological ruins of historic Bantu city dating from between the 11th and 14th centuries.

We saw our first baboons, there were a lot of baboons all over the ruins. I've heard they can be mean so we kept our distance. I enjoyed photographing this mother and baby on the ancient ruin walls.

Elder and Sister Peterson, Humanitarian Missionaries from Lehi, Utah         

Bruce hiking, views of Great Enclosure, 2023.05.05

Full moon with beautiful views from Great Zimbabwe

We stayed at the Ancient City Lodge at the Great Zimbabwe, we had our own private huts with thatched roofs. I wish we could have stayed longer because the resort was beautiful, but we left early in the morning due to more long travel to make it to Motobo National Park. We had dinner together at the lodge, the food was OK, I had fish, and rice with vegetables, my food was cold however by the time we were served. Dessert was a custard, pudding. Not the best meal; but nourishment. 

Andersons attempting a "selfie", we are not too good at it! Lodge early Saturday morning 2023.05.06

Saturday morning we left bright and early for Motobo National Park. Motobo had a "view of the world" and is the resting place of the famous, Cecil Rhodes, in which Rhodesia was named. Rhodesia changed its name to Zimbabwe after civil wars and gaining independence from Great Britain in the 1980s. 

We did some hiking and saw ancient cave paintings, like American Indian petroglyphs.

Can you see the outline of the "White Rhino?"

We also drove through Bolowayo, which is in the other mission in Zimbabwe. Saturday night we stayed in Kadoma at the Rainbow Hotel. It was the nicest lodging in the area. Bruce and I woke up to about 1 inch of water from a flooding bathtub faucet leaking all over the tile in the bathroom and bedroom. Grateful it wasn't raw sewage, we soaked up the water with extra towels. Always an adventure in Africa! We also had a peacock invasion Sunday morning. 

We took 8 of the missionaries out to dinner. 2023.05.06

Our waiters followed us out to the parking lot for a "Book of Knowledge" aka "Book of Mormon". I love they call it this and request "Your Bible". The full-time proselyting elders introduced themselves and got their phone numbers to teach them missionary lessons.

We only had one mishap with a very large pothole; we lost our van bumper! I was sitting in the very back seat and felt quite a "jolt"! Bruce and Elder Peterson were able to pull it off and miraculously fit it into the back trunk "boot" with all our luggage. The mission had just repaired the bumper the day before we left. We were grateful we returned home safely and without a major accident or harm. After the trip after further inspection, we realized there was no spare tire in the van. We were so grateful we didn't get a flat tire, especially with the unpaved road conditions. One HZT supervisor told us if you think you see a head of a cobra snake poking out of a pothole; when you get near it you'll realize it's an ostrich's head! This is Africa!

Our slight mishap of the van bumper! Elder Anderson & Peterson, 2023.05.07