We finally made it to Zimbabwe!  What a long trip, but we survived.  When we were getting our luggage down in the plane at Johannesburg a man came up to me and said Sister can I help you with your luggage.  I turned around and there was a man about 50 with a young boy about 12  and I said sure.  So he wheeled my luggage up to where we need to check in for Harare.  He was a member of the church from Arizona and he and his son saw us at the London airport with our name tags on.  He did not know we were on the same plane to Africa, until we were ready to depart.  They were there for 3 weeks to go on a safari and this was their 3rd year back.  He was a great help because my luggage was heavy and we had a long, long walk.  I talked to several people while we were traveling and they asked what we were going to do in Zimbabwe and we told them a mission for the church.  When they found out we were going to be gone for 18 months they were really surprised.

  We have been here for 3 days and we are still trying to remember how to get to the mission office since most roads don't have signs, so you look for landmarks or other signs. Today, we have a car so we are on our own. It should be interesting!  Hope we can find our way back home.  I sure don't want to drive around here.  They are crazy drivers!

 We are staying in a hotel since our apartment isn't ready.  We should be able to move this coming Wed. and that will be nice since we have been living out of a suitcase and can't find anything.  We have breakfast everyday at the hotel and it is good and usually eat lunch out with the other missionaries and don't eat dinner.  When we get our own apartment we will bring our lunch since eating out gets old.  So far we haven't had to worry about the food.  It has been good. 

There is lots to do at the office and there are 2 assistants to the president and another young man from the church that comes in and helps.  I am slowly learning what to do.  Our office is right next to the church and the grounds are beautiful.  Our office is nice and big and there are other senior couples who also have offices here.  President Dube has been gone since Thursday so we haven't seen much of him since he is traveling a lot since the mission has been split and it will take effect July 1 so everyone is busy with that project.  We have a guard station at the front gate 24 hours.

The weather here is wonderful.  May, June, July is their winter months and it is really great weather here for winter.  Don't have to wear a coat and it is about 75 so we can handle that.  There are beautiful trees and flowers here. The poinsettias are as big as trees and they are beautiful. The people here are wonderful. It is hard to understand them so we really have to listen to what they are saying.

Yesterday we went to look at an apartment for us or Bowen's and it was quite a ways out so we got to see a little more of Harare.  Elder Bowen showed us the oldest chapel in Harare and it was so well kept.  The members here love their little chapel and keep the ground so nice.  They are very poor and some go to church barefooted.  We will be going to church tomorrow so it will be interesting.   Church is 3 hours away!  So don't complain when you go to church.  We should be assigned at branch to be over in the next week or so.,

This morning we went with another senior couple, Elder and Sister Bean from Washington state.  They took us to some little shops and they had some really neat things there.  I found some things I would be interested in buying but decided to look around, I just got here! I did buy 1 necklace made in Ghuna. It is made with very old beads.  It is It was very clean area and the last Saturday of the month that have lots of vendors that sale their stuff there, so we will go back the end of the month.

Hope all us well with everyone and we are think of you.