Coping capacity in life's challenges

I'll use the names Eve and Adam and Ruth for this blog post, based on a WhatsApp interchange with someone caring for someone in need...

Good morning, Eve. How are things going now for you and for Adam? Is he receiving the medication and guidance that he needs? Are you receiving what you need? 

Well, maybe the first Eve did not have a friend to send her a message on WhatsApp - who taught the original Adam and Eve any of the things that they needed to know to face the challenges of being first parents? Who taught them to change nappies, what foods were safe to eat, and so many things that they needed to know?

Sometimes our wilderness is rather bleak, like this scene in the Northern Cape

with Sally and me travelling from Nieuwoudtville to Augrabies Falls

I asked a friend if he might have a long - or short-term opportunity for Adam in motor mechanical work. I pointed out that Adam could contribute meaningfully in motor mechanics, and could also help in Information Technology related things that are a real part of any business in 2026. 

This led to sharing thoughts with Eve, and her and Adam's family members that are supporting him in a very difficult season in his life.

More between Nieuwoudtville and Augrabies Falls

Each and every one of us is likely to face seasons in life when we are impacted by hurricanes, floods, droughts, illnesses, or other challenges. We might desire to change employment, change careers, or anything that will lessen the clouds that are hanging over us, or take us far away from where those clouds are likely to be now or in the future! We just need a change!

I've asked the IT department at Kirstenbosch, but I haven't had any response. I've asked two friends if they have opportunities for him in their IT work. Networking is not just cabling, but also describes making acquaintances in business to help exploring possibilities and potential collaborations.  

Strength to you as you help your brother in his time of serious need, and may he co-operate and do his part.  You are coaches helping him to accomplish what he wants to accomplish, but there will be times that he is not able to focus on - or remember - or believe - the good things that he actually wants to achieve.

Then we got to enjoy Augrabies Falls, water flowing
that had simply been held up in the sky by the Almighty

We visited waterfalls near Nieuwoudtville 

You can imagine how it hurts Ruth that her mental illnesses have taken away her ability to practice medicine and use her wonderful gift. But she was blessed for more than twenty years to be able to help in healing and blessing the lives of others. Times and seasons can change, and life can become really tough. But just because someone is underground in a mine and cannot see the sun shining, the sun is still shining delightfully. I can see it right now - well, at least I can see that light is coming through a window that suggests that the sun did rise this morning. 😉🤔😅

Some vegetation in the Robertson-Montagu area.

Sometimes it is necessary to have an involuntary admission to a mental institution like Valkenberg or Stikland. Ruth had that in Stikland, a friend's son had that in Tygerberg Hospital, another family member had that at Valkenberg - more voluntary than involuntary. It is not a desirable thing, but it can be a blessing to the patient and to the loved ones.

Imperfect people like me, your Pa and Adam, create imperfect apps like WhatsApp that are used by imperfect people all around the world and then gremlins are also around and bugs creep in and fiddle. But those apps do enough that is wonderful that we put up with the less than wonderful 😉

Sometimes our life might feel like a desert. I loved my time in the Namib Desert, seeing how much delightful life there is in the desert - spiders, geckos, gemsbok, springbok, hyaenas, grass seed that blends in with the bounteous sand until after the rain when it germinates and makes the desert look like a green meadow. The grass then flowers and seeds, and then it dries out and becomes detritus that blows around and is food for beetles, birds, mice, and many animals, and the seeds blow around with the grains of sand and wait for the next rains. 

I've asked Aunty Judy and Uncle Ron if they recall anything about a challenge that Granny Sippy had with depression. Your Mom had challenges. There seems to be an increasing frequency in the occurrence of many challenges in the 2020s, either presence, awareness, detection, or something. Such challenges have been around for thousands of years. I am fascinated by how King Saul might well have had bipolar disorder as I read about how he suddenly tried to kill David who was playing a harp to help to calm King Saul. Many great world leaders or notable people have had mental or psychological disorders. But the frequency of presence, or detection and diagnosis, certainly seems to be increasing for many issues. I think that I may well have had some disorder, but I probably still have... like ADD, ADHD, ASD (autism spectrum disorder), Asperger's Syndrome, or something 'out of the ordinary' 🤔😰🥴😂 or am I just a weirdo 🤔

Some vegetation in the Agulhas-Overberg region.

It reminds me of an insight that I gained in a workshop that I attended at United Nations in Italy. They were teaching about climate change and its impacts in the developing world. They said that averages would not change dramatically, but we would see an increase in frequency and intensity of extreme events. I certainly have been aware of that in the years since 2002 when they said that. They were encouraging working on 'coping capacity'. That year, people in Mozambique were devastated by floods along the Limpopo River and for them it was a disaster. But they pointed out that most of Bangladesh is less than 10m above sea level and on a river delta that floods every year and everyone living there loses everything, so they don't invest in TVs and things that will be devastating, for them it is not a disaster because of their coping capacity. 

Another insight that came to me was how we were taught so much about food storage, preparing for bad times, increasing our coping capacity. You remember the wheat, wheat grinder, and all that your parents had in your home ☺️

One important coping capacity in our time is coping with mental challenges that seem to be increasing in frequency and intensity, just like extreme climate events.

Eve: "Yup. But some of us make a conscious effort every single day to be the best we can be, and others don't bother and don't care about their impact on other people"

Yes, indeed. But sometimes it is not that person that is negligent, but a disability that is holding them back, retarding them, hindering them, impacting on them. It is easy to see if someone is in a wheelchair that they have some disability. But some people have very real disabilities that cannot be seen. Only trained professionals like cardiac surgeons, oncologists, neurologists, or psychiatrists can detect and diagnose those 'invisible' disabilities. 

I have had to learn to trust their diagnosis and help Ruth to keep in as good 'shape' as she can by using meds that slow her down, prevent her from being able to practice as a doctor, but give her 'mobility' that she really did not have when she was having a depressive following a hypomanic stage of bipolar, or when she has a seizure or hallucination due to her Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. She did not choose either, it was not her fault that she inherited those genes that caused her as a matric student to not get the sleep that she needed and to burn through matric in a hypomanic state and then crash in a depressed state. 

Those episodes were not dramatic then, and she and her colleagues did not diagnose her disorder! As she got older, those episodes caused more and more damage to her brain and so now she is far worse than she would have been if she had received medication earlier in life. She had many wonderful years, but those came to an end - a horrible end. Yes, she was suicidal on several occasions. Ruth did some things that Ruth would never do, going off driving up the West Coast and not having any idea where she was going and what she would do, or why she was going off on her own. That was not her choosing, but her malfunctioning brain making her body do things that Ruth would not do. She might have been at a lower percentage performance level for decades if she were having medication, but she would have been able to, and still be able to, treat patients and prescribe medication if she had been receiving the preventative maintenance that she needed. 

Blessings on you as you help Adam to cope with this nightmare season that he is experiencing. Sometimes it is really best to hand over his treatment to trained professionals in a hospital to care for him and help him to get to a stable state, and then to regularly have them help to keep him in as stable a state as he can be in for the rest of his life. He does not seem to need a wheelchair, but spectacles, hearing aids, heart pumps, knee replacements, medication, and other treatments and interventions help many people to be far more capable than they would otherwise be.

One thing that I often share is that in the last few years in my work, Performance Evaluations were introduced in the Public Service. Every six months we would meet with our supervisor and evaluate ourselves, and they would then agree or modify our evaluation and report it to their supervisors and submit it to the HR department. My boss, who was at Director level, and I at Deputy Director level at the time, told me during one of those assessments that the CEO, his supervisor, had told him that he was not expected to be at 5 all of the time. The expected level on the scale of 1 to 5 was 3. If someone had 2, then training and correcting were needed. If he was at 1, then discipline and warning, potential dismissal were needed. If at 4, credit and congratulations were appropriate. If at 5, then acknowledgment, merit, salary level increase, and sometimes promotion in rank were appropriate. 

But to try and be 4 or 5 at everything would lead to burnout and the person could not be expected to keep it up. Of course, the more one learned and advanced, the more was expected. A good performance evaluation was rewarded by moving up the ranks. Then the next assessment would be in the higher rank. More was expected from scientists or accountants or IT systems analysts than from gardeners or cleaners or security guards. It is saddening to me that some people never tried to advance beyond gardener level in all of their 45 years at Kirstenbosch. But I cannot judge them. If they were excellent gardeners, they were extremely valuable. If they were just mundane gardeners for 45 years, then that would be kind of disappointing. 

Granny Sippy often said "The world needs streetsweepers, but, more importantly, the world needs excellent streetsweepers." That has been a meaningful concept for me all of my life. On one occasion, I was pondering this and wondered 'What if every citizen in Cape Town were to be responsible and never littered?' The Spirit whispered moeniwarrienie, the trees will always drop leaves and there will be space for excellent streetsweepers. 

But, there will almost certainly be times that an excellent streetsweeper is sick or less than well enough to be their normal selves. We need to then be compassionate and try to help them to become what we know that they would want to become again. I was fortunate to be sent on a coaching course at one stage in my career - the focus of that was helping others in our team to be what they wanted to be, but needed encouragement, support, and so forth to achieve their own goals. It is important to bear in mind that a coach helps someone to achieve their own goals, and not goals that the coach sets for the team member that is being coached.

And then, of course, there is the delightful view of Table Mountain from across Table Bay.

Ekpraatteveel 😉 Enough for now. 

I would love to take you to Kirstenbosch for you to enjoy some re-creating in what Grandpa Ken loved to call a little bit of the garden of Eden that has remained intact. Even if you just go and walk ten paces into the garden and sit in the shade and sleep or read or have a picnic, it is a wonderful place to be for ten minutes or for ten hours. The offer is always there. I love to have the privilege of taking up to five family and friends in with me. Then, they do not have to be in my presence once they are inside the gate - I just hope that they will not misbehave 😉 and break any of the rules of the garden 😂☹️😖😭🤔but that they will be excellent streetsweepers or whatever they choose in their career.

Have a blessed Christmas 2025

This year, as I was consulting with Sally about how to prepare our Christmas card, we decided on the one shown below. I had previously thought of doing a life timeline for Jesus Christ on the inside, but Sally suggested the second nativity picture. Cindy was here and suggested using ChatGPT to create an image, and we did that and put it on the front page. I had selected the nativity scene that we put on page 2. Shown below are the two versions of the card.

Then, since postal services are not what they were when we grew up, when I remember going to the Post Office and licking many many postage stamps to attach to the many cards that my family sent to family and friends all around the Globe, I created a 'bookmark' type of card as I did last year, that can be sent in WhatsApp that is a very widely used social media platform in 2025 (and has been in use in our family from at least about 2008! It is difficult to see when we started to use it. Wikipedia says that it was originated in 2009 and so we have evidently used it from the outset.)

Bookmark version with timeline that I shared with very many friends and family.

Most people received the bookmark. Since our printer stopped working, I only printed about 6 copies, and gave Sally one of the best. So, here is the bookmark that can be opened in WhatsApp and zoomed in to see the timeline as well as it was visible in WhatsApp. And then the card.

Front

inside - timeline

Inside - Sally's choice

Most of the back is blank, so keep scrolling.

Back

It amazes me what can be done on the Internet, with major companies sharing facilities that enable one to send and store unimaginable amounts of data, media such as photos and videos, and such amazing things for making information available to so many people. This blog is an example of how much can be shared with so many people.

Here is something that I shared with a family member this morning who is concerned about having had her last Christmas with her granddaughter and our son and family being in Australia for the next few years.

In 2025 and 2026 we're able to be together in so many ways that were not dreamed of by our ancestors 5 generations back, or even when we were in our 20s. I can see how we can all see the Second Coming as it happens - when it happens. We can literally all see everything, live streamed or replayed, and not miss any important details ❤️ because of our time zone. The only thing that is important is that we are tuned in to the right broadcast and that our contact details are right so that we don't miss the notifications ☺️❤️

Building up the Kingdom of God on the Earth

This week in Come, Follow Me, we have been reading about going up from Babylon unto Zion, reading the parables in Matt 25, etc. As I prepared my thoughts to share in this talk, I felt to share something from my youth.

There was an occasion where I did not magnify two callings when I was about 17 or 18 years of age. I was asked to sort out cupboards on the stage of the Krugersdorp chapel, and to coach the volleyball team. My family lived some 17 km from the chapel and I did not spend a great deal of time in the chapel other than with my family. And there was not much going on in volleyball. I often wondered why the Bishop extended those callings to me - was he just trying to keep me out of mischief? As I recall, I was released from those callings when I left for the army or for my mission.

I grew up in a family where I remember us reading the scriptures together every day, praying every morning and evening and asking a blessing on the food at every meal. We had Family Home Evening every week and on the first Sunday of the month. Church was held on Sunday morning and evening, with MIA on Tuesday night, Relief Society and Primary on weekdays, and regular activities and service projects, building chapels, carting bricks and sand, gardening, cleaning windows, camping, hiking, and so much more.

I remember sitting in the Carletonville chapel at age about 9 years, listening to Elder Boyd K Packer, an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ who was there to dedicate the chapel, saying to civic leaders who were present that the Saints that they saw in that congregation would be 'part of the solution and not part of the problem'. That resonated with me and I wanted to have that mindset - well, I hope that I live up to that mindset!

We started this sacrament meeting with the hymn #249 'Called to Serve'. For some 36 years I was a public servant. I was a chef in the army, a laboratory technician in the Tygerberg Medical School, a gardener, scientist, botanist, record keeper, education officer, technologist, and had leadership roles in IT, health and safety, and other things, and I served in several other roles at South African National Biodiversity Institute. I served in other places outside of the public service sector. I served for two years as a missionary, plus a year with Sally as a BYU Pathway missionary. During all of my youth and adult life I served as class president or secretary, branch president, quorum president, district/branch/stake/ward clerk, teacher, ward mission leader, and in various roles as leader/administrator/teacher, bishop, stake patriarch, ministering.. In all of these roles I was serving and not being served. I loved hearing King Charles say during his coronation that he is there as King of Great Britain to serve and not to be served. 

I often had my mother remind me that saving money was better than earning more because money saved has already been taxed and tithed. I appreciate my experience with ecology, especially plants that are the source of life as primary producers in the web of life. We, and all life on Earth survive because of the presence of plants. I was happy to be able to build Zion by paying tithes and offerings and to build South Africa by paying taxes. The more that I earned, the more tithes and taxes I was able to contribute for building up the Kingdom of God on the Earth and for building our dear land South Africa.

I also think of several times that people were not sure that they wanted to be sealed to family members, or to be associated with certain people, because they had bad feelings towards them. I reassured them that if they and those family members or associates were welcomed into the Celestial Kingdom, then they would be Celestial beings! Would we not want to be with Celestial beings? I always encourage people to work on becoming a Celestial being and trying to inspire others to become Celestial beings.

We lived in the Krugersdorp branch and ward - it included people living and working at Rand Leases Gold Mine, Randfontein, Magaliesberg, Rustenburg, and many far flung places. I remember someone not having transport arranged for a Sunday morning. In those days of the 1960s we did not have the easy communication of cell phones or e-mails, and so he left home very early and walked about 31 km to the Kugersdorp Town Hall where we met, and he was early for priesthood meeting at 9 am. My family gave him a ride back home after Church that day. 

When Sally and I lived in Nelspruit with our two oldest children, we had members who arrived from Sabie about 60 km away, Sabie Sands Nature Reserve about 110 km away, and Barberton about 43 km away. I home taught branch members, travelling some 16 km, 60 km and 43 km each way each month. 

We had a brother in Panorama Ward who, when living in Baragwanath years before, had walked some 16 km to the Ramah chapel. Many people in the Eastern Cape and other rural areas walk great distances to attend church every Sunday. The Saviour and His disciples walked great distances from Nazareth to Jerusalem, Cana, Bethlehem, Galilee, and so forth. Would Jesus have arrived too late to prepare the sacrament or to be in good time before the meetings were due to start? Will we follow His example?

The Lord is my shepherd. I love Psalm 23. He cares for us. He asks us to care for the sheep of His fold. We agreed to it before we were born. We were reserved to be born in these latter days with so many wonderful blessings - and with every wonderful blessing comes challenges that refine us to make us better in building Zion in 2025. I pray that we will rise to our potential and be what the Lord wants us to be in building up the Kingdom of God on the Earth. May we specifically be builders and not wreckers.

If we had faith, repented, were baptised and received the gift of the holy ghost, then we have been cleansed. But if we do not continue on the covenant path, or if we sin because we're promised free forgiveness, we have left the covenant path - we are not keeping our covenant. We need to remember that Jesus Christ said that of those to whom much is given, much is required. (Luke 12:48) He also said that 'I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.' (Doctrine and Covenants 82:10) I have a special testimony that everyone will be blessed for all of the good that they did, but they cannot be given credit for anything that they neglected to do when they could have done it! Blessings withheld are not punishment, but are failure on our part.

The words of Jesus Christ in the 4 gospels tell us very clearly that being born of the water and of the spirit are not just once off, but continually, for as long as we live, especially serving regularly in the Temple on behalf of others, and each week as we partake of the sacrament. We have covenanted to not just be consuming, but producing, not just receiving, but giving, not just demanding, but supplying. We learned to not be burying, but doubling or magnifying or multiplying that which is given to us according to our several ability. (Matt 25, Alma 5)

We are to be shepherds, united, a fruitful bough. (John 15, 17. Matt 5 to 7, 3 Ne 12 to 15, Ez 34:2,31, Ps 23)

By entering into a covenant with our Father in Heaven, we are committing to being servants, sacrificing. We agreed to come to this mortal experience in order to serve the Lord and His children, facing opposition in all things, but learning to rise and shine despite the darkness around us, being like those tiny fireflies that are so delightfully visible in the dark.

No individual, family, community, nation, or Zion can be sustainable without everyone serving and working to the extent that he or she is able. Even if not in the chapel every Sunday, we can be as active as Elder Michael Cziesla's Oma who taught her family the gospel, the scriptures, the hymns, so that her son could recognise the name of her church when they moved to a new city and he saw one of the chapels. (Oct 2025 General Conference). Sometimes we have seasons in our lives where we are less capable than we might be at other times - we were all babies, some of us will become handicapped, less capable, dependent on the service of others. But we will be acknowledged for what we did when we could, not condemned for what we did not do when we were less capable.

I love to consider how a family member magnified his small talent.  He lived to nearly age 80. He worked as a Hospital Porter at Red Cross Memorial Children's Hospital and Somerset Hospital for about 50 years. He also served in Boy Scouts and St Johns Ambulance Service. All of the time he was as someone of about age 12 years, possibly due to his mother having had a fall that damaged his brain before he was born. He touched hearts and lives as he wheeled patients about. I am grateful to have had him as part of my life because I learned so much from him.

I have known people who are deaf, blind, have cerebral palsy, birth defects, defects resulting from accidents, wars, illnesses, cancers, dementia, sometimes consequences of doing good to others (like contracting HIV or COVID because of serving someone they did not know was infected). They have been productive regardless of their circumstances.

Are we leaven, salt, light, or combinations of two or all three? Leaven is like yeast, those tiny cells that are dispersed throughout the dough and as they respire they produce gas that makes the bread rise. Small and simple things do amazing things. Fireflies that we are seeing at the moment are 3 mm long and the source of the light is about 1 mm, and yet we see it very distinctly in the dark, even at a distance of several metres. Salt is also small and simple, and yet it adds flavour, cleansing, healing, melting ice. We can do amazing things, even when we are small and simple, or when we do small and simple good things.

Elder Godoy quoted President James E. Faust who stated, “It has been said that this church does not necessarily attract great people but more often makes ordinary people great.”

My one sister once told me one year after she had helped typing the financial report that our father paid more tithing than anyone in the ward. Our family had few luxuries. I had to mow the lawns, prune trees, grow vegetables, clean house, cook, grind wheat, grow vegetables. My mother made fudge, Turkish delight, etc to contribute to supporting my older brother on mission. I sewed on buttons, darned socks. We lived by the adage 'Fix it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.' Sally and I still do. I recently reversed a shirt collar so that the shirt can serve me well for a few more years.

I had sacrament bread in my tooth last week until after the sacrament meeting. I have not hurried to have the tooth fixed since at the moment we are using money particularly carefully and our medical aid has run out. I have often wondered what Adam's teeth were like? What about Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jesus, Peter, James John, Moses, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young? What were their beds like, their food, or their joints, or arthritis, or any kind of malady? Do I have to have everything perfect in my life when such forebears put up with less than perfect lives?

In Come, Follow Me this week we have been reading about preparing for the Second Coming. The parable of the talents, the ten virgins, and so much that the Saviour taught is preparing us for when we will report to the Father on what we did with the talents that He gave to us, with the callings that we magnified, with how fruitful we were, multiplying, replenishing, subduing, and having dominion over all that He entrusted to us.

In 1 Ne 7 we read about how Lehi sent his sons to fetch the family of Ishmael as the Lord wanted that they 'should take daughters to wife, that they might raise up seed unto the Lord in the land of promise.' The focus was not on companionship, attraction, or sexual gratification, but on human capital development. In so many instances in my lifetime I have had friends who would be very able to rear great future leaders, but who chose to have no children because they did not want to bring them up in this wicked world, or they did not want the inconvenience or burden or expense of raising children. They could have been part of the solution to the problem, but chose to bury their talent.  In many cases it is like NIMBY (Not in my back yard). 'The world needs leaders, but let others provide them and I'll sit and moan and criticise when they are less than perfect.'

Let me address the children and youth that one day might extend callings to leaders in decades to come. When you call someone to serve, you might use a list of questions that I used years ago about their family, their talents, their interests, their commitments, their career, testimony of the Gospel, time and availability. After such an exploratory interview you will feel if it is appropriate to extend the call because you know from the Spirit that it is right, and you can comfortably say that the Lord wants them to serve in that specific way. If you do not feel that the call is right for them at this time, thank them for the chat and they might have no idea why you had the chat. 

Remember that we are not running a kraal, but growing sheep and setting up a safe and functional kraal for the sheep to be wonderfully productive. I was astounded one day when a sister came up to me and told me that when I had called her to serve as the Primary president in Mowbray Branch several decades before that, she had felt that she was the last person that would ever serve as a Primary president. But, she said that the calling changed her life and it prepared her for serving in the smaller George branch while living in Plettenberg Bay. Let us not second-guess the Lord when He prompts us to call the least likely person to serve as Primary president, or teacher, or secretary. Let us remember the other hymn #270 that we sang 'I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord'.

There are basically two kinds of farmers. One kind grows animals quickly to let them become big and then they slaughter or sell them for meat. The other kind nurtures the sheep or cows or animals for long-term harvest of milk, wool, or other products. Similarly, some grow grain or annual crops that they sell every year, and others nurture trees that will bear fruits for many decades or centuries. The difference is between capital gains and cash flow. The Lord wants us to nurture His children so that they will produce long-term products as fruitful boughs on the true vine that is described in John 15.

My mother taught me many wonderful things. One thing that she often quoted was 'It takes the effort of every blade of grass to keep the meadow green.' She also often reminded us that 'The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence'. In my many months in the Namib Desert, I have come to appreciate those concepts. There is always wonderful grass in the desert - but most of the time we do not see it. It is dried out detritus blowing about, providing food for lizards, insects, and other animals that need food. The very small seeds are always being blown about in the wind and are widely dispersed. John Acocks said that it rains every year in the Karoo, but it takes seven years to get back to your farm. It might be more than 7 years before it rains on any specific part of the Namib Desert, but when it does rain, that seed quickly germinates and puts down its roots and grows beautiful green leaves and produces seed for the next few years. The seed is all about, even if we cannot see it because it is so tiny and mixed in with the grains of sand. But, it is there! On one occasion I was amazed to see the dunes that are always just big red sand dunes, but on this occasion they looked like amazing green pastures! When we got close and had a bird's-eye view, we saw a lot of sand between the blades of grass, but at that angle where I first saw it, all that I could see was the delightful green grass 'on the other side of the fence'.

I am so grateful for my experiences in nature. I mentioned how plants are primary producers and they provide food for you and for me, for cattle, sheep, and all consumers. Every living thing depends on those primary producers for oxygen and for nutrition, and they have great value for medicinal and other uses. The Lord wants you and me to be primary producers, not just consumers. He wants us to supply and not just demand. He wants us to 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.' Gen 1:28. Let us always be part of the solution and not part of the problem, to help those around us to rise to greatness, to let our light so shine before men, that they may see our good works, and glorify our Father which is in heaven. Matt 5:16. Let us add flavour, zest, cleansing and healing as salt.

Brothers and sisters, may we follow the Saviour's example. Let us rise to any callings that the Lord sends our way. He is preparing us for our divine potential. That potential is not just simple things in mortality, but preparing us to be worthy to be entrusted with all that the Father has, and that is not just every thing, but He wants to be able to trust us with all power and knowledge as well. We need to raise our vision to think Celestial and not just to be like teenagers who have Friday night as their long-term view. He wants to be able to say to each and every one of us 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.' 

May we follow the Saviour's example and be as He said ''And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.' (Mark 10:44), is my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Talk by Les Powrie in Milnerton Ward, Bellville South Africa Stake, 23 November 2025

Signing petitions - do something, do more

Can you help me out by signing this petition?

https://c.org/6bkZYgM8cG

This is a request that I received this morning.

There is a frequent threat to safety on the N2 in Cape Town,
especially between the Airport and Somerset West

Of course, far more important than petitions like this is to stress the importance of teaching correct principles so that all people in our community and country will govern themselves. 

Petitions like this are like speed bumps. They compel everyone to obey at that spot, that time, including the law-abiding citizens who would be driving responsibly there and everywhere anyway. They compel emergency vehicles to arrive later for emergency response. Every bus, city, police or military vehicle is impacted. But that speed bump does not teach the disobedient to be the opposite of disobedient. 

Our Constitution stresses Equal Responsibility and Equal Rights. I don't think that Equal Responsibility is ever stressed. Is it ever taught? Do our leaders ever remind children, youth, and adults that they are responsible for providing for the equal rights of every citizen? We all need to respect every citizen, extending dignity,  equality, freedom, and socio-economic rights (like health, water, education) to President and street-sweeper, doctor and nurse, adult and child, male and female, to vote responsibly, and to pay taxes to majestic it possible for the leaders to provide all that is needed for those Equal Rights. 

You and I are responsible for making our land the most beautiful and wonderful place that we expect it to be.

Les Powrie, 9 Dec 2025.

Reflections on as deep a Temple and Garden of Eden experience as possible

It was special to be at the ground-breaking ceremony for the Cape Town South Africa Temple on Saturday 25 October 2025. The land was dedicated from the Temple and for each one of us who will spend time on it.

Sally and me turning the soil

My father particularly loved this picture of Jesus Christ.

I love to reflect on some significant things regarding this special site. 

We could see Lion's Head where the church work started in South Africa, and maybe in Africa as a whole in 1853. The journal of Elder William Holmes Walker

'On May 23rd we all went on the top of a mountain called The Lions Head, the guide for all approaching ships, to pray and council.
'We organized a branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, composed of 3 members. Returning in the evening, we continued making every possible effort to get an
opening, in every direction.'

This site of the Temple would have been close to where these three missionaries walked very often. They may well have walked on the very spot where the Temple will stand.

I love Heavenly Father's sense of humour - across the Liesbeeck River from the Temple Grounds is Devil's Peak. But Pam Cerff pointed out that there are also views of Groote Schuur Hospital, a place of healing, and University of Cape Town, a place of learning. Then someone else pointed out that on the other side of Table Mountain are the Twelve Apostles. 

My father often said (and I love to repeat this ) that Kirstenbosch is part of the Garden of Eden that has remained intact, also in view beyond UCT. DNA studies show that human DNA traces back to southern Africa, and fossils show that stone age people were in the Dell at Kirstenbosch. We don't know if the Garden of Eden was one hectare or a million hectares, or what... Nice to dream about Adam and Eve maybe treading on the soil where the Cape Town South Africa Temple will stand . I love that when we leave Kirstenbosch through Gate 1 we go out from the east side into the lone and dreary world.

Ja well, no fine, I love Cape Town and all that we enjoy here. We look forward to having the Temple here! My first ancestor came here in 1806 when Britain took the Cape, and then formally moved here in 1820. My parents were married here in 1943. I moved here from the West Rand in 1981. And our original ancestors come from 'here', the Cradle of Humankind. What better place to live on Earth? And now we look forward to having a Temple here.