Good weekend – pictures added

Hi again.  We survived the weekend… it was busy but fun.  Friday Daniel and i took Phumlani to clean off his mother’s grave.  It took us quite a while to find her.  As we looked (to Phumlani’s best recollection) we couldn’t find her grave and Phumlani was getting more and more obvious with his anticipation of finding her.  We stopped for a while and then… eight palm trees down (four past the path in the road) and directly behind two nicer and stronger grave markers, was Phumlani’s mom’s grave.  He looked up close to make sure it was her.  We scraped away the rocks that covered her birthday and her date of death.  Then he used a shovel to scoop away some weeds that were growing up through the rocks. 

Phumlani said the only other time he had been to see her grave was when he had a fight with his grandmother and he thought it was best to take a walk and he ‘walked straight to her, without even knowing where she was, but i remember she is behind a bigger grave marker’.    

The sight of watching a boy clean off his mother’s grave was a humbling one.  He was visibly upset but very focused on paying his respects and cleaning her grave.  The panic of him thinking he wasn’t going to find her was enough to break my heart.  But he got it done and he breathed a sigh of relief on the way home.   

Saturday some people from the local church came out and tilled the garden and planted some cabbage, carrots, peas and i think beans?  But mostly it was a relaxing day.   Sunday I took the younger girls to one church and Daniel took the older girls to the another church (one with a youth group). 

The other garage dwellers and I are getting really good at learning to juggle many things together like showering so not all the hot water is used, getting ready by flashlight so not to wake up everyone else, washing our clothes in turn and brushing our teeth in turn… Daniel and i are working very well together with keeping gas in the cars (he likes to drive them until they are sucking fumes, he claims he learned that from his dad), taking turns driving the kids everywhere, looking for the keys to the cars, whose music we will listen to and compromising on whose turn it is to use the computer.   

Phumlani is loving his job still and gets paid this Friday!! Yea. 

My boys are doing great and have narrowed down how they want to spend there missions money.  They found a family (family with the boy whose mom died a few weeks ago) that they want to visit and figure out what they can buy the boys in family.  Joseph has already given away a pair of his socks because the boy only has one pair.  He thinks we might want to buy some clothes and maybe some blankets.  I will keep you posted on what they come up with. I am so proud. 

I love you all and can’t wait to hear from you guys. 

Lots of love,Jen, joseph and james 

Jennifer, is this the offending rooster?