Count your blessings!!

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The Bishop in the ward that we are serving in is a young man about 38.  He is really is a good humble Bishop.  One of things he is trying to do in his ward is trying to get his members to sit together in church.  He says that in Wards here in Africa that the fathers sit on the back row and the mothers and kids sit closer to the front.  Every week, before church starts,  he stands at the pulpit and asks that families please sit together.  They really have some issues of absent fathers in this culture.  The fathers feel like they have little or no responsibilities in the family.  He is trying to get the fathers in his ward to own-up to helping their wives take care of the children, not only in church but in life as well.

We just received a report for 11 Young Single Adults males (YSA – like I was over in St. George, except I was over girls) here in East London.  They are all in College and studying for careers.  The report was to emphasis the lack of family involvement in the lives of these young men.  It is quite sad here in South Africa. Out of these 11 YSA males only ONE young man has a family “in-tact” (they call it) meaning a mother and father that are still married!  Two of them have been abandoned by both mother and fatther, two of them have had both parents die.  The rest,  6 remaining, have a single mother with the father either unknown or abandoned the family.  We don’t realize how blessed we are to be born in America and the Church! 

I'm counting my blessings every single day!