We have arrived - Nairobi, Kenya

We left SLC late due to a problem with the airplane. Someone put their sun glasses down the latrine. So we arrived late in Chicago and the flight from there was clear over in another area of the airport. Our flight schedule said depart at 5:10 PM but our tickets said 4:35 PM so we ran like crazy, caught the tram, ran like crazy to the gate (and that’s not easy with all the carry on we were taking) only to find that the flight really was 5:10 PM. But even so we barely made it.

Then the long flight to London (about 7.5 hours). But was not as bad as we had anticipated. The seats were quite comfortable. We did a lot of getting up and moving around.

We had a 3 hour layover in London so we relaxed a bit there. Then off to Nairobi pretty much on time (about 8 hours this time).

We landed in Nairobi about 9:00 PM but our luggage did not. We were trying to get to the assistance desk to see what we needed to do about that when Pres. Broadbent snuck around security and found us. He was very helpful. They said our luggage was in London and would arrive the next evening. They would deliver about midnight. We waited up until about 1:30 in the morning and decided to go to bed and hope they would wake us when it came. We slept very little and our luggage never showed up. We were REALLY stressed at this point. We prayed a lot and wondered what we would do without our clothes and medications for 18 months. Finally we got word that they did have our luggage and would deliver about 11:00 AM (which in Africa time was 1:30 PM).

We spent the first night at Pres. & Sister Broadbent’s flat. It is really nice and they were so good to us.

The next day they took us to Mission Home where we got acquainted with some of the couples and members who work there. 

Then Elder & Sister Nevin took us to “The Nest” (the 6 missionary couple’s apartments). We were lucky enough to have a flat all to ourselves. We had no clothes so we just survived for the next couple of days.

We went to the Mission Home several times and picked up supplies and stuff for Arusha.

We ate out a couple of times with Pres. & Sister Broadbent and the Nevin’s, 

and Sister Nevin fixed us dinner 2 evenings.  She was so busy and behind at the office, that we actually ate her dinner at the Tuttles flat Thursday evening and then they let us Skype on their computer to get in touch with family. What a lot of neat people we’ve met here! 

The Nevin’s took us shopping for food and that was quite and experience. On Thurs. Elder Nevin informed Rich that he was to have his first driving lesson. Talk about stress!! But he actually did quite well. He only fell off the left side of the road a couple of times. Remember, they drive on the wrong side of the road here. The traffic defies description so we won’t even try. The roads are very narrow and no one obeys any traffic lights, signs or yields.

We had a pot luck dinner with all the couples here at “The Nest” Friday evening. That was really great. We’ll miss their company!

In the morning we will load up all our stuff and about 7:00 AM we will head to Arusha with the Nevin’s guiding us.