More in July

July 11, 2011

We finally broke down and purchased a heater. 

We have decided to have the Elders over each Monday night for dinner and family home evening. That has really been great.

So we setup the heater in the bedroom and after family home evening we went to bed in the warm instead of spending the first half hour trying to get warm enough to go to sleep.

July 12, 2011

This evening was a very eventful evening. One of the sets of Elder got separated. The only one with a phone (Elder Mbao) is from Zimbabwe and speaks fairly good english but we were not sure what happened. He said they were chased by some kids. We didn’t know if that meant young men trying to rob them or hurt them somehow or just some kids playing and Elder Rapiya ran faster that Elder Mbao. He said he would go to the corner where they usually catch the dala dala to go home and call us to let us know what he found. We were on pins and needles for about 15 minutes. Then we got a call from the other set of Elders that we should meet them at the corner where we come to the main road from our flat. We had to have our neighbor move her car as she always parks behind us so it took a few minutes. We met them and they said to pick up Elder Mbao at the stop light. We did that and they decided we needed to go back to the house where they were teaching and see if he went back there. That took about a half hour because of it being dark, crazy roads, people walking (black people in the black of night are very hard to see) and cars trying to pass where there is only room for one lane. He was not there. Then we really got nervous. It had now been about an hour and a half. So we decided to go to their flat and see if he had just gone home when he couldn’t find his companion. That took another half hour and we were all praying that he would be there. Elder Ngapasare said he felt he would be there. And sure enough he was. Sister Rydalch gave him a scotch blessing and then a hug and we all felt a great relief.

Then we went back at our flat, 9:30 PM, no power, in the dark but glad to be home. 

July 16 & 17, 2011

We had our Branch Conference these 2 days. We had leadership training on Sat. and Branch Conference on Sunday. 

Pres. B. and Sister B. along with the AP’s from the mission office came. Several changes were made. The main one was the Branch Presidency. Pres. Rwiza was released and Bro. Spear was sustained as the new Branch President. He will be great. Not that Pres. Rwiza was not. But he was so busy with work and school that he had a hard time making it to meetings. Pretty much an every other week or sometimes every third week thing. He works at the airport. All in all it was a great 2 days. The only down side was that we found out Pres. Rwiza lost his job the day before. That’s a really sad thing here in Africa. Jobs are really hard to come by so we will be praying for him to find another. Although most of the members (and as far as that goes the people) here do not have jobs. Pres. Spear works once in a while for the orphanage where the volunteers from Utah work and his wife cooks for them.

July 19th we had Elder and Sister Judd from South Africa here for Financial Records and Audit training with the Branch Presidency. They were brought here by Bro. Jadmaire from the Nairobi office.

This week we had Elder transfers. July 20th we sent Elder Raymond off to Kilungu Hills and received a new Elder straight from the MTC in Johannesburg the next day. Actually they both went to Nairobi first and then their assigned area. The new Elder is named Harper and he is from Blackfoot.

We needed some drawers in our kitchen and shelves in our center area of our flat. We mentioned this one day when Bro. Spear was here at our flat and he said his brother in law did that kind of work. We had him over and showed him what we needed and when he got them built we went to pick them up. We met Ziada’s father, grandmother (100 years old), her brother and sisters and several nieces and nephews.

Then on Sat. we had another baptism service. Isaac Abraham and Jennifer were baptized. Elder Harper, the new Elder, did the baptizing.

On Sunday we helped the Elders teach. I think they must have had at least 6 or 8 investigators. There are 2 sets of Elders here and they all split up with different branch members and us to cover them all. And Pres. Spear had one in his office. And as usual the building was overflowing. We usually have about 10 to 12 investigators come. We can fit about 70 chairs in the chapel area and then we put chairs down the hall from the primary room to sit the children on. Then several of the children sit on people’s laps. We only have 88 big chairs in the whole building and 17 small. It’s quite a site to see all these people jammed into one room. Sister Rydalch has started playing the piano for meetings and she sits with her back pretty much out the door.

After that we were invited to an investigator’s home for dinner. 

We met at the home of the investigator's parents and it was quite a large nice home in African standards. They were so cordial and we had a great meal and a great time. The family ownes a tanzanite mine. We hope to go there one day.

July 25, 2011

Today we spent most of the day in training with the new branch pres., Pres. Spear. He is really a wonderful man. He has had trials in his life that would have caused most of us to just give up. But he is as solid in the church as Peter the rock! He will be a wonderful branch president.

July 26, 2011

Today we attended Kiswahili class, english class and helped teach more investigators. Then we went home and crashed as we are both sick with runny noses and stuffed up heads. Then about 4:00 we ran down town to get a package that was sent from Dar by FedEx. We kind of knew where the office was but weren’t really sure. After turning in where we thought it was we wandered around until a guard came and directed us to where it is. We thought the FedEx office was next to the UN building where they are having that trial about war crimes. We then found it is inside the UN building complex. It was like going into an airport. We had to sign in with all kinds of info. Then we had to dump everything in the tray and walk through the scanner, the whole ball of wax. But we did get the package. It took some fancy talking to prove who we were and again we had to sign all kinds of documents. Quite different than home.

Next weekend we will fly to Mwanza for some branch training. We are really nervous about flying here in Tanzania. We went out to the airport last week to make sure we knew where it was and we thought we were lost. It must be about 30 km from town.
Check back and we will let you know how it went.

Let's try a movie

Okay, I have a little time this evening. Let's see if I can get a movie to upload to our blog.

This one is of the trip we make up to the church several times a week.

Seems to work pretty good. The quality is not very good but at least you can see what we face every day on all the roads here.

Here's the one of the wedding in Dar. Plus a few other clips. I will try this one at a higher resolution.

Looks like the quality is just as bad on this one.
If you want to see the high res ones go to our gallery:
http://gallery.mac.com/richryd#gallery

Mid July

Things have really been popping here for the last 2 weeks.

We made our trip to Dar Es Salaam and had a great time there. The trip over had many great views and some interesting roads. We only missed one turn but didn’t go too far on the wrong road. They put speed bumps wherever there are people living, which is about every 5 miles it seemed like. We hit a few of those going pretty fast and bounced the Elders off the roof. We did get to see the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. That’s pretty rare as it is usually covered with clouds. 

Here are a few photos of that:

It's not very clear due to the smog. Double click on the photos and you will see them a little better The movies I took are much better but they are too large to load on this page.

That evening we went to the hotel where Pres. and Sister Broadbent were staying and ate dinner with them. We stayed in a hotel across the street from Elder and Sister Noll’s place. That was quite an experience. The place they had us park was at the back of the hotel where they hang the laundry to dry. They put 2 cars there and there was hardly enough room to get out of the car doors. Then to shut the doors we had to watch closely to not shut a sheet in the door. The room was fairly nice. They only had 1 towel in the room so we had to try to explain to them that we needed 2 towels (we still do not have enough Swahili learned to communicate well). They finally understood us and we were set for the night. The bed was almost wall to wall and as hard as a rock.

The next morning we got ready to shower and realized the water was not heated. It’s pretty warm in Dar so I guess they figure the water will be heated by the weather. That was a little hard to get used to. Then we headed to the Zone Conf. That was really GREAT!!! The missionaries here in Tanzania are the best. Our Zone Leaders, Elders Rapiya and Mbao taught about finishing out your mission with gusto and not dropping off the cliff at the end. The AP’s taught about seeking Christ and they were also great. Then Pres. and Sister Broadbent taught and the spirit was really strong. Then we broke for lunch served by a member. 

Then the Elders went out and played football (soccer) and we went home. That evening Sister Noll served us a great meal. And we had our question time with Pres. B.

Sat. we spent shopping with Sister Noll and that evening she served us another great meal. The next door neighbor (a member) was having a wedding party. 

That was quite an experience. They dance around and sing and make wild noises with their tongues. We tried to jump in with them but we didn’t swing nearly as well as they did. And we certainly did not get the tongue thing right.  Again the movies of this were better. Then we went down to the beach and shopped at some of the Mzungu places. Then we admired the beautiful sunset across the bay and had some ice cream.

Sunday we went to the new branch there in Dar. What a beautiful building it was. 

Not a lot of members there but some really strong ones. Several who had been to the temple and on missions. Then we ran the Mission Pres. and AP’s to the airport. That evening we had another great meal served by Sister Noll. (She's a great cook and gave us some good ideas for meals!) We thought they may have been having a holiday of some type because the traffic was terribly backed up, worse than usual according to the Nolls. We sat in traffic for an hour and only move a very short distance. They played instruments and sang all night long, so we didn't get any sleep.

Monday we headed home. Another beautiful drive. Except for all the speed bumps. We thought we had them figured out until we got close to home and they quit marking them with signs on the side of the road. We hit several at a pretty good click. Bounced us off the roof many times.

But it was good to get home. Even though we are now freezing. It was really warm in Dar. Sister Rydalch loved it. It was a little too hot for Elder Rydalch.

The branch had a baptism service on the Sunday we were gone. They had one investigator baptized.

Most of the next week was spent running the branch presidency around to make interviews and calls to new positions in the branch and to interview for advancement to the Melchizedek Priesthood.

July 10th

We had a baptism after branch meetings of a young member and the brother of the investigator baptized on July 3rd.

It was a great service. Our first experience with how they do it here. The baptism font is a water storage container with the top cut off. Cold water and no way to get in and out. They did have a couple of ladders but the poor Vanessa, the 8 year old, needed a lot of help to get in and if she stood on the bottom the water was over her head. So she stood on the bottom rung of the ladder and came out of the water with quite a look on her face. Her father works in Mwanza (pretty much no way to get here accept by airplane) and the family lives here. They can only afford to get together about every 3 or 4 months. And flying his family there would be impossible. He was supposed to get here yesterday but that didn't work out. He finally came at about 4:30 today. We asked him if he wanted to do the confirmation. He is in the branch presidency there in Mwanza (which has only been a branch for about 6 months). He gave a wonderful blessing. These people live so close to the spirit it scares me.

This is Vanessa's family:

In this photo are (left to right) Bro. Spear, Elder Rapiya, Vanessa and one of the volunteers that come to our branch.

And today we had our first flat tire. We had no idea where to go to get it fixed. We went to the Toyota Dealer and they said just take it to the gas station. We did that and they pretty much fixed it the same way they would in America.

Just for the grandkids -- This fly was on the ground by our truck. It is about an inch long. 

And I thought we had big flys in Idaho.