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.