Last Part of November

It’s amazing how hard the devil tries to stop the work here. One of the Elders here was not feeling well and his phone was not working. So he made it out to the street to find someone with a phone he could use to call us. On his way back in he fainted and fell and broke his leg. We thought it was just a sprain but we took him to the hospital to check on his sickness and in the process they x-rayed his leg and found a broken bone. So we spent most of the day there with him in the hospital. Then we have had to take him everywhere to try to do missionary work. It was also the week of transfers and because we had 2 Elders go home that left only 2 here to keep appointments. We have a really good Branch Missionary so he tried to fill in and go with the other Elder. 

But he also hurt his little toe on one foot (I think it’s broken) and was having a hard time going with him. They walk everywhere they go here in Arusha and the walking is on very rough roads or trails and up and down as we are at the foot of Mt. Meru and there are a lot of ravines from runoffs. But we would take the Elders to the church and then while we were doing our things Elder S. would have investigators come to the church and he would teach there with one of the members. And the branch missionary would go out with the other Elder. So the work did go on.

And in the process of finding crutches (Can you believe they didn’t have any at the hospital?) we met 3 very nice ladies that are interested in meeting with the missionaries. So there is always a reason for things that happen.

Sundays are quite an interesting day here in Arusha. We meet with the branch leadership for PEC meeting and do some training. 

Then the meetings for the day are; Priesthood & R.S. first, S.S. second and Sacrament Meeting last. And of course Primary goes on for the first 2 hours. Sometimes Sister R. will be asked to take care of Primary when none of the leadership show up. That’s pretty hard when you don’t speak the language. We try really hard to follow what is being taught in the lessons, but we still do not understand enough swahili to tell. Sometimes if they have a question about something they will try to explain the question to us in their broken British English accent and we will try to understand and answer. Sometimes they ask us to read a part of the manual and then explain. We can barely read the words let alone understand what they mean. Sometimes they seem to really be having a good discussion and afterward we will ask what was discussed. And quite often it is not even close to the lesson subject. But the spirit is always really good in Sacrament Meeting.

The second highlight of this month was our Thanksgiving celebration. The mission president planned a get together for the senior couples. So we took off on Tuesday the 22nd for Nairobi. We needed to do some things in Nairobi so we went a day early. That turned out to be a really neat thing. We were assigned to stay at the mission president’s home. 

Here is the rec. center next to the president's home.

Before and after - when we arrived in Nairobi in May and this trip:

And down their street:

The new missionaries were arriving that day so we got to eat with them and sit in on their introductions. That was really something. They were all from Africa somewhere and really interesting backgrounds. There were also 2 Sister Missionaries in the group.

Then the next day we mustered up our courage and drove ourselves to the mission office and then around town to do the things we needed to get done. Driving in Nairobi is like stock car racing only more vehicles involved. If you want to get anywhere you just have to nose your way into the traffic from a cross road. They have stoplights on a few of the round-a-bouts but that doesn’t work when you have 3 lanes coming in from 4 or 5 side streets and the drivers pass on both sides and crowd in in front of you with the back of their car blocking the lane to the side of you. Then they stack up into 4 or 5 lanes from each incoming street. So the cars back up and when your light turns green you can’t move anyway.

But we got around pretty good. The highlight of the day was that we were able to find the KFC restaurant. It was like going home for an hour.

Then on Thursday all the couples met at the President’s home for Thanksgiving dinner and visiting. 

Sister R. prepared a center piece for the table:

This is the before and after of the spread:

We had a great turkey dinner and then Sister Beecher had planned some activities to help us get to know each other better. One of them was that we would stand up as a couple and tell TWO WORDS TO DESCRIBE YOU, TWO WORDS TO DESCRIBE YOUR SPOUSE, TWO PET PEEVES, TWO GOALS  YOU’VE MADE & ACHIEVED, TWO THINGS ON YOUR BUCKET LIST (Things you still want to do before you die!) and TWO THINGS THAT BRING YOU JOY. Then at the end we had a gift exchange. The one where you can pick a new gift or take someone else’s. That was a lot of fun.

Then the next day was a couples conference at the mission office. Wow, what a boost. Packed full of good presentations, spiritual thoughts and talks by several of the couples and great talks by the mission president and his wife. They also had a display table of some of the things couples are doing in their area.

Then the trip to get to the president’s home. We were stuck in a traffic jam for about an hour and a half. The only movement was when someone gave up and turned around to go the other way on the road. Then it took another 45 minutes to get to his home. We found out later that the president of the country was going through town so all traffic was stopped. Even without that when you leave the mission office anytime after 4:00 PM you will be in traffic jams for at lease a half hour. Normal trip to his home is about 15 minutes. That evening the couples had sort of planned to all go out to eat. But after the traffic jam and all we all decided to stay at home. We were lucky as we had turkey leftovers at the president’s home. There was also another couple staying there and we had a good time visiting with them.

Next morning we met the other couples at “The Nest” and all went shopping at a place that has several stores with souvenir items at really good prices. Sister R. just had a ball.

Then we headed for home. What a difference in the scenery now as compared to what we saw the last time we went to Nairobi. There has been a fair amount of rain and everything has turned green.

This is August:

This was this trip:

After the traffic in Nairobi we are always glad to be headed back to Arusha. The drive is very peaceful.

That evening we met the 2 new Elders and took all the Elders down town to find an ATM so they could draw out some money. 

Then it was back to our normal routine. The most exciting thing was that after the 2nd X-rays for Elder S., it was decided that he needed to go to Nairobi for the final fixes.

After our couples conference we have decided on a whole bunch of things we want to start here in Arusha. We decided that we should just pick a time to have music classes, self reliance classes, missionary preparation classes and how to teach classes. Then if no one comes we will just spend the time preparing our Institute/Seminary and Temple class lessons. 

We have had several members move out of our little branch and last Sunday it looked pretty sparse at church. But the members that come all the time are really strong. And with what they face to be active and come we feel honored and humbled to be able to serve with them.

First Part of November

Wow, what a great month so far.

Elder & Sister Beecher came to visit. They are serving in Kitale the northern most area of the mission. They wanted to see our area and to go to Ngorongoro Park. They arrived about 3:00. We spent the afternoon getting better acquainted with them. Then we had our regular FHE with the Elders. Sister Beecher gave us a report of the Women’s Conference she had attended in Nairobi this last weekend. It was really great.

Then the next morning we were up and off to Ngorongoro at 5:00 AM. We had contracted with a guide that Pres. Spear had arranged for us. And Pres. Spear went along with us. The vehicles they use here to take people on safari are a 4 wheel drive jeep type vehicle. Not very smooth riding but they work pretty well.

We had been told we could not take our own vehicle into this park. And we figured we would see a lot more with a guide and his vehicle.

Ngorongoro Park is an extinct volcano so you climb up to the rim then drop down into the crater. 

http://www.game-reserve.com/tanzania_ngorongoro.html

Along the way we saw baboons.

We arrived at the park gate about 8:00 AM. 

Then we started our treck to the rim. What a ride and what a view.

Then we dropped into the crater. Right off we started seeing animals. 

Ostriches were one of the first we saw.

Then a lion finishing off a kill of a water buffalo.

Then later the buzzards and jackals finishing off the rest.

A lot of wildebeest or gnu.

Some hedge hogs. Note how they kneel down to eat.

Lots of zebra.

Lots of water buffalo.

A few elephants.

Hippos, some eating & some submerged.

Lots of pretty birds.

About mid day Elder R. realized that we had forgotten to bring sun tan lotion. Boy did he get burnt.

Then the climb back out. We took a different road and it was like real mountain back roads.

Then on the way home we just had to take a photo of this little shop on the side of the road.

Spent the next day hanging out with Elder & Sister Beecher and having a really great time.

Then back to our regular routine. One day at the West Elder's flat we saw this banana tree. It shows how they grow here.

On Saturday we had a slow starting but good lesson with the Young Single Adults. But our activity was interrupted by the bee man telling us we had to leave so he could finish getting the bees out of the attic of the church.

Nov. 6, 2011, Sunday - We had a really active day. Picked up some investigators for the West Elders. Good lessons at church and a great testimony meeting. Then they held Branch Council Meeting. Pretty heavy discussion on several subjects. Then dropped off the investigators. Then we went with the Elders to visit a member and give her a blessing and a lesson.

Next day we took the Elders up to the Themi Falls hike location. We didn’t feel like going on the hike again as we already did that before.

Got some beautiful photos of the town from up there.

We went back to town thinking they would be several hours on the hike like when we went. We got a call about 2 hours later that they were back at the trail head and ready to be picked up. So we headed back up the jeep trail road to pick them up. Then our regular FHE that evening with the Elders.

The rest of the week was our normal swahili lessons, DDM with the Elders 

and some visiting of members.
We received the curriculum for the next year this week so we went to the church and did an inventory of the library. We are trying to train the new librarian on how to keep track of everything.

On the way up to YSA on Sat. we saw the Elders and they were walking with the member we had met in Mwanza. The one that was moving from Dar to Mwanza. Her company had decided to send her to Arusha instead of Mwanza. We were excited about that. She will be a great strength to the YSA here. We had a great lesson and a really fun activity. We taught them several new dances.

Then another good Sunday. Our temple class is coming along. We hope we can get them ready to attend the temple early next year.

Here’s the group at church that day:

Monday, Nov. 14th. We have 2 Elders from here going home this week and the 2 American Elders had requested a meal of mashed potatoes, gravy & roast beef. We spent most of the day running around trying to get the ingredients for that meal. It’s pretty hard to find good meat here. Sister R. spent most of the day fixing the meal. Then we had the Elders over and had a good farewell FHE with them.

Then after swahili lesson on Tuesday the Elders wanted to have an “Ugliest Tie” contest. Sister R. decided Elder Coles (far right) won that.

After class we headed down the hill from the church but we ran into a fallen tree across the road. So we decided to see if we could find a way up the hill and around to another road. The roads in this area are pretty much like jeep roads in the mountains and there are all kinds of roads (they look more like trails) running off in all directions. We spent about an hour wandering around on badly rutted roads from the rain we have had recently. Finally we came to a road that looked like it would go back down the mountain to the paved road. It did and we made it back to our apartment.

Nov. 16, 2011

We loaded up the Elders and headed for the airport. Dropped off the 2 Elders headed to Nairobi and eventually home. One to California and the other to Zimbabwe.

We will really miss these 2 as they have really mastered the swahili language. And they have been really good missionaries as well. Elder Ngapasare has been here in Arusha for longer than we have and he has really taught a lot of people.

Wow, we just realized we have been on our mission for 6 months already. That means 1/3 of our mission is gone. Time really flies when you are having fun. Before we know it we will be the ones flying home. We have so much we want to do here that sometimes we just get overwhelmed. But with the Lord’s help and hard work we feel we can make a difference here in Arusha.