Started off with a real treat. The Mission President, his wife and the A.P.s decided to have a District Zone Leaders Conference here in Arusha. The Pres. needed to set apart a new Elders Quorum Pres. so that may have influenced that decision. At any rate that was a real treat for us.
They arrived late on Thursday so we only got to talk to them by phone. Then on Friday they had meetings all day at the church. But that evening we had them (the Pres. and Sister B.) over for dinner. Sister R. had fixed sweet & sour chicken wings and boy were they good. We were afraid the Pres. was going to make himself sick from eating so much. Then she finished us off with raspberry short cake.
The next day Pres. & Sister B. came to the church to wrap up a few things before heading back to Nairobi. They brought some Christmas hats that played a song and danced to the music. So we all had to try them on. Sorry we didn’t get any movies of that.
Then we had another baptism. This time a couple of men who have been looking at the church for a long time. The older man has spent the past year comparing our church to the Bible and now feels this is the true church. We think he will be a very strong member. The younger one is another “Mr. Question”. He has had a lot of questions that we have tried to answer for him. We hope he will stay strong. We always worry when they ask philosophical question. We know that the testimony is the thing that will keep them strong, not reason.
Then on Sunday we had a lot to do. We needed to make some changes in the Elders Quorum Counselors and the confirmations from the baptism the day before. The family of the sister that lives in Moshi and attends church here was in town. It’s always nice to have strong families visit. Then after church everyone wanted photos with them.
Monday was our typical D-Day. We had the Elders over for supper, FHE and we watched the Church Christmas Devotional. That was really good. Even put us in the Christmas sprit.
Then early Tuesday we got up to Skype with our family at their annual Christmas get together. We were 5:30 AM and they were 7:30 PM the night before. That both put us more in the Christmas spirit and also made us a little homesick.
For our Christmas gift to the branch we have been having pictures framed for the past 2 trips to Nairobi. So this week we washed down all the walls at the church and had our friend Joseph (the one who mounted the white boards for us)
come to the church and drill holes and put in plugs and self tapping screws. The walls here in Africa are solid cement so if you want to hang something you have to drill a hole.
Then on Friday we did our Service Project. The Elders were in charge and they found a hospital down in the center of town that agreed to let us come and give some kind of service. We ended up doing cleanup work around the yard.
Saturday the branch had planned a Christmas Party. The turn out was really good and we had a great time. They had asked all the organizations and/or families to “present” something. We started off by having everyone play games. We did the bean game. You know the one where you get so many beans if you have black shoes, you lose so many for each color you have on, etc. That worked pretty well. Then we tried to do the game where you read a story and members shout out a line when their organization is mentioned. Sister R. read the history of the branch since we came here. That did not work at all. Problem of language and culture differences. Then we taught some dances and that always works well.
Then they had the presentations. They were really good.
The Obuya family sang a song:
Bro. Elias had some of his Maasai friends come and they sang and danced some traditional songs. That was really something to watch.
Then the Primary did a couple of songs.
The Elders Quorum sang a song (at least Bro. Chinunda and Moses did).
That’s interesting because Moses is not an Elder yet.
Then a couple of boys did a karate demonstration.
Pres. Spear gave a talk. Elder Chimbetete gave a talk.
Then they had the meal that the sisters had been preparing (which took them since Thursday to make). They purchased the food items on Thursday, then on Friday they prepared everything. Then Sat. morning early they started cooking. They cook in the garage at the church on open wood fires. The smoke was so bad you could not even breath in there.
Then they put the food in 5 gallon buckets. They had 2 kinds of rice, a dish with meat and vegetables (which was really good), potatoes, cucumbers, spaghetti, cabbage with carrots and onions, watermelon, pineapple, fish heads and a soda. Some of the sisters had brought their dishes from home so we had good plates but no silverware. We ate with our fingers. And that is pretty standard here. But the meal was really good.
And Sister R. tried to carry a bucket the way the locals do. She did pretty well.
Then we ran the Elders around to get time on their SIMM cards so they could call home. They are allowed to do that once a year at Christmas time. Sister R. had purchased a pair of socks for each Elder and had stuffed one with traditional Christmas stuff like an apple, candy, a pen, a white board marker etc. She snuck those to the American Elder and told him to put them out sometime in the night so the others would wake up to a visit from Santa. Something we don’t think any of them had ever had before. (We got the report the next day that they really had fun with that).
Sunday we only had Sac. Meeting. We had tried to get the “The Real Story of Christmas” translated and given as the program. It didn’t work all that well. They mostly had members read from the scriptures of the story. There are only 2 Christmas songs in the swahili song book. Sister R. found a few of the songs online and tried to break up the words so they would fit the music. That sort of worked. But we sang the songs and there was a good spirit so I guess that’s what counts.
We had a couple from americans visit and when I introduced myself the brother said, “Hey, we went to high school together”. It was Verlyn Harris.
We had a good visit with them.
Then we took the Elders to our flat for our planned day together. We also invited Patience Rwiza (the previous branch president) as he had no place else to go. That’s him in the photo above with the Harrises. He has been in the process of selling all his furniture to move to Dar to find a job. We had a great dinner. Then the Elders had prepared a devotional which we all participated in. Then we sent the Elders home about 5:00. It was a great day. We didn’t even feel all that homesick.
The rest of the week was pretty much our normal routine. We are preparing to teach several classes starting in the new year. So we spent a lot of time deciding just what to teach. We decided to start a music class again. Hopefully this time members will come more regularly. Then we want to teach a self reliance class and a class on how to teach the gospel in a classroom setting.
Here’s our Christmas Decor this year.
Not much be we enjoyed it.
Then we closed out the year with the Elders. We had a great evening together.
The view from our flat.
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