First Month Home

Well, the settling in was tough but we finally made it. It was really hard to get used to all the “Stuff” there is here. 

We had a great Thanksgiving with family.

Then we survived our homecoming talks at church and had a great get together after.

Then we had Tyson’s Birthday Party. He has really grown while we were gone.

But Taylor is the one that has grown the most.

We tried to get ready for Christmas. We had a hard time getting into the spirit. Our daughter invited us to a show at the Civic Auditorium put on by the Playmill Theatre. They presented Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. 

http://www.playmill.com/#!info/c161y

That put us in the Christmas spirit. So we did some decorating and it seemed more like Christmas.

And we are back working in the Temple. That really felt like coming home.

Then Christmas was upon us and we were running around like everyone else trying to get all the gifts for everyone and delivering goodies to all our friends and neighbors. Sometimes we wished we were back in Arusha with the simple life. But the family Christmas party was really fun. 

We realized how much we missed that while we were gone.

Then our traditional New Year’s Eve Party with the dinner club. 

Another thing we have really missed. But as usual the last few years, none of us made it to midnight.

Last Month on Our Mission

What a whirlwind of a month. We had so many things planned for the last 2 weeks of our mission that we were running all the time.

The 31st of Oct. we rode a bus to Dar with the missionaries to attend Zone Conference.

We didn’t really have time to attend the Zone Conf. but being as Elder Hartman (the color code guy) was going to be there we decided to take the time to attend. The bus ride was rather uneventful. Other than the dozens of stops it makes along the way.

We still find it better than driving. We can take in the beautiful scenery and relax and even sleep a little. We had front row seats again, so we really had a great view. Arrived about 5:30 PM and spent the evening visiting with the Nolls.

Next day we spent at the Zone Conference with Elder & Sister Hartman learning about where everyone fits into the color thing. 

We pretty much had all the missionaries from Arusha tagged. So not many surprises there. But it was a great conference and as always we got a good spiritual boost. That evening all the couples went out to a Chinese restaurant with Pres. & Sister B. 

A really fun evening. Pres. B. and Elder Hartman are both yellow (that means they like to have fun and party) so they really entertained us the whole evening.

Next day we headed back to Arusha on the bus. Not so uneventful this time. The bus was late leaving and after turning onto the highway and before the first stoplight the bus broke down. 

We sat there for about an hour as they tried to fix it and finally they had to bring another bus to take us to Arusha. We were thankful the breakdown didn’t happen way out of town. But that put us into Arusha way late. And when we walked into our flat there was water all over on the floor, AGAIN! So we cleaned that up and went to bed.

The next day (Saturday) we had a very full agenda because that was the only day we could pack and move out of our bedroom before leaving for the Johannesburg Temple  on Sunday. And as usual everything interfered with our preparations. First we had to take one of the Sister Missionaries to the dentist with a tooth problem. Then because of the rain one of the members needed us to come get their luggage because they were flooded at their home. And in the process of that we got stuck. It took about 2 hours to get unstuck. Then we tried to get some of the genealogy info into the FamilySearch website for that family and the internet would not work. By the time we got all the fires put out it was 4:30 PM and the day was shot. So we ran like crazy to get some last minute things done and hurried to packed for the trip to the Temple and went to bed.

It had been raining all week (that’s what caused the flood in our flat) and Sunday morning was no different. It was raining so hard that the road up to the church was like a river. We wanted to take a picture of one spot where it looked like a water fall but just had too many things to get done so we didn’t get that picture. We worried that the members that were going to the Temple would not be able to make it to the church. But most were there when we arrived and the rest came before meetings started. And they really looked sharp.

We held Sac. Meeting then decided because of all the rain we needed to transport the members to the bus station. So we made several trips to do that. Then the bus left and we followed along in our truck. The members were going to stay at a hotel that night and meet us at the airport the next morning.

The flight to Johannesburg was quite an experience. We only had one member that had ever been on an airplane before. So they were quite excited about the trip.

We arrived in Johannesburg about 10:00 AM, checked in to patron housing and went over to the Temple grounds.

What a beautiful sight and what a spirit. The members could really feel the spirit of the Temple.

The next 2 days we spent in the Temple with our members. That was truly the highlight of our mission. Those members that were able to go will be so much stronger in the Gospel and such a great support to the other members in Arusha. We commented several times that they seemed to have a glow about them after the temple experience.

The Mission Pres. and his wife just happened to be in Johannesburg to meetings while we were there. And they happened to be in the Temple the day we did the sealing ceremonies and were able to attend those with us. 

Sister Obuya even took her original wedding dress all the way to the Temple so she could have picture in her dress there at the Temple.

Then the plane ride back to Nairobi.

The new couple replacing us had arrived in the mission while we were at the Temple. We had a get together at the Mission Home to welcome them and the other 2 couples that had arrived in the mission. The new couple are named Gotcher. They are form Arizona.

The next day we went back to Arusha. Elder Gotcher drove most of the way. He handled the driving on the wrong side of the road very well. On the way we got another really good look at Mt. Kilimanjaro.

The next few days we spent showing the Gotchers around town and to some of the member’s homes. And trying to wrap up all the loose ends that seemed to just keep coming at us.

On Nov. 14th Gotchers took us to the Kilimanjaro airport and we flew to Nairobi. 

Our last view of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

We spent 2 days there wrapping up more of the loose ends.

Then on the evening of the 15th we met at the Mission Home with all the couples that live in Nairobi and had dinner and a farewell party. We and the Nolls told about some of the experiences we had on our missions. 

Then the Mission Pres. took us to the airport and we flew out at 11:40 PM. We flew about 9 hours to London, laid over there for about 4 hours, flew about 10 hours to Dallas, laid over there for 5 hours, flew about 3 hours to Salt Lake City, laid over there for 1 hour, then flew for an hour to Idaho Falls. 

Most of our family were there to greet us. And that was a great experience. Several of the grandkids have grown over a foot in height. We hardly recognized them.

So now the challenge has been to try to fit back into life here at home. We are finding that a greater challenge than we thought it would be. We’ll let you know when (and if) we accomplish that.

Whole Month of October

We have been so busy getting things finished up so we can leave to go home that we have not had time to work on our blog. So we’ll put the whole month in this one.

Not a lot happened this month during the first 3 weeks. 

We invited the first counselor over one Sunday when his wife and baby came to visit.

We visited at the home of our friends that have the hardware store and the husband builds things for us.

It’s Jacaranda blossoming time again.

Sister Chipfuamiti did not get to go through the Temple when she was at the MTC so the mission had made arrangements for her to go now. Sister Kusina went with her to Nairobi.

That was a great opportunity for her.

Then Sister R. decided we needed some shelves in the closets at the church. So we spent a day building those.

The highlight of the month was a visit from Elder & Sister Schwab. They serve in the Chyulu area of the Mission.

We had a great time with them. 

We took them to the Cultural Heritage Center,

the Shanga,

the Snake Park,

and the Maasai Cafe.

We had a great time showing them around Arusha.

Closed out the month with a Branch Activity for the members to say goodbye to us.

It actually ended up being a combination of Sister R, teaching the Relief Society Sister how to make cakes,

and cooking enough cake for the refreshments for the whole Branch,

showing the Primary video that we have been making over the past several months,

and having the Branch Members dance and sing to us.

We also had some group dancing. That has become a very popular part of every activity we have here.

Then we prepared for our Zone Conference in Dar. More about that conference and the experiences there next month.

All in all it was a great month. Now we need to turn our attention toward getting ready for our trip to the Johannesburg Temple with the members.

Last Part of September

Seems like we are spinning our wheels and not getting much done these days. We go to write about what we did for the day in our journals and we both say, "We just put out fires". We can see the end of our mission coming up and we have so many things to do to get ready and we just don’t stay on track very well.

The first highlight of the month was a visit from Elder & Sister Worthen from Dar. They have been promising to come visit us since they came to the mission August of 2011. They administer the PEF for Tanzania (which was just introduced this year here in Tanzania) and needed to get us set up to help members here with that program. We took them around town and out to the Cultural Heritage Center.

They enjoyed that so much they went back again the next day.

Then Saturday evening we took them to our favorite cafe.

 The cook and waiter.

On Saturday in the middle of their visit we had been invited to the school graduation of one of our young women in the Branch. She is the one that pretty much runs the Young Women program in the Branch even though she is only 17 years old. 

We took her sister with us. It was quite an experience. It is a school run by the African Inland Church. The graduation was to start at 9:00 AM and as near as we could tell it would go all day long. We arrived about 10:15 AM. The preacher stood in front of the congregation and preached for a while 

then they had the outgoing student leaders come up and be released. Then the new leaders came up and were inducted into their positions.

Then they started the donation part of the ceremony.

Yes, that is what was happening during the donations.

We had to leave about 12:30 to get to our missionary preparation class so we didn’t get to see the actual students graduate.

On Sunday we enjoyed having Elder & Sister Worthen attend church with us.

We have been trying to find a time to visit Elder & Sister Scott in Mombasa. Seems like each time we plan a trip they have some unrest between the Muslim and Tanzanians there, so we cancel. But we decided if we don’t do it now we will not make it before we go home. So Monday morning we loaded onto a bus and headed across to Mombasa. We couldn’t find anyone who had traveled that road, but we found on the internet that is was a pretty rough dirt road most of the way. So we decided to take a bus rather than our truck. Besides, it only costs 18,000 Tsh (about $11.50) each for the bus and it would cost us at least $60.00 fuel one way if we drove.

The road is pretty good until the border. Then it is REALLY bad from there until we reached Voi, which is on the road from Nairobi to Mombasa. But we survived. The road goes through Tsavo West National Park but we didn’t see very many animals because it is the dry season and no water close to the road.

When we arrived in Mombasa it was a little after 5:00 PM and the Scotts didn’t want to come downtown at that hour so we loaded into a Tut-Tut to take us to an area where Scotts would pick us up.

They call these little taxis a Bejudge in Dar es Salaam. They are a 3 wheel scooter thing and they sound and feel like they might fall apart any time.

For some reason the video processor at blogger is not working.

So I am trying this embedding process.

The door was held shut with a rubber strap.

The view from the Scott’s flat is beautiful. And they have monkeys along the back wall of the yard and all kinds of animal entertainment.

Scotts had picked up some wheelchairs for repair at a school for the disabled way out in the bush. So we went with them to deliver the chairs back the first day we were there. Water is a precious item in most areas in Africa. And in this area it is very dry this year. So wherever there is water available you will find a lot of women loading containers and hauling them on their heads back to their homes.

Sister Scott even tried it.

We also visited a school on the way that has one room, only benches and a dirt floor.

The kids were really fascinated with Elder Rydalch’s camera. He would turn the view screen over so they could see themselves.

One of reasons we wanted to visit Mombasa is that they have an area there where people do much of the carving of items that we see all over Africa. The prices are really good and we wanted to pickup a few items. So that afternoon we went there. Several members of the church work there.

We had a good time visiting with them and picked up a whole suitcase full of carvings.

The next day we went down to the ferry area. Mombasa is a city sort of on an island. So there is a lot of traffic, both vehicle and on foot across the bay.

Then we went down into the old part of town and visited Fort Jesus. It was built around 1593.

From there we went to the beach. Sister R.’s favorite part of the trip.

We even rode a camel.

He tried to give Sister R. a kiss but she didn’t think that looked like fun.

We ate at a restaurant on the beach.

Another area we have wanted to visit is the area of the mission called the Chyulu area. It’s up the road toward Nairobi past Voi, where we came into the Nairobi-Mombasa highway, about the same distance from Voi as from Voi to Mombasa. So Thursday morning we loaded on a bus and headed there. Elder and Sister Schwab from Star Valley Wyoming serve there.

The church has been established there for over 20 years. They have 11 Branches and several really nice buildings that have been built by the church.

Water supply is a problem there so the church has garden spots next to the church buildings where the members can grow vegetables and fruit.

There is not one large city there but several small villages so the members are spread out over a very large area.

Elder Schwab likes to collect bugs and snakes. He puts the bugs in epoxy 

and skins the snakes. 

They even had a very poisonous snake inside their complex last year.

On Friday the Schwabs took us back to Voi where we caught the bus back to Arusha. Same long, bumpy, dusty ride as before.

Closed out the month trying to decide what to ship home and what to leave here.