Last Part of January 2012

Started off with a bang. Literally a bang. Sister R. was hurrying at the church to get someone to open the gate so we could drive in and she stubbed her toe and took a dive onto the terribly rough driveway. She banged her head pretty hard and tore a gash in her forehead. 

The landlord had a driveway put in part way down the side of the church and the way they made it was really bad. They dug out an area about 6 to 8 inches deep, then put large rocks in and pored cement over the rocks. The problem was that they didn’t cover all the rocks. So there were rocks sticking up out of the cement sometimes 3 or 4 inches high. After her fall we convinced him to fix it, so now at least the rocks don’t stick up and it’s fairly smooth.

During the week of Jan. 16th through the 23rd we had a “Mission Tour” here in the Kenya Nairobi Mission. We had Elder Carl B. Cook of the First Quorum of the Seventy as our visiting authority.
http://www.lds.org/church/leader/carl-b-cook?lang=eng

He is a counselor in the area presidency of southern Africa overseeing 30 countries. 

So on the 19th we headed to Dar es Salaam to meet with him. 

We left early and caught this great view of the sunrise.

On the way over we were stopped a couple of times. The first stop was to check our fire extinguisher. Then we had to purchase a sticker to put in our window to show we had one. It cost us 20,000 Tsh. Then we got stopped for speeding again. We really didn’t think we were speeding but they said they had us on their radar. This time they did issue a formal ticket. The policeman was very apologetic but none the less gave us a ticket and charged us 30,000 Tsh. It was interesting that he could not find a number for the violation in his ticket book (they have to put a number on the ticket). Both he and Elder R. went through all the numbers twice and there was no number for that violation. And he told us we could not be charged for the same offense twice. So if we got stopped again we just needed to show the ticket and they would not fine us again. So we concluded that we could travel as fast as we wanted from then on (not sure that would work so we just tried to watch our speed).

Then we stopped at the tree that we had photographed on our last trip to Dar. If you remember, it was the one we commented about in the “Last Part of October”. The part about it not being an upside down tree. 

Well this trip we found it covered with leaves. We thought that type of tree just stayed that way all the time. But the rain we have had turned it into this:

That evening we went out to the Coco Beach, where Elder Nelson dedicated Tanzania for the preaching of the Gospel.

Then we had dinner right on the ocean edge with Elder & Sister Cook, President & Sister Broadbent, Elder & Sister Worthen and Elder & Sister Noll.

The next day we had a Zone Conference with the missionaries.

Then a District Conference on Saturday & Sunday. 

Here we are with President & Sister Broadbent, Elder & Sister Cook, Elder & Sister Noll and a member there in Dar.

What a great conference and a great experience to see how the Lord guides the training from one of His special servants here in Africa.

We decided to stay over an extra day so Sister R. could do some shopping. There are so many things in Dar that we can’t get in Arusha.

Then on Tuesday we headed for home. At one of our stops we found this funny looking round thing they were selling on the side of the road.

We later found out it is jackfruit. Later in the blog we will tell you about our experience eating it.

Interesting to see that the trees and shrubbery are turning back to the dry look like when we first went. The acacia (flat top trees) are budding out with little white flowers. So sometimes we would see a tree with half green leaves and half with a white or grey tint look. 

The rest of the month was pretty much our regular routine. The Elders wanted to do another street board thing so we helped them do that.

We have been talking with the Branch about having an Open House so we have been helping them plan that. 

At our YSA activity on Sat. we decided to serve the jackfruit for refreshments. We had no idea what to do with it. We had put it out on the deck at our apartment because the smell was terrible. We were not sure we even wanted to eat it. One of the members said he knew how to prepare it so we just stood back and watched. He cut it open and showed us which part was good to eat. We scooped out that part with our fingers. We soon realized that the juice was so sticky you couldn’t pull your fingers apart. We learned later that it is called the latex. And it is really sticky. After eating the fruit you can hardly get your lips apart. You are supposed to oil all the knives and your hands before you handle the fruit. The taste was pretty good though.

One of the highlights of the last of the month was Sunday the 29th. We always seem to have a really good spirit at the meetings. And this day the Sunday School lesson was given by the newest member of the branch. We were really surprised to see him give a lesson. It was on the Tree of Life vision that Lehi had. He really did a good job. The members have had the habit of having someone read a paragraph out of the manual and then tell the class what it means. But this new member had prepared the lesson with an outline in a notebook and presented it very well. What a strength that was to our testimonies to see how the Lord can work miracles with those who are willing to put their trust in Him.

First Part of January 2012

After the busy December we had we felt like we needed a month off. But that will never happen. We soon realized that we may have bitten off more that we can chew with our new teaching schedule. We planned to teach music conducting on Tuesday after our Swahili lesson, Self Reliance on Wed. after Swahili lesson and DDM with the missionaries, and “Teaching, No Greater Call” on Thursday after Swahili lesson. Then on Saturday we teach the YSA kids the Institute lessons on the Old Testament. We are also trying to get a group ready to go to the Temple in South Africa. And there are several here that want to serve a mission so we have been telling them we will start a Missionary Preparation class. Then we try to have at least a spiritual thought for the missionaries on Monday night at our Family Home Evening. We find that we spend most of our time preparing lessons. But that is good. We are learning a lot.

Teaching here is quite an experience. It is so hard to tell if they understand. We are still not able to speak and understand the language all that well. So we ask a question and a lot of times they just look at us with a blank stare. Quite often there is someone in the class that speaks english well enough to interpret for us. And we usually get the point across.

We have had good success with our music class. We have had 4 regular attendees and they seem to be picking it up quite well.

The Self Reliance class has not done so good. Part of the problem is the time. There aren’t a lot of members that can attend during the week days.

The “Teaching, No Greater Call” class is the one the members really want. The Second Counselor in the Branch Presidency has suggested that we move that class to Saturday so more members could attend.

We really made an effort to get the Branch to follow the church curriculum this year. They have been in the habit of just teaching from the one manual they have in Swahili and they often teach the same lesson in Relief Society that is taught in Sunday School. And the lessons have been taught over and over for so long we just felt they needed to expand the knowledge base. But it will be very hard because all the manuals for this year are only in English. The Sunday School is course this year is the Book of Mormon and there is only a manual for the teacher. So that should work quite well because they have the Book of Mormon in swahili. We will see as the year progresses.

We lost 2 of our Elders this transfer.

But we gained 2 really good ones. We will enjoy working with them and learning more about them. It is always fun to have new Elders come into our area. They bring in new ideas and a transfusion that is always good.

Elder Pocock came in by bus and just in time for us to get him to his flat and head to the airport to pick up Elder Madise. It’s always fun to drive out to the “Kilimanjaro” airport. It’s out of town about an hour and we usually get a really good view of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

The most exciting thing this month so far was the Street Board thing the Elders did. They have been talking about doing something like that for some time. And on the 14th they finally got it all together. 

We have YSA on Saturday so we could not be there the whole time but we got them and the equipment downtown and helped them get set up. 

Then we worked with those that stopped by for about 2 hours. 

Then we had to run to the YSA lesson and activity. They had a lot of people stop by. They made about 300 contacts and setup 70 or 80 appointments. It will be interesting to see what develops from that activity.

We have had some very spiritual experiences this month. The spirit was so strong at our Fast and Testimony meeting you could almost cut it with a knife. The members here are so strong in the face of such difficult circumstances. Our testimonies grow stronger every day as we watch them work so hard to serve in the church. We just love these members!!