Last Part of March

Started off with a R. S. activity. We have a Sister working here in Arusha that is a fairly new member of the church from Dar Es Salaam. She had been involved in a similar activity in Dar and tried to convince the Sisters that the activity should be “just for the Sisters”. But hey wanted all branch members to come and they would have a big meal. Sister R. tried to tell them of things they could do like teach each other skills instead of cooking all day. As it turned out the branch was unable to get money to the R.S. for the activity, so it was decided that it would be just for the Sisters. Several Sisters came but a lot more Primary children than Sisters. They just do not understand that an organization can have an activity just for that organization. The interesting thing about the Primary children is that most of them did not have a parent there at the activity. One child that came is the young son of the 2nd Counselor in the R.S. He is only 3 or 4 years old. The next day we learned that the counselor was unable to attend so she sent her son with a neighbor as a representative of the family. It was funny to us that she would send her 3 year old to represent the family at the R.S. activity. 

But the activity turned out really great. 

Sister R. put the Primary kids right to work. She had them put up pictures of stories from the Book of Mormon. The pictures had numbers on them and the activity was to identify the story and write it next to the number on a paper.

The Sister's activity was mostly teaching Sister R. how to do their head wraps and braiding hair. 

They even braided Sister R’s hair. 

Then Sister Jackie (the one from Dar) had brought some food things to demonstrate 

but that didn’t happen as there were so many Primary children that we ended up playing games with them 

and then serving the food to everyone. 

We hold our Institute class on Sat. so we had to fit that into the schedule. Then we had our activity. We have been teaching them some dances and just started the Virginia Reel. The Young Adults really had fun with that.

At one of our FHEs with the Elders we all wore our Tanzania T-Shirts. We have titled this photo Elder Rydalch and the 4 sons of Arusha.

The next highlight of the month was a visit from Prince & Linda Omondi. He is over the Seminary, Institute and YSA for Kenya and Tanzania. 

They have never been to Arusha before so we drove them around our town. They were really impressed with how green everything is. We stopped by the Cultural Heritage Center to show them that.

Then we took them to the Shanga. That’s where we did our service project last August.

They have added glass blowing at the Shanga and it is really interesting to watch.

On Sat. we had training meetings with Bro. Omondi and the Priesthood leadership. Then Bro. Omondi talked to our Institute class and that was really good. He is a real fire ball and gave some great advise to our YSA group.

On Sunday Bro. Omondi had been asked to be the main speaker at Sac. Meeting. Then sometime after we arrived at the church someone asked him to teach the Sunday School lesson. We never quite know what will happen at church. He said he had a lesson prepared that he would have given in his home ward in Nairobi if he had been there, so he just gave that. He gave an excellent lesson. It was on “Feast Upon the Words of Christ” and he really got the congregation involved in the lesson.

Then he gave his talk in Sac. Meeting. And again, the swahili thing. In Kenya the official language is still English for the church there. And he served his mission in Kenya and taught and spoke mostly english. Then as a former Bishop, Branch Pres., member of a Stake Presidency and all his church callings he has used english. So when he gave his talk it naturally came out in english. We thought he would be able to speak in swahili. But as it turned out he had to have Bro. Kibanda translate for him. We thought that was really odd that a person who’s native language is swahili and he had to have a translator. Just like our return missionary from a few weeks ago, they know the gospel in english and it is really hard to express it in swahili. We still find times when we just cannot say what we want in swahili. There are no words in that language to express what we want to say.

We have been talking to the Elders about some P-Day activities and learned that they have never been to the Cultural Heritage Center. So on the 26th we took them there.

Then we stopped by the Shanga (which they had also never been to).

This is the glass blowing again.

The last week of March was transfer week. The Elders really get anxious when transfers come around. They try to guess who will go and who will stay or if there will be any changes at all in this zone. This transfer we learned that we would loose one and gain 3. A couple of months ago we had been told we might get Sister missionaries here in Arusha. We were a little apprehensive about that but felt if it was the Lord’s will it would work. It was publicly announced on Sat. the 24th that we would get 2 Sisters.

So the last week of March was a really full one. The Mission Pres. wanted the Zone Elders to handle most of the preparation. But we just couldn’t help getting involved. The mission had been working on contracting an apartment here in our building for the Sisters. So we spent a lot of time making sure that came together. Then the Elders needed our help to make decisions on what to buy to furnish the apartment. So we spent a lot of time running them around and helping with that.

Wed. was transfer day so we were up early to go pick up our leaving missionary, Elder Chimbetete.

He is going back to Dar Es Salaam where he started his mission. That is not very common. I think the Lord needs him to do something special there. He has learned swahili very well and being able to teach in swahili is a big need here in Tanzania.

Then we had our regular swahili lesson and DDM with the remaining 3 Elders. Then we ran home for a few minutes, the Elder came over and we headed for the airport to pick up the arriving missionary. He would be coming from Mwanza. And on the way, lead foot Elder R. got another speeding ticket. So we were a little late getting there.

The new missionary is Elder Nheredzo. 

Elder Pocock was really happy to have him as his companion. They had served in another area of the mission together.

The new Sisters will not arrive until the first week of April. More later on that.

First Part of March

A rather slow couple of weeks as far as anything interesting happening. Just our mundane every day routine.

This is the “Big Rain” season as they call it so we have had some interesting downpours. Sometimes the drops on our windshield are the size of a silver dollar. It makes the trip up the hill to our church a real challenge. A couple of times on some of the roads up there we have had to go into 4 wheel drive to make it. One spot that we cross over every day on the way up there we even started hitting high center on if we were not careful how we negotiated it. We should take a movie of the water running down that spot. It’s like a river in the middle of the road.

This spot just before we get to the church is like a lake. As you can see, the sides are up and the center down and water does not sink here. So this spot gets really soupy. And our poor members have to walk through it.

This is the same spot on the road. Interesting situation, a breakdown right in the middle of the road. They actually had the whole wheel off, not just the tire & rim. You can see how narrow the road is. 

Not much chance of getting past. And to go back down the hill and around would take us about 45 minutes. So we just waited for them to get it fixed. They are really quite good at such things. There are at least 3 or 4 breakdowns on every road we travel at any given time.

We have been stopped by the police out on the highways several times to check our stickers and emergency equipment. And one of the things they check for is a hazard marker. A fold out stand up triangle marker for such situations. But when there is a breakdown out on the highways we hardly ever see one. They just pull brush onto the road in both directions as a warning.

Last blog we mentioned the crazy things they haul on motorcycles and such. Well, they have these little carts here that haul everything. And we mean everything! Here’s one that takes the cake.

The power here is really radical. It goes off almost every day. Sometimes for 7 or 8 hours. Well on one of those crazy power days the voltage went way up and burnt out our power supplies to several of our devices. Including our computers. One of the power supplied that we use is for our network system so we can both print to the printers we have and both get on the internet when we are able to hook up to that. That device is way old and the power supply is a very odd voltage. I checked on the internet and found that it would be almost impossible to get, even if we were in the USA. So we figured we would have to buy a new unit. Well when we checked on that we were not given much chance. And if we did find one it would probably cost 3 times what it would in the US. But the place we went to said we should check with their repair service. We thought, “that surely would not be an option”. In the US they would just laugh at us. The thing is sealed shut and would cost more for them to look at than it is worth. But we checked anyway. To our surprise they said, “sure, they could fix it”. And they did in about 4 hours. We were shocked. We think they deal with this power problem a lot and have just learned to fix the unfixable.

One of the highlights this month is that we had a missionary from our branch return. He came into the airport late at night so we had not been able to meet with him. We had a member from Dar Es Salaam here for some church business and we had decided to take him out to dinner. His name is John. The missionary had met him when he left and John wanted to get together with the returned missionary. So we gave him what phone contacts we had for him (that’s an interesting story for another time) and when we went to pick up John, there was the missionary. We had a great evening with them and got to know the missionary. He will be a real help to the branch here.

Sorry we don’t have a photo. We get too involved and just don’t think about photos.

One day after DDM the Elders asked us to accompany them to a meeting at a school. It turns out that some of the previous missionaries had made contact with some students at a boarding house for a local college. The head people at the college got news of that and they were pretty upset. We spent quite a while apologizing and trying to patch up the situation. They said we should have gotten permission first. And they wanted to know what we were teaching. They said they would come to our meetings and see what we do and then we could come to the college and make a presentation. Then they would decided if we could teach their students.

We had a little time on our hands so we decided to fix up our apartment a little. One of the couples, Beechers (the ones we went up to see in Dec.), went home in Feb. And they had promised us some of their stuff that they could not take home. So we decided to put some of the things up. We had also had our friend Joseph build us a bookshelf. So the day that was ready we picked it up and put up a rug that Beechers had given us. And Sister R. had found a set of Maasai neck things that she wanted to put up.

The bookshelf is on the left with the Maasai neck things above it and the rug on the right.

And guess who had a birthday this month?

At our FHE on the 12th the Elders sang happy birthday to Elder R. and gave him a Tanzania T-shirt. Sister R. gave him a chocolate bar. Yes, he still loves chocolate. Even though here the cost is about 6 times what it is in the US. And we had chicken cordon bleu for dinner.

When we stop at our little produce market they alway bug us to buy passion fruit. We finally broke down and tried some.

At our age we need a little more passion in our life.

The missionary work is really going well here now. We have an average of 12 to 15 investigators coming to church each week. We even had one of the investigators from last summer come back and bring a friend. He is the one that works with Tanzanite. He was out checking on a ruby mine and was talking with a Maasai man and somehow they got onto the subject of religion. The man asked which church was the true church and Sampson told him, “our church”. So maybe there is a chance with Sampson.

Sampson had called us earlier to notify us that he had a new baby boy. After church that day we went to see the baby.

The custom here is that the mother and baby will stay with parents for the first few months. Sometimes 6 months. So we went to Sampson’s parent’s home. That’s where we had been invited and went for dinner back in July. (blog title - More in July) His father greeted us like we were long lost friends. They are really friendly. And so proud of that new grandson. And Sampson is REALLY proud!

We have had several great things happen here this month. Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching are concepts that the members here really have a hard time with. There are no addresses and most members have no idea where the other members live. Or even have their phone numbers. So interaction outside of Sunday at meetings is almost non existent. 

We got a call from the Branch President one Sunday morning that his wife was very sick. So we drove up to his home to see what we could do. She was still in bed and could hardly sit up. The Pres. said she could not walk. We gave her a blessing and left. At church we talked with the 1st and 2nd counselors about how we should be concerned and do something to help. Then Sister R. mentioned it in R.S. And the R.S. Pres. picked up on it and said she would like to go visit there to see what she could do. That was a first as far as we know. She didn’t know where the Branch Pres. lived so we offered to take her the next day. BTW, we took dinner back up to them later on Sunday and Sister S. was up and getting around just fine. It’s amazing the faith these members have. 

Anyway, on Monday we took the R.S. Pres. up to their home and she and Sister S. had a really good visit. The spirit was really good. We think the R.S. Pres. got a glimpse of what the R.S. is really all about. We have learned to appreciate every little step the members make here. It’s a lot like we imagine the church was back when it first started in Joseph Smith’s time. We stand back and watch and have to realize that it’s like running the branch with Primary children in charge. They have never seen how the church really works and they just make tiny steps at a time.

Another great thing (and interesting) was the return missionary. The Branch leadership invited him into the PEC meeting on Sunday and he is really charged up about Home Teaching and getting the members out to visit all those inactive members that were so strong when he left. We think that may put us over the hump of getting Home Teaching started. The interesting part of this was when the returned missionary spoke in Sac. Meeting. He has served in South Africa and spoke english his whole mission. When he tried to speak in his native tongue (Swahili) it just would not come out. He had to give most of his talk in english. The members really laughed at that.