Last Part of May

Most of our time this past couple of weeks has been consumed with the paperwork for the group we are trying to get ready to attend the Temple. We get rather frustrated with all the red tape. But we are making progress. We now have a definite date. Looks like we will go the first week of Nov. That’s cutting it pretty close to when we go back to America but we are sure it will all work out if it is what the Lord wants.

One of the highlights of the last part of May was a visit from Elder and Sister Noll from Dar Es Salaam. They are the couple from California that we met back in Idaho Falls before we came here. Elder Noll is a counselor to the Mission Pres. and they handle most of the missionary stuff for Tanzania.

We had a really good time with them. They brought some of our paperwork that we needed for a stamp in our passports so we spent the afternoon when they arrived doing that.

The next day we were back at the immigration office with Tausi, our missionary going out, to finalize some paperwork there. Then we went up to Bro. Kibanda's home to drop him off and have Elder & Sister Noll meet his wife.

We had made reservations at the Shanga for lunch. Shanga is the place the Branch did their “Helping Hands” service project last year. We have wanted to eat there since we did the service and just never seemed to have time. So we spent a very enjoyable couple of hours there with the Nolls.

As we traveled around the town doing various things Sister Noll took some really interesting photos. She shared them with us so we thought we would share them here as well.

These are a couple of the kids that come running every time we go to the church. Sister R. gives them cookies.

We went back to the Maasai Market to see if Sister Noll could find something she missed on their last visit here.

Sunday was really good. Elder Noll spoke in Sac. Meeting and we really enjoyed that because we knew what was said. But the spirit of the whole day was good. Then we spent the late afternoon and evening talking with Elder and Sister Noll about all sorts of stuff. We really enjoy visits from the other couples here in our mission. Being out here in Arusha all by ourselves gets a bit lonesome sometimes.

They were off back to Dar early on Monday so it was back to our regular routine.

On one of the days when no one came for our missionary class we spent the afternoon putting up the Y.W. value ribbons that Sister R. had designed.

It was quite a task to translate the values into Swahili.

Another highlight was when we were looking for a wardrobe for the Elders and we decided to have our friend Joseph build it. He is the one that has built several things for us and his wife has a hardware store where we buy a lot of the things needed for the church building. When we were there we noticed Zeneth had the Restoration brochure out on her desk. We asked her about it and she said she had read it. We had given her a Book of Mormon some time ago and she has also read part of that. She is a very strong Christian and leads a choir in her Lutheran Church. So when we had talked about religion before she pretty much told us she was happy with her church and didn’t want to look at ours. The spirit said, “Ask if we can teach them”. So we asked. And she accepted. She was not sure when would be a good time but when we went back to meet with Joseph to get a final price, he said, “This Sunday”. We were really excited. They are such a nice family and we have wanted to teach them since we first met them back in August of last year. On Sunday the 27th we took the Sisters and went up to their home. We hope they will accept the challenges given and pray about what we talked about.

On Tuesday the 29th we had another wild crazy experience. Bro. Elias, the Maasai that is the Firsts Counselor in the Branch Presidency, has had his wife here visiting. He didn’t show up for church on Sunday so we called him. He said his daughter back in their village was sick and his wife needed to go home so he was busy trying to find a way to get her home. He said he did not call us because he had no money for a phone card. Then on Monday we got a call from him. Actually how it works here is they flash you on your phone when they don’t have time on their phone. We called back and he said he was not able to work out a way to get his wife home and wondered if we could help him. This is the village where we went back in Sept. We understood that he wanted us to take her to the village at the bottom of the mountain (actually it is a volcano) and drop her there. We checked our schedule and said we should be able to do that. We asked what time we should pick him up. He said 6:30 or 7:00 AM on Tuesday. So we went to get him on Tuesday and found that he also wanted to take a friend, a lady Maasai. We said that would be fine. We headed out of town and we asked if we were going the same way as before. He said no we would go out past the snake park. That made us a little suspicious. With the language and their way of thinking we are never quite sure what they say. We ended up going out where we had taken a member to see her Uncle that had a motorcycle accident. We went on past the hospital there and into a town (Monduli). We stopped and picked up some supplies then headed out of town a different direction than we went in. The road was not too bad, but a dirt road. We went for a long way up over a small mountain and dropped down some pretty scary switchbacks and finally came to the village where he had probably told us we were going to. But it was not the village at the bottom of his mountain (Ketumbeine). Then we started to get a bit nervous. The Maasai people packed around our truck and made Sister R. very nervous. 

Then Elias’ mother showed up. 

Elias had told us it was a big market day there so a lot of Maasai women would have their crafts there to be sold. Anyway, we figured if Elias’ mother had walked there it couldn’t be too far from the village at the bottom of the mountain. Well, as it turned out it WAS a long way. Elias said we might be able to take a short cut. He went to check with a few people about the condition of the road. They said if you have 4 wheel drive you should be okay. Then we got more nervous. We headed out of the village and Elias had to stop a couple of times to ask where the road was. Okay now we are REALLY nervous. We went a little further and he said, “Turn here”. We looked and could not even see a road. But we went the way he said to and after a bit we could see that there were tracks where other vehicles had been. He assured us that even big trucks take that route to save time. So off we went.
We did see some pretty neat wildlife. 

Soon we came to a place that required low 4 wheel drive and even then it was tough going. And it got worse from there. We ended up bottoming out several times and Sister R. was a nervous wreck within the first 4 or 5 miles. But we just kept going and praying that we would be okay. 

We finally came to an area where we could see a school. Then we could even see a decent road. Then we came to a junction and realized we were clear up on the mountain almost to Elias’ home. So the short trip we had thought we were going on turned out to be another all day adventure. We dropped off the other Maasai lady about half way up to Elias’ home and finally reached the area where Elias’ family lives. We walked across the little valley and greeted his children, father, other mother and uncles. 

Spent a while visiting with them. If you can call what we do visiting. Most of their conversation is in Maasai language so we don’t even get the few words like when we listen to Swahili. Then we left and headed down the mountain for home. We went out the way we came in last year and the road was much better so we made pretty good time and were back in Arusha about 4:30.

We try very hard to not allow the members here to rely on us for help. But sometimes we just want to render service. They have so many needs that it is easy to get into the trap of providing for them to a level that they will not try to provide for themselves. As they grow in the Gospel we also want them to learn to take care of their own needs. We try to teach them that if they will obey the commandments and rely on the Lord, He will provide what they need.

First Part of May

Time is really flying by now. We will pass our one year mark this month and we have so many things we want to do that it sometimes looks overwhelming. We spend a lot of time preparing for Institute, missionary class and YSA activities. But we are really enjoying all those. We have a lot of fun with our YSA group here.

We had another baptism on the 6th.

Our branch is growing little by little. We have several members that come and go. We just keep praying that they will get strong enough to come every week.

Our current group of Missionaries are really strong and we were hoping there would not be any transfers this month. But we got a call from the A.P.s on Sat. May 5th telling us to go and get a ticket for one to leave for Nairobi on Monday. They usually transfer on Wednesday so we wondered what was up. They wouldn’t tell us who was going. They said they would tell the Zone Leader that evening. When they got the call we were told that Elder Pocock would be transferring out and that he would be the new Assistant to the President. We were sorry to loose him but glad for him to have that opportunity. He will be a great assistant.

On Sunday Elder Pocock bore his testimony (in Swahili) and bid farewell to the branch. At the end of his testimony the member started clapping. They really love him. The new Elder transferring in is from South Africa. So now we have no American Elder here and we really miss the American English. Sometimes we need an interpreter for the African Elders that speak English. Their accents are quite hard for us to understand. But bless their hearts they are very patient with us.

So early Monday morning we took Elder Pocock down to the bus.

We have a young sister in our branch getting ready to go on a mission.

She has really had a hard time with the immigration office. They keep telling her to come back with more paperwork and documents. She has been working on the paperwork since early February. We decided to take Brother Kibanda down to the immigration office with her to see if we could get things moving along. What we ended up doing was just creating more paperwork. I think our next step will be to take all the paperwork and send it to Dar Es Salaam for our church member there that handles all the paperwork for missionaries in Dar. He tells us he can get a passport in 10 days.

And just to add a little spice to things here, we had another accident. We were hurrying back to our flat to get our phone that we forgot and as we turned the corner the car in front of us suddenly stopped. But we didn’t. Not much damage to his car but our front plastic bumper really looks bad.

The Help, Inc. people are back in Arusha for a few months. They come each year to help people setup NGOs. They always give our little branch a boost. The men are all return missionaries and some of the women are too. And the other women are all good active members. They show up each Sunday and help teach or whatever is needed. And the members really enjoy them. So many of the members come more regularly just to see them.

Then on the 13th we got a call from the A.P.s that they would be coming to Arusha on Monday. We were not sure how we would handle our FHE with them here. We barely have enough chairs and room for the missionaries here now that we have 2 Sisters. But we were happy to see both Elder Raymond and Pocock. Elder Raymond served here back in mid 2011. And we managed to have a great evening on Monday with all of them. They came to Swahili class on Tuesday and then spent time with the missionaries.

We have been working on getting a group ready to attend the temple so we spend a lot of time getting paperwork ready for passport applications. That has turned out to be quite a job. Most of the members do not have birth certificates and those who do, do not have the same name on their birth certificate as they do on their church membership record. And those who do not have a birth certificate have to get an Affidavit to prove their birth date. And that process is story all it’s own. We’ll reserve that for a fireside when we get home. So with all that process and getting the photos required we have been really busy.

One of the highlights of the month was a new baby in our branch. We went with the R.S. Pres. to visit.

The family only has boys so far so this little girl is very welcome.

This mission experience is one that we will treasure for the rest of our lives. We are taking lots of pictures so we can reminisce when we get home. There are such strong members here that face such overwhelming challenges. Every week we talk about whether we would be as strong if we had to face the same challenges. This is the “Big Rain” season and the road up to the church is quite often just a river of mud. But the members just keep coming out. The chapel floor is quite often covered with mud but we don’t care as long as they keep coming out. Some walk for several miles in the mud to get to church. Many do not have power at their homes so on Sunday there are phones plugged in all over the church. Ask yourself if you would be a strong church member if you had no running water at your home to take a bath or shower, had to do your laundry in a bucket and haul the water in buckets to your house, no power to run your hair drier, no stove to cook on, an outdoor toilet and then had to walk 5 miles to church. These members live that way and they love the gospel so much they do it every week. We complain about our accommodations here and we can look forward to going back the land of luxury. These members don’t have that to look forward to. They look forward to the time when they can return to live with their Heavenly Father. And we have learned so much from them. Our testimonies have been strengthened so much through this experience. If we ever gripe about anything at home will you remind us that we live in luxury and to shut up and get on with it.