Last Part of April

When we were in Dar Es Salaam the week of the 13th we were asked by a couple from America to help them with the measles vaccination campaign for Tanzania in Arusha. The church donates money and assists in campaigns all over the world to get people vaccinated against various diseases. The campaign was planned for the week of April 23 to 28. 

There are couples called to go to various countries all over the world to help organize members to help with the campaigns. There has never been anyone here in Arusha that could help with that. So they wanted us to work with the government and medical people here. They gave us badges for the members here and told us they would try to get us some flyers announcing the campaign. So we spent several days going around with Bro. Kibanda to all the government health people and some medical facilities to see what was planned here in Arusha. What we found was that they were not very well organized. They had no flyers and really no way to get the word out to the people about the campaign. They told us they would call us to come to a meeting they were planning for Friday or Saturday. But as it turned out they forgot to call us. We received the flyers (the ones shown above) that the couple in Dar had printed and called several places to see if they needed any. One official came up to the church to get some and was really impressed with what we had. Then we organized the members to go out and hand out flyers and tell as many people as they could about the campaign.

We received the DVDs of April Conference at the Zone Conference in Dar. So the Branch planned to show the conference session on the 21st & 22nd. We had really good attendance. We had a lot of investigators as well as members. We had the English version playing in the Relief Society room and the Swahili in the chapel. We think this might have been the first time all sessions were shown and by the end of each day there were not a lot of people left. And just to spice things up the power went out on Sunday morning. So we had to scramble around to get the generator hooked up and running. But it all turned out well and the spirit was great.

The next day we were up early and headed for Nairobi. Several of the couples had planned a trip to a park called “Masai Mara”. It is the top part of the Serengeti (the one that has the big migration of wildebeests). We arrived in Nairobi about noon and had many things we needed to do. So we ran all over town to get them done. Then we met with several people at the Mission Office for church business. That evening was the weekly Family Home Evening for the couples that live in the “nest”. We really enjoyed that.

The next morning we took off for the Masai Mara. And we do mean “took off”. Because it is way out in the bush. The best way to get there is to fly. What an experience!!! It was a small 10 passenger plane. And as much as Sister R. likes to fly, it was great. Although we had to land in the rain.

We stayed in tents but not like any tent we have stayed in before. They had a shower, hot running water, a flush toilet, 2 sinks and wooden floors.

And hot water bottles, which Sister R. really loved. It was rather chilly there and the hot water bottles at night were really nice.

They have 3 safari drives each day. So we were able to go on one the first day, 3 the second day and 2 the last day. We saw all kinds of animals.

It’s amazing how the animals just totally ignore us.

We really had a great time. The best part is the time spent with the other couples. It really gives us a boost.

It was quite rainy and the rivers were running really high. We got stuck a couple of times.

But nothing like these guys.

When we got back to Nairobi we had a ton of things that we needed to do. We ended up staying over an extra day to get them all done.

Then back to Arusha just in time for our weekly Institute/Seminary class.

On Monday we had the Elders and Sisters over for FHE as usual and with that we had a bit of a birthday party for one of the Sister missionaries. And we played the candy bar game.

We are so happy to have Sister missionaries here. They are really adding a lot to our branch and the teaching here. They have a whole bunch of investigators and are really doing a great job. The spirit here with the missionaries is so good right now. We are praying that there won’t be any transfers next week as we feel we have such a strong group here now. We just want to keep it going.