Last Part of August

Nothing terribly exciting during the first week of the last half of August. We had a really good lesson and activity with the YSA group on Sat. But that’s pretty normal now that we have been teaching them for several months. We have been working on helping them memorize the 10 Commandments and the books of the Book of Mormon. We got an idea from the Beechers that served up in Kitale, Kenya about how to remember the 10 Commandments. They actually got it from Elder & Sister Byrd. That’s one of the neat things about serving a mission as a couple, we get chances to share ideas. It’s pretty good but some of the members here have a hard time with the wording because it is in English.

#1  One God.

#2  Zoo---Sign over the zoo with graven images of animals on it.
              No graven images

#3  Tree has leaves with veins in them --
              Take the Name of the Lord In Vain.  

#4  Door of the Church--Sabbath Day -
               Keep it Holy.

#5  Hive -- you have a queen bee and a drone in a hive --
               Honor thy Father and Mother.  

#6  Sticks -- you kill snakes with sticks...
               Thou shalt not kill.

#7  Heaven, you can't get into heaven if you commit adultery.

#8  Steel gate.  Thou shalt not steal.

#9  Sign -- You should not put a sign in your yard lying about your neighbor
              -- bear false witness against your neighbor.

#10 Tent…a tent covers you... Thou shalt not covet.

Then we have them see who can draw out the Plan of Salvation the quickest. We really have a good time with them.

The highlight of this half month was our opportunity to teach dance at a Youth Conference in the Kilungu Hills area. Our reputation for teaching dance is going all over the mission. Elder & Sister Hall called and asked if we could work it out to come to the Youth Conference planned in the area they serve in. We checked our calendar and it looked like it would work for us. We traveled to Nairobi on the 22nd and did a bunch of stuff at the Mission Center that we needed to get done. That evening we ate together with some of the other couples and visited about our various assignments. We always get so many good ideas from the other couples.

The next day we traveled with Elder & Sister Hall to the area they serve in. That area is about 2.5 to 3 hours away from Nairobi. They travel that distance every day to help the 4 Branches in that area. We thought the conference would be at one of the churches there. But we found that the conference was being held at a resort in the area. When Elder Hall pulled off the road and started up through the city we thought, “Wow, this is a very poor area, wonder what kind of facility the youth would meet in”. 

Then we pulled up in front of this building and when we went in we could hardly believe that such a nice place would be situated in such a poor area.

We entered the meeting hall where all the youth were meeting and we were very surprised to see over 200 youth gathered there.

As we found out later, this area was the first to have a Branch of the church in Kenya. And there are many very strong members of the church there.

After some games, a talk by Prince Omondi and other activities they all started moving out and over to a school near by. That is where they were staying. The conference was a 3 day, 2 night event and all the youth were staying at the school. They had lunch in a fairly large room and we were told that would be where we would teach dance. They divided the group into 4 smaller groups and were planning to rotate through 4 different activities.

We really had a good time with the youth teaching dance. We worried about whether they would participate. But they really got into it.

In fact, they had such a good time that many of them kept sneaking back into the next session. Even the cooks were dancing. The students from the school would come over and look through the windows to see what we were doing. When we have taught dance at other venues the adults usually don’t get into it. But at this conference they really did. We all had a great time.

They then had a contest to see which Branch could make the highest most sturdy tower out of the same materials provided for each group.

They had a lot of fun with that.

It was a great youth conference. The local leaders had really done a good job of organizing it.

We were having such a good time and hated to leave. But the drive back to Nairobi is not much fun at night. As it turned out we didn’t leave until about 6:00, so it was dark for most of the drive back. Elder Hall is a good driver but we still had a few times we were not sure if we would make it. The trucks on that road are crazy. It’s the main road from Nairobi to Mombasa and the trucks are always in a hurry and take a lot of chances when passing. So if you don’t give the right of way to them they will run right over you. But we made it back and were able to settle in for the night.

The next day we did some shopping. We had made arrangements to teach dance to the YSA of the Nairobi area again. So we met with them at 3:00 and taught some couple dances for about 2 hours.

That evening we ate with the Halls and Pugmires.

Next day we headed back to Arusha so we could teach our Missionary and Institute classes.

The next highlight was a visit from the Mission President and his wife. They were holding a Zone Leader’s Conference here in Arusha. So the Zone Leaders from Dar came and they were to have meetings with the Zone Leaders here and A.P.s.

We had invited the President and his wife to dinner on Wed. evening. We spent an enjoyable evening with them and talked about all the changes that have come to the Arusha Branch over the past year.

On Thursday we had scheduled interviews for Temple Recommends for some members with the Mission Pres.

After that we went to the Maasai Cafe for dinner with all the missionaries and the Pres. and his wife.

And to close out a GREAT month, we received word that all but 2 of the passports are in for the members going to the Temple. That is an answer to prayer. The process of getting passports has been a very complicated process. We fill out all the paperwork here in Arusha, but the passports are only issued in Dar Es Salaam. Because we had so much trouble with the system here in Arusha we worried that if we let them handle the sending of the paperwork to Dar it might take several months. We sent the paperwork by FedEx to Dar because the member who helps missionaries and others get passports there has been able to get them processed in 5 days. Then he had to have an operation and was out of commission for 2 weeks. We were wondering if we would ever get the passports back from Dar. And to make things worse, we found out the immigration department is in the process of converting to computerized processing of the paperwork. So we had asked the members to have a special fast and prayers that things would work out. And they have. Now we can proceed with the plans and get the other paperwork into South Africa to finalize the plans for our trip.