Weekly Update 9/16/07

Well this the week of our 38th wedding anniversary ended with a lot of traveling. On Monday there was a Nairobi Zone training seminar at the Mission Office at Upper Hill. We were invited as we kind of fall in the crack with our assignment since our branches are not assigned to any district but report directly to President Taylor. We spent the next couple of days preparing lessons, getting the truck serviced, dividing a bundle of clothes from LDS Charities for the 3 branches, and picking up some cleaning and medical supplies that they needed us to bring. On Thursday we took the Assistants (they are a threesome until the next transfers) with us to Kyambeke. They did Angie's baptismal interview and taught discussions to the folks that had showed up to the English class wanting to be baptized the previous week. Sis. Bishop and I spent time evaluating the more advanced English Students that showed up trying to decide where we go with them next. Several young people showed up who had not been baptized at the age of 8 even though their parents are active. It was a downer day for us as we had to inform them that once they turn 9 they have to understand English well enough to receive the discussions. If left to the school system their English will probably not be sufficient until about age 15. Hopefully we can get their parents to start speaking english at home and reading the Book of Mormon with them to accelerate the process. One little fellow was 12 years and should be a deacon now and I could tell he was very disappointed that he was going to have to continue to wait. I did give him a copy of Book of Mormon Stories for children and his father thanked us today and said he himself enjoyed reading it. We hope he spends time reading it with his son. I am working with the 3 Branch Presidents to interview all the active 8 year olds so they can be baptized as children of record and not have to wait for the other system. I had wondered why there were always older boys that passed the Sacrament and it turns out the parents were waiting for the missionaries to teach their children. Friday we made the trek to Ilima where Sis Bishop worked with the Primary President on their Sacrament Meeting presentation while I taught a Missionary Prep class to a young man who hopes to get on a mission in the next year. I have started helping him get his documents together for the passport application. Turns out that a lot of these people have no birth or marriage certificates as they just do the tribal thing but these need to be certified before they can get documents are go to the Temple. Saturday we were at Kilili where Sis Bishop spent time with another Primary President on their Sacrament Program while I stocked the buildings cleaning supplies. Special thanks to Bridgette who sent us a copy of the script she had just got her Bishop to approve for her ward's Sacrament Program. These 3 units all have their programs scheduled in October and hadn't decided what they were going to do yet. The church music we hear here is very interesting as a lot of the songs were learned without the benifit of knowing what the music sounds like and they don't have that great a grasp of what all the notes and stuff are for. Since none of the areas we work in have the distraction of electricity we don't have a good solution yet as to how to expose them to the way it should be done. Sis Bishop played a battery operated keyboard one week and it just seemed to confuse them from the way they normally sang so it is going to take a little more effort to get them to conform. They do love to sing and have beautiful voices but it borders more on a tribal chant sometimes. Today we made our first visit to Sunday Services in Ilima as that was where we were headed the day of the wreck 3 weeks ago. We left there a little early so as be to Angie's baptism at Kyambeke. The missionaries rode with us again. Our schedule is probably going to be like this for the next few weeks with the addition of a Kilili trip every other Tuesday at least until the Primary programs are over. Primaries are probably a good place to focus however as that is where the future of Africa is at. We appreciate the messages we receive from many of our friends and family back home as to what is going on in your lives and certainly appreciate your prayers for the missionaries. Elder Kolliker from the area authority counseled us that if we could get the investigators to pray for the missionaries success that the number of baptisms here would double.