Weekly Update 10-9-07

Okay we are a little late this week. We did get some portions of conference on the computer but not without some time and effort. With the 9 hours difference of our time and Mountain Time the sessions were available here 7-9pm & 11pm-1am on Saturday and Sunday. Because all of the couples here in our apartment compound work through the charities router and the generally reduced capabilities of the internet available here we listened to the first session until it cut out in the middle of Elder Uchtdorf's talk. I stayed up and was able to get all of the Saturday afternoon session. Sunday was a bust though as none of us were able to get any of the morning session and I was not able link up to the afternoon session until Elder Nelson's talk and did get President Hinckley's thoughts at the close. It is not broadcast in any of the chapels here so to all appearances it was just a normal Sabbath to the East African Saints. That meant that we did travel up to Ilima for services there. Sister Bishop was concerned that I might fall to sleep after staying up so late the previous evening but I assured her that my adrenaline level necessitated by the driving conditions was not going to let that happen. We did stop and pick up Mwende, the little crippled girl we mentioned previously, on our way up the final mountain so she could be at church with us. Not sure what her little spirit gets out of it but the saints there will surely be blessed for all they struggle to do for her. The couple serving in Eldoret was here for the weekend and rode up with us to see what it was like. They are the Scott's from Ogden, Utah and have been here for 16 months so were able to share some information on successes they have had. Two of the couples here have changed out over the last few weeks. The PEF couple, the Bushes of Ogden and Washington, Utah, were replaced by the Lewis's from the Denver area. The LDS Charities couple, Ann and Morgan Harris of Las Vegas were replaced by the Pococks from Northern Virginia. We are no longer the newest couple here but as their respective calls were just for 18 months we will still have the privilege of seeing them off on their return home. Our schedule is fairly established now with Tuesdays being in Kilili, Thursdays are at Kyambeke, and Fridays at Ilima. Our Sundays are spent at the branches on a rotating basis so that we visit each on every third Sunday. We will continue to spend a couple of Saturdays to support special activities and meet with Pres. Makiti, the school teacher. Because of the time and effort spent by the young people to attend school (several of them actually live in dormitory situations in other locations through the week) most of their activities or confined to Saturdays and then only once a month. The upside of this is that the next generation is a lot more familiar with English. Our current English students generally range from their mid 30s to mid 70s and it is a challenge to feel like we are really making progress with them but we do see some positive things happening in their lives. I know you are wondering why the church just doesn't include them in their translation efforts but there are so many variations of their language that the decision was made to just use what ever their colonial language was prior to their liberation and for here that is English. I am aware that a review of the above schedule does seem like we have a lot of down time on our non-travel days but the preparation required to provide them with the support materials they need (remember there is no electricity) takes up most of the time here in Nairobi. We are going to be spending a few hours at St. Mary's Hospital helping in their pharmacy section starting next Wednesday and we will tell you more about that once we know what it entails. We did host the family home evening for the couples this week and I was able to down load an MP3 version of President Hinckley's Sunday morning address off of LDS.org so we listened to that then had brownies and ice cream. I will close this week with some facts from the Mission's monthly newsletter. There are currently 51 young missionaries (4 sisters & 47 Elders). They were blessed with 45 baptisms last month. They currently have a teaching pool of 646 progressing investigators with 280 with baptismal dates. We are the only couple that really has an opportunity to do any teaching of investigators as all the others work in areas where there are young missionaries assigned. Almost all the teaching is done in a chapel so that the investigators can see that there are no 'black magic' areas. One of Satan's tools in this area is to spread the rumor that the LDS are devil worshipers. How ironic is that? One young member in a rural area was expelled from his primary school recently because he would not renounce his Book of Mormon. Well that is it for this week. Please remember the missionaries everywhere in your prayers.