Weekly Update 11-25-07

We finished teaching Joseph this week and he passed his baptismal interview with the Assistants yesterday so will be getting baptized next Sunday after church. We had a tentative appointment to teach two "Mamas" (a term of respect used in addressing any married woman similar to Mrs.) at the Ilima Branch yesterday and ended up teaching three Mamas and their three 15 year old daughters. They have been coming to church there for about two years and their English appears to be sufficient (although it is hard to tell when the group is that big and diverse) that they will be able to go all the way if they desire. We will meet with the Mamas again Friday but the girls are in school for one more week before they get their December break. Because of the distances most of the young people are required to walk to get to school their days are very lengthy and it is hard to schedule anything with them except on Saturdays. They have 30+ day breaks in December, April, and August so we need to spend time teaching those who were not baptized before age 9 during their down months. The last two years of their secondary school (Forms 3 & 4 which is 16 & 17 year olds) it is required that they board at the school only coming home during breaks and some weekends. For those who are praying for our investigators by name they are Pauline Kilungya and her twin daughters Leah and Rachel, Miriam Mutuku and her daughter Renae, and Joyce Kinini.Julius, the prospective Missionary from Kilili, did not finish up his physical until Wednesday of last week and will be coming back with us again Tuesday for some more blood work and his dental exam. I bought some motion sickness pills for him so hopefully the trip will not be as traumatic for him this time.We delivered 4 bed frames, 4 rubber covered mattresses, 10 pillows, 10 wool blankets, 12 quilts (the kind made by Relief Society for Humanitarian Aid), 20 sets of sheets, and 24 pillow cases to the Dispensary in Kyambeke. They already had 6 other beds and mattresses but only had sufficient bedding for two of them so that is all they were using. They should be able to house 10 patients in fairly sanitary conditions now. The next closest medical facility is 2 hours away by foot. We are trying to do some LDS charities support with that facility also in the hope that the thousands of people in that area will have a little better chance of sustaining life. We have some 400 hundred members that live in that impact zone.We think we have everything coordinated to deliver Mwende to her new home in Nairobi this coming Friday. We made another trip to it and delivered 4 more wheel chairs and 58 wool blankets this last Saturday. We coordinated for the proper paperwork from the village chief while there and they are expecting us to deliver her on Friday evening. I am not sure what her little handicapped mind will think of the bumpy ride strapped in the back seat of our pickup but hope that it will all come together to make the balance of her time here in mortality a little better.Our keyboard and English classes at each branch seem to be progressing with fits and starts but definitely forward. The Keyboard classes have leveled off with only the truly interested making the effort to attend now. Barb has coordinated with Salt Lake for the delivery of some more instruments so the availability for practice will be greatly enhanced. One young man came up to Sister Bishop several weeks ago and said that she was an answer to their prayers. We are starting to try and sound out words with different vowels in English now as a fair portion of the students can recognize the letters of the alphabet now. One tends to forget how truly confusing the rules for our language are until you struggle to share it with people in this situation. I find it some what amusing as I struggle to say the right things and they parrot them back. I sometimes forget and say okay now as I transition from one letter or word to another and they of course just repeat it back to me thinking it has some relevance. As I finished up discussing with Joseph in preparation for his baptismal interview he said he really appreciated when I tried to act out some of the words that he did not understand and were not in the bible dictionary. We spent 8 weeks just reading the Book of Mormon and I guess my antics to illustrate what amazed and dumbfounded meant were somewhat memorable to him. I think I am going to buy him a dictionary this week as I was really at a loss to help him understand what abortion, parole or probation, or homosexual meant as we discussed the baptismal questions.All the Senior Couples in Nairobi got together at the Mission Home for Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday. Not many butterball specials here so we feasted on roast beef, mashed potatoes & gravy, green salad, fruit salad, rolls, apple pie with ice cream, and popcorn balls. Barb did the fruit salad and it consisted of fresh pineapple, mango, papya, banana, watermellon, sweet mellon (kind of like cantalope), and strawberries. We then had some training conducted by President & Sister Taylor. The aftermath of Kenya's district run-offs (like our primaries) continues to yield deaths and injuries on a fairly regular basis. There is a chance we will be spending a good portion of December confined to quarters but are waiting on more definitive guidance from church security and the local US Embassy. As we were coming home from Ilima on Friday we got to the town of Kilome and its one street was just a solid mass of people that extended for several hundred meters. Not wanting to create anykind of situation we just turned around and went down out of the hills another way.On one of our trips out of town last week we passed an accident scene where there appeared to be at least one fatality. There was a matatu on its side in a construction zone and what appeared to be a pedestrian on the other side of the road. It was a rather sobering site and did nothing to ease my frustration with the matatu drivers that literaly dart everywhere regardless of the surrounding traffic. Remember these are vans that they are suppose to only put 14 people in but in the paper the other day there was an item where a matatu had run head on into a lorrie (truck) and there werre 8 deaths and 8 injuries in the matatu. It was a matatu that hit us head on up in the hills and require that we now bounce from one loaner vehicle to another pending the repair of our vehicle which they have been working at for some 3 months now.The upheaval in our flat continues as it was not until the weekend that the work was completed that was to be accomplished early last week. They will have to come back and finish a few bad spots before we part with any money. We did decide though that we would go ahead and get the walls fixed and painted rather than go through this turmoil of moving furniture and eating standing up again in the not too distant future. The guy working on our walls assured us he would finish up here today but I have learned not to hold my breath. The veteran visitors here have a saying of TIA (This is Africa) whenever one of the locals shows up hours after they were scheduled.Hope all who read this had a satisfactory Thanksgiving. We are truly thankful for all that we have and realize even more each day just how blessed we are to live where we do and enjoy the bounties of life that we too often take for granted. It truly baffles me as to why I was placed in the surroundings I was for this mortal sojourn as I have meant many more who seem to be much more worthy of such blessings than I. I read in D&C 130: 20-21 and can't believe myself capable of doing any better than some of the valiant souls I see struggling with life here and wonder if the "Big Guy" just knew I couldn't have made it anywhere else than where he placed me. Certainly we have some tremendous obligations since he tells us that where much is given much is expected. I had better get back trying to supply my meger offerings in the much is expected department. We love you all.