Weekly Update 11-5-07

This was not a real good week for generating new news. Our schedule is full enough now that the week really goes by fast. We took the Assistants to Kyambeke with us on Thursday and stopped off in Mitini to interview Francis and Sarah for baptism. It is scheduled for next Sunday after Branch Conference. This is probably a good time to try and explain how they do their names here. The husbands name is Francis Kimeu Wambua. When Sarah married him her name became Sarah Francis (his christian name) and then the children take his middle name for their last name so his children are Kikoko Kimeu and Evelyn Kimeu. How is that for a family history nightmare? Just to increase the challenge most of the births and marriages are not recorded. I am helping a young man get his mission application in and he has to have a passport in hand before he can send them in. His ID card lists his birthday as 00/00/1988. He thinks he was born in April but his mother, who was a single mom, died when he was young so he is applying for a birth certificate after the fact and it will be for the same date as his ID card. The branch president at Ilima and his wife are having a wedding the 29th of December. Even though they have 3 children and were married in a tribal ceremony some 7 years ago. The temple requires they have a civil certificate before being sealed and so these guys turn it into a pretty big bash. We committed to help with the cake and have come to understand that there is suppose to be one layer for the couple, one layer for the immediate family, and then one layer for the other guests (they are expecting about 400). We will let you know how that turns out next year. We taught a first discussion to Joseph (he is 60 years old) whom I have been reading the Book of Mormon with in our English class there in Kyambeke. He is pretty sharp and our reading together has helped us both understand each others accents a lot better. He is very desirous to be baptized so it should happen before too long. His wife is in our intermediate English class so will not be baptized right away but it will really help her English once we get Joseph reading the BOM with her.
We spent all last Monday in the Immigration Building and after some six hours we are now official residents of Kenya. The guy who was helping us joked that we were turning into real Africans when they completed our finger print process. For those who missed the humor there remember that we were standing there with very black fingers because of the finger printing process. There was a new CES couple that arrived in the mission Friday evening. They are staying with us in our extra bedroom until they finish their CES training at the Mission Home this Thursday. They will then depart for Kitale, which is NW of Nairobi. They are Gary and Judy Stutz from the Seattle area. Rowan was his father. He is the older brother to Ron, Doug, Linda and Laurel. For those who never lived in the Uintah Basin with the Lee Bishop Family, Rowan was the Superintendant in the Duchesne School District who hired my father to teach there and us Bishop kids used to ride the school bus with all his brothers and sisters. If the truth be known, I was a little partial to Linda as a member of the opposite sex and Mike got in a fight with Doug on the bus one night. It sure is a small world sometimes. They do not celebrate Halloween here. It was great to receive pictures of some of the grandkids in their costumes. We are still hoping to see shots of Bridger, Charlee, Anson, Eden, Bo, and Ian. We did see 17 giraffes, one ostrich and 3 monkeys on Friday this last week as we traveled the Mombasa Highway and the road to Ilima in the Kilunga Hills. The rainy season has not fully arrived yet but we have seen a bunch of it. There were a couple of days when the vehicle was pretty dirty. I am sure glad that David shows up to wash it a couple of times a week.