Weekly Update 3-15-09

It's Monday and time for another update. They sure seem to come a lot more frequently than once a week. Two of the young men in Kyambeke received their mission calls. Justis is going to Johannesburg and Charles to Durbin. They enter the MTC on 14 May. That leaves 3 still waiting for their calls, 1 waiting for passport so she can submit her papers, and 3 just getting started on securing birth certificates so we can initiate the passport submission. We have determined that it is best to wait until they get their birth certificates before we spend much time and effort on the medical as that seems to encourage them a little. For the 3 who are just getting started we are just working with them on the Mission Preparation Class offered by CES.

I did make a solo run to Kilili on Saturday to get the audit finished and help focus President Makiti on a few items that I thought might help he and the branch. We are also working on getting some property purchased there for a chapel and a title deed to allow a borehole to go in to support the water project there. We were back there for Church yesterday and they wanted to watch a few items on the video equipment for a part of their services. We have recently made some changes in the generator system that supports that as we had burned up a cord with a power surge so I integrated a regulator to ensure we didn't fry a TV or DVD player. The new equipment seemed to do everything it was suppose to. There is still an outside chance that we could have electricity at 2 of the branches before June. The market at Kilili has been wired for it since Dec. of 2007 just no juice yet and they are starting to wire buildings in the Kyambeke Market as they are having a district officer assigned there by the government and that event comes with electricity.

Our work at the branches was pretty much the usual. We did take the Randalls to Kyambeke on our way to Ilima as they were doing a follow up on the workshop they presented there in February. They received rather substantial rainfall in Ilima and Kyambeke on Tuesday and Wednesday evening so a lot of the members were getting their Shambas planted. We were able to teach a couple of discussions along with our usual fare. It is still dry and warm down in Kilili though.

This week will have a little variation as Elder Koelliker of the Area Presidency will be here on a mission tour. That means we will have a mission conference on Friday. That negates our trip to Ilima on Friday but we will be there for church on Sunday so they should not feel neglected.
We are still trying to get documents for members desiring to attend the temple in May and it looks like at least 1 family will make it. We are a little concerned with what to do with the others as the President is not sure he will have someone to backfill us by June. So we are just working at building the branches confidence in their own abilities to carry on independently. Sure hope it works as they really do have a lot of potential if we can just ratchet up their self confidence a little and certainly there are other areas in the mission that has need for the missionaries that are coming.

Well that kind of covers our doings for another week so will close with another African Phrase. Not sure if this one is Swahili or Zulu as I picked it from a letter received from Elder Muthoka who is serving in Durbin. It means you are loved.

Nawapenda Nyote,
Elder & Sister Bishop