Well the sprint to the finish line is picking up speed as we try to finish off a few last items before our departure in 4 weeks time. We are ready to finish up all the paperwork for our Temple Group today and just hope that Victor is able to gather all the visas at the South Africa Embassy this week. In an effort to stem the flow of immigrants from each country here, the more established South Africa imposes some rather stringent restrictions on other Africans visiting there. The Church is required to ensure via a monetary deposit that the people will only be there for the specified time but the money is credited back once the terms of the visa is satisfied. This is even the case with the young people who fulfill missions there or attend the MTC enroute to another country. We are still waiting on approval from the Physical Facilities folks to begin occupation of the proposed building in Mitini. Also this week we received word from the Dr. who reviews mission applications for the Area that he wants to wait a month on Stellamaris' application. In and of themselves these little ankle biters aren't much but as this race nears its' finish they do raise my anxiety just a little. I realize that a portion of this anxiety is the result of rather low tolerance for any who would disagree or fail to have the same view of the situation that I do (I'll try to work on being a little more tolerant but please don't hold me to that commitment). Just to add to the stress level it appears that the last baptisms we are trying to accomplish is swelling to a number of around 60 people and the few available dates combined with a deficiency of the number of white clothes is more than just a little worrying. In our visits up-country more of the members are trying to get us to visit their home before our departure and as much as we would love to do that just to show our feelings and respect time just doesn't allow us to accommodate all the requests and we are struggling to keep from offending anyone.
Our Tuesday visit to Kilili was held in conjunction with a RS Enrichment event as they wanted to teach my companion how to weave bags and blankets before she left. Whenever our visits coincide with enrichment we can count on a disproportionate number of attendees at our English Class so we just worked on singing some hymns. It is amazing how well that medium seems to bridge the language barrier somewhat and they seemed to enjoy themselves but I hope in our last few visits there the number of attendees becomes a little more manageable.
Our Thursday and Friday visits to the Kilungu Hills were pretty much the same although our English classes there have pretty well dried up with the baptism of Mamas who were struggling with the language. However there are at least 10 solid investigators that we are trying to prepare for their English based baptismal interviews so we are still staying rather busy there and our time on site is not decreasing as we thought it might. We did visit President Simon's mother in Ilima for a few minutes on Friday as she lives very near the chapel there. We scored some cups of warm milk (no refrigeration in the hills) a bag of grapefruit sized avocados and a stalk of bananas. More than we can possibly eat by ourselves so we share with the other couples here but it is touching to see their willingness to share from their meager resources and the last thing we want to do is offend by refusing their offer even though they certainly have a greater need than this fat mazungu.
Saturday I drove back to Mitini with Victor and a couple of medical folks to administer the required yellow fever shots to the temple attendees. It was their first ever immunizations and not at all appreciated by the younger ones. I was afraid my young friends would never come near me again. However I was able to illicit shy smiles from them at church yesterday so think maybe they have forgiven me already. Sure looking forward to the trip to Johannesburg and the creation of 2 more "forever families" next week. A note on the Saturday trip was when I returned the medical folks to their pick up point they asked if my immunizations were current and upon being assured that they were he offered to secure me a matatu drivers license which I think was a good natured statement on my aggressive driving habits. I will certainly have to work to ensure that those habits stay here as they would get me in a lot of trouble state-side.
Well once again the sun is up on a Monday morning in Kenya and I must cease my ramblings as we want to get the plethora of travel documents to the service center the first thing today so we can be sure all is ready for next Monday. We were then going to check the mail box at the embassy but realized that it is Memorial Day on your side of the world which means the local embassy employees are on holiday also. That does remind me that with the time required for mail to get from there to here I would encourage all to not post any letters to us after June 1st as I doubt that we would receive it. We will visit the APO one last time and leave a forwarding address on the 22nd as we finish up here but it would probably be months before any mail caught up with us as we do have a few plans elsewhere upon our return.
Sowa Sowa. Elder & Sister Bishop
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