This week we had electricians and plumbers working throughout the church and our house. That meant we stayed home most of the week. They fixed many of the problems we had endured. A sink in the foyer now drains. Our faucets no longer leak and joy of joys—our toilet is now plumbed to the tank water!!! What a delight to flush without using a bucket to fill the tank.
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Wednesday we were able to go to Manyatta to do a cottage meeting. We thought we’d go to Fred (the goat man’s) house, but instead we walked across the path to a lovely woman with her 15 year old son. He suffered from meningitis and almost died. Slowly he is recovering and can now speak and almost walk. We had a delightful visit with her! And several other members and investigators were there. She said she first thought the Book of Mormon was of the devil, but as she read it, she realized it said just what the Bible said. The missionaries had asked her to pray about it, back when she was giving them a hard time. She said as she prayed about it she came to feel it was true and now wanted to be baptized. There was a great spirit there. She is a teacher and has a pre-school of about 130 students. Many of them are orphans or have lost one parent.
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Thursday we spent a sizeable amount of time in crisis management. Two church members were at odds. It’s amazing. In a town of over a quarter million, that difficulty—the stories and rumors about it—had spread to other members in town. They had been told by non-members who witnessed some of the tiff. And those non-members were saying, “What kind of church has members like this?” So even though it was a business disagreement, the Branch Presidency and us got involved. They felt it was important for the sake branch unity that it be resolved and not allowed to reflect poorly on the church. Ultimately it was one of those justice and mercy things. One was clearly wrong, but needy and cried for mercy. One was right, and unwilling to pay more. The Branch President in a Solomon like move, said, “God will provide the needed money.” I trust he will, but God uses people to fulfill his needs and in part he used us.
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A contractor came and without level, plumb, square or any tools but a string-- and maybe a bucket? -- installed a “patio” for the baptismal font. They laid down gravel, then sand, then large pavers, then cemented them into place. It looked great. We tried to get them to enlarge the area… but something about a contract and money said they could not. However, they left a large pile of gravel behind when they were done. So Friday morning Tom went out and started moving the gravel around to fill in the sides up to the lip of the cemented pavers. We were able to get three sides up level and neat with the gravel. The 4th side is against a wall. It really looked good. I’m sorry we didn’t take a before picture so you could see the difference.
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Wednesday we were able to go to Manyatta to do a cottage meeting. We thought we’d go to Fred (the goat man’s) house, but instead we walked across the path to a lovely woman with her 15 year old son. He suffered from meningitis and almost died. Slowly he is recovering and can now speak and almost walk. We had a delightful visit with her! And several other members and investigators were there. She said she first thought the Book of Mormon was of the devil, but as she read it, she realized it said just what the Bible said. The missionaries had asked her to pray about it, back when she was giving them a hard time. She said as she prayed about it she came to feel it was true and now wanted to be baptized. There was a great spirit there. She is a teacher and has a pre-school of about 130 students. Many of them are orphans or have lost one parent.
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Thursday we spent a sizeable amount of time in crisis management. Two church members were at odds. It’s amazing. In a town of over a quarter million, that difficulty—the stories and rumors about it—had spread to other members in town. They had been told by non-members who witnessed some of the tiff. And those non-members were saying, “What kind of church has members like this?” So even though it was a business disagreement, the Branch Presidency and us got involved. They felt it was important for the sake branch unity that it be resolved and not allowed to reflect poorly on the church. Ultimately it was one of those justice and mercy things. One was clearly wrong, but needy and cried for mercy. One was right, and unwilling to pay more. The Branch President in a Solomon like move, said, “God will provide the needed money.” I trust he will, but God uses people to fulfill his needs and in part he used us.
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A contractor came and without level, plumb, square or any tools but a string-- and maybe a bucket? -- installed a “patio” for the baptismal font. They laid down gravel, then sand, then large pavers, then cemented them into place. It looked great. We tried to get them to enlarge the area… but something about a contract and money said they could not. However, they left a large pile of gravel behind when they were done. So Friday morning Tom went out and started moving the gravel around to fill in the sides up to the lip of the cemented pavers. We were able to get three sides up level and neat with the gravel. The 4th side is against a wall. It really looked good. I’m sorry we didn’t take a before picture so you could see the difference.
Here are the HE-MEN moving the font back. It's really heavy!
And here is the font on the pad and you can see all the gravel neatly spread around. Now maybe a little paint?-
Saturday we had a baptism in the new patio area and font. Tom did the baptizing.
The elders teased him that he could say he did 3 baptisms… actually it was one person, 3 times, as he was not completely submersed the first two times. It’s neat because his wife was baptized a month or so ago. Now the whole family is united in the Gospel. 
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Sunday we got up before 6 to be on the road by 7:15 to go to Busia. We did not train there yesterday and I really didn’t know much of what, if anything we’d be doing there. Except I was to play the piano. I really played pretty poorly, but they were delighted. I’m assuming angels translated the sound so it ended up much better than it began. At the end of Sacrament meeting, they said, “We have no youth teachers. So Sister Fox will teach the youth today.” Oh. Okay. So I ended up teaching Sunday School and Young Women. I pulled open the manual. Hmm. Let’s do the lesson on priesthood. I think it went well. Then the young men left and I had two young women who didn’t speak a whole lot of English. So we hope the spirit was able to teach as we discussed the Gift of the Holy Ghost and how the spirit speaks to us.
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Tom spent several hours after meetings training the Branch Presidency and I visited with the Relief Society Presidency. We were home by 6pm. We actually talked to Sue and Steve on Skype, so that was nice. And we visited with Miranda and Rebecca on Saturday. It’s fun to see and speak to those we love!
How many kiddos are in primary (sunbeam-esque?)
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