Saga

We have had a wonderful week! Monday we drove to the Mara. We didn’t get lost, except once; the road was passable, and Elder Fox enjoyed fording the few streams. The resort we stayed at—the Aruba—caters to Germans so we heard German, saw the German magazines and books, and had sauerbraten for dinner. This is the dining room.And our tent: It was a nice comfortable place, excepting the tepid shower. Our game driver was a Masaii with a good understanding of the country. It POURED rain in the afternoon. The stream we forded was now a torrent. So we went another way and slithered through the Mara to see lions, elephants, giraffes, wildebeests, water buffalo, and lots of DLA (Deer Like Animals. I’m borrowing that phrase from the Jamesons; it’s so useful.) We saw jackals, hyenas, warthogs, fox’s, and lots of vultures. As we watched, they'd cruise in for the feast-- at least a dozen of them!And some had an attitude! (This is for Miranda!) Both the evening and morning game drives were fun. With this being the end of the migration, the easy prey has left many carcasses for the scavengers. After the rains, the giraffes kicked up their heels.


We saw lions feasting. We watched a family of lions play while one stalked a herd of wildebeests. I think he was playing with them. He just walked toward them. They scattered left and right. They bunched up and pushed the oblivious ones forward. Finally the lion walked back and joined the pride.


One of the tender mercies of the Lord was that the truck tire didn’t go flat until after we parked at the Aruba. It took until our last day at breakfast to get it fixed. How many Kenyans does it take to fix a tire? One to drive the tire to and from the shop. One to fix the tire, and one to take the tire off and put it on. But for about $10 we got it repaired and it is holding and we are grateful.

We drove a second way out of the Mara to Nairobi. It also was a functioning road – sometimes wider, sometimes washerboard. I suppose it was faster than the Nairobi traffic that we hit coming into town. We spent the nights with our fantastic Employment couple, the B’s.

Wednesday we went early to the Mission office to drop off our truck for servicing. We did the usual distribution orders, records update, requests for branch equipment—like microphones, slashers and ponges (yard tools), and getting additional Seminary materials. We got our temple recommends renewed and had a great meeting with the Mission President.

In the afternoon, armed with maps, directions, and courage, we forged into the unknown and sought out the American Embassy. We wanted to mail a package, pick up absentee ballot requests, and check out the PX. Somehow, that took ALL afternoon! Well, just getting in is an ordeal. The PX was last. Elder Fox drooled over the chips, the chocolate, Jiff peanut butter, the Betty Crocker brownie mixes…. But they only took US dollars! Imagine! We haven’t used those in months. So we pooled all our shillings, went to the bank across the hall and converted them to $$ so we could spend them all. When we got to the couples flats with our horde, we discovered we will be mighty popular the next time we go there.

Thursday we spent several hours getting trained on MLS—Member and Leader Services—program on the computer. Kisumu is getting a computer!!! This is really exciting. First, there are amazing training programs on the computer. Second, now we can take care of our own finances, rolls, directories, adding and moving members, etc. The good news is we are responsible! The bad news is we are responsible! It means more work for us and much less for the Nairobi office. Likely we got the computer to keep us out of their hair. Now if we see an error, it’s up to us to correct it. The clerks should do this, but they will need to be trained first. And that means Elder Fox needs to learn it well enough to train. And I need to come up to speed on the auxiliary part.

I got my hair cut. Hurray! It was very long. We did some shopping and here you see Elder Fox with the small carts you can use. We also found a fabric store that had heavy white material that could be used for baptismal clothing. We met Elder and Sister L who just arrived in the mission on Tuesday and will be going to Eldoret. Here they are (left) with the Mission President and wife (right.)Friday we left before 8am with the L’s following to lead them to Eldoret. Bless their hearts, first time driving on the left side of the road with a left hand shift. I recognized the white knuckle experience of Sister L as it paralleled my first days out, but brother L actually did quite a good job driving. We got them a bit settled into their house, took them shopping, went out to eat, and crashed. Saturday we shopped again, showed them where the cheese factory was, showed them 2 of the chapels and they had a chance to meet missionaries, branch presidents, Pres. Kogo, the 1st Counselor in the Mission Presidency, and we got their dryer installed. We left them going to an Institute class and meeting students and teacher. We went on to inspect the progress of the young missionaries flat, and then return home to laundry, unpacking, and an early night to bed.

It’s good to be home. I feel like we’ve been away from some of the church members a long time. Primary is preparing for their program. Our Relief Society president might be moving away. In two weeks we have branch conference. “There is work enough to do,’er the sun goes down!”