One Drop at a Time.

The minutes of this week have been like drops of water-- crystal clear and vivid as they come. Then when they splash into the pool of the past, they are gone. They become indistinct, vague, and merged into the stream of mingled memories. To pull them back is like trying to find that one drop again. A week ago seems so distant.

We had the joy of having Elder and Sister B from Kitali come and visit us on Monday. They are new in their area and wanted to see what we are doing here. It's interesting that each area is different even in the mission. We took them to visit a less active sister. We went to a strong member's "hotel" for early dinner and then to their house. And we came home in the rain.

Tuesday we went to Dunga Bay and took the requiste number of lovely photos- plus some. The Charcoal boats come in from Uganda. Here's this barefoot guy carrying a 200# bag of charcoal.We then introduced them to the Jubilee market. Sister B loved the fabrics there! Not sure about the smell. Elder B. and Elder Fox had a good visit with the Branch President and then we taught institute.

Wednesday they left before district meeting. I gave a training on faith there while Elder Fox did... er, ah... heres where the murkiness increases... something important. Maybe it was to help the Branch President from Busia get his passport. Or maybe it was a meeting with the Young Men's presidency. You see how the weeks just blur together? OH YES! I remember! The passport was some other day. Wednesday Bro. N from Nairobi came to train on tithing settlement and to work on the computer. They trained from 10-2. Then they had lunch provided by the excellent branch Elders Quorum activity.

They did a fun activity with a plate, 6 strings and a glass of water:
The strings represented scripture reading, keeping the commandments, prayer, sacrament attendance, service, and I can't remember the last one. The glass represents each person and the water inside is the spirit. When we have all these things balanced well, we keep the spirit. When one fails, the plate tips and we "lose the spirit" and need to call for it to be refilled. They made it trickier by starting outside the building and then having the 6 people walk the water up the steps (all 40 of them).After, they had a good meal.

After lunch Bro. N, the BP, clerk and Tom trooped into our house to fix the computer. They poked at it, proded it, changed things, reinstalled things-- and left about 7 pm. And still we can't connect the computer to our modem or have sound.

Thursday was spent getting stuff for the computer and changing out the lock in the Clerks office so it could go in there. And alas, the next morning when we started it up, we couldn't get past the Administrator login. I spent hours downloading a program so I could download and burn a CD so we could discover the password. Didn't work. I actually got into the guts of the computer system (by the grace of God, I'm sure) and discovered there WAS no set password and set a password-- no luck. Changed the password (using the one I just made so in that place the computer recognized it-- but it would not recognize it at the log in site. So now we have no working computer for the branch. Sigh.

Thursday was fun in that when we went to the bank to pay our rent, a lady asked about the church and we invited her to church. Then we went to visit someone we'd missed at church and learned she had a testimony, but also had an abusive husband that prevented her from coming to church. However, she's shared the gospel with her co-workers and Elder Fox gave them each a Book of Mormon. (And one came to church on Sunday.) And we went and visited a great sister. We took boda bodas and we...er...forgot exactly where she was. So we got some exercise before we found her.

Friday Jackie cleaned the house. She usually comes on Wednesday, but it was a national holiday. We left her there and went to help a member pick up fish from the fishery to take to her fish pond. They are guppy size but will grow larger than your hand in about 6 months if fed properly. We hope it will be a good money making business for her and her widow friends.

Saturday was the funeral of Sister V's brother. He was quite young and died of TB of the pelvis. Did you know TB can lodge in places other than the lungs? The funeral was very well attended. Elder Fox and I spoke for about 2 minutes each. Then Sister V joined us to sing "Come, Come, Ye Saints." Who knew we'd be public singers? Elder Fox loved taking pictures of the children. Perhaps because he came to know them a bit he was deeply saddened rather than angry that they gave him memories in the form of scratches on the truck as well as digitally. Check a future blog for the posting of the children. It rained a bit... and since I didn't understand 90% of the speakers, we visited.

Elder Fox decided to give you a glimpse of the Voice of Salvation and Healing Church preaching. The man in the suit is the preacher. The one in the white shirt is translating from Luo (mother tongue) to Swahili. At one point, when I asked for a translation he was talking about keeping the youth close to home and not letting them go out partying and to bars. Another preacher of this denomination spoke in English and said good doctrine.

Today the primary performed the sacrament service. They were wonderful! It may not have followed the format of the Sharing Time program, but there were excellent talks on honesty, families, and faith. We had about 15 Americans from the Reach the Children foundation who enjoyed seeing the children participate. And we enjoyed their excellent piano playing and full harmony singing.

And there you have the river of our week.