A Week of Thanks

We had an exciting lead up to Thanksgiving. The Saturday before (Nov20th) we introduced the Worldwide Broadcast of the New Church Handbooks to the leadership of the Kisumu branch. E. Fox and I previewed the DVD the day before… the day it arrived… and we showed it the next day. It’s a wonderful presentation. One person said, “If you want to keep a secret, put it in the handbook.” But the goal is to have everyone know what’s in it—the guiding principles which, added to inspiration, will help the church run smoothly. We also spent the afternoon washing clothes, collecting things and pre-packaging flour, sugar and other things needed for pumpkin pie and chocolate pie.

Sunday we went to Busia to visit, collect open house material, and collect passports, letters from parents, copies of birth and marriage certificates and signed visa applications to take with us to Nairobi and on to the temple in Johannesburg in January. When we came home we packed and tried to get to bed at a decent hour.

Monday we were on the road by 6:30am for Nairobi. Along the way, we stopped at Lake Elmentieta to check out the lake and the accommodations. It's a lovely lake.

It’s supposed to be an excellent place to view birds. We drove down the imagination of a road and came to Flamingo Camp—a fun place RIGHT on the lake. Then we found Elmenteita Safari Camp an upscale version of a resort at pretty good prices also close to the lake. And finally Elmenteita Lodge… which is where we thought we were going when we got to the camp. This is built around a 1915 farm house and distinguished, but pretty far from the lake. Each place they were happy to show us every available room and all their amenities.

We stopped at Westgate Nakumat on the way in and scored with some triskets and wheat thins! Tom was in heaven! We also got the remaining ingredients for the pies. We stayed with Elder and Sister G who are the temporary LDS Charities couple and all-around great people.

Tuesday we went to the Mission office with a page long “things to do” list and hacked away at a number of them. We fought traffic to the US Embassy and mailed a package, bought good stuff at the PX and learned that is really isn’t a PX any more, it’s an employee’s food store and in the future we can’t shop there. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted. We had some time and so went to the Maasai Market at Westgate and wandered in the hot sun past rows of wares: carvings, scarves, paintings, masks, jewelry, wood, soapstone dishes, pots. We were just window shopping, mind you, but we managed to come away with three scarves. (I had been admiring them on the women here and asking where to get them, so that was okay.) We also got a soapstone plate, a cow-horn pencil holder, and a painting of elephants and giraffes in the African sunset. I saw a very nice soapstone carved nativity set, but we could not agree on the price.

Wednesday we hit the Mission Office to accomplish visa things and then went exploring with E/S B from Kitali. They had not seen things in Nairobi so we went to the Giraffe Center.

I like the up close and personal with the giraffes. Elder Fox hung out with the old men.
The bronze art gallery was magnificent and expensive. Did I take photos of the fine sunbird on a grass stem? No just of Elder Fox in front of the sign.
We went to the boma park (didn’t stay, dancing wasn’t until the afternoon) and the Mamba park which had mountains of crocodiles from baby to elderly, a lake the shape of Africa and half the children in Nairobi. Worth it for the 100 shilling price for residents.

This is a "crown of Thorns" plant which our guide said was the plant used for the crown of thorns of Jesus.
And they had a mural of the history of East Africa. This is of the railroad and the Man-eater Lions of Tsavo.
We got back to the Mission Office in time to meet Josephine, maker of fantastic bead necklaces, and collected our year’s supply of those. Josephine has an amazing life story and shared a bit of it with us. She is also kind enough to volunteer to teach someone in Kisumu how to do these necklaces so they, too can prosper.
Elder Fox was kind enough to "hold" some of the necklaces for me.

I made the pies in the evening. We have “Barbie” stoves—small apartment sized with only one rack, so we farmed out the other pie to the missionary couple next store to cook for us. We shared the aroma!

Thursday was a perfect day! We actually slept in a bit, then went to Pres Broadbent’s about 11. We visited, chatted, talked, and shared with all the senior couples. We had 12 couples there—just missing E/S B who were at the Johannesburg Temple with 21 people from their area. Did I mention we visited? We also ate a fantastic banquet cooked by various couples.

They couldn’t find a whole turkey, so they cooked parts… and it tasted great to me! I had cooked radish for the first time. Tasty. After the main course, we had an activity where each couple shared something that defined or illustrated them. Most couples also shared a talent—a skit, a song, etc. We learned how to dance “Cotton- Eyed Joe” and did a credible job of it. We learned how to teach a primary song and got an apron full of song illustrations.

We teared up at “I’ll be Home for Christmas” sung by Elder P who had sung with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. One of my favorites was a couple singing “There’s a hole in the bucket” with the elder singing the part of “With what shall I fetch, fix, mend … it” lying prone with a hat over his face and with convincing disinterest in the fetching/fixing process. When the song came around to the beginning again instead of fixing, fetching, mending…. He suggested they just go on a mission! Tom and I did a reader’s theater that we’d seen our Atlanta Georgia Mission President and wife do on our last mission. My singing and dancing are iffy, but I can read.

After deserts and more visiting, we sang through all the Christmas carols in the Hymn book and finally departed for the couples flats at nearly dark.

Friday we went to the Mission Office early again to finalize seminary and institute manuals for next year and stuff at the distribution center. In spite of our list, we forgot a few things. But we did meet with a sweetheart of a sister in our branch. He seems like a nice young man.

This is the Upper Hill Chapel and part of the Mission Office. It's a lovely building.

At 10AM we began our Couple Conference. It is so good to share and learn from one another. One brother has really been working hard at assembling steps to take to go to the temple. Sometimes it seems like there’s a conspiracy to not release information until after you really needed it. Usually it’s done with a surprised air…Oh? You wanted THAT information? Even though you thought you’d asked for it specifically 5 times. (Such as when the Public Health officer arrived 3 hours late to give the Yellow Fever shots and said, “Oh, don’t you know that all women of child bearing age need to be pregnancy tested first?” Hello. Wouldn’t that have been nice to know ahead of time?)

We learned more about the lessons on receiving revelation through prayer, reading the scriptures and attending sacrament meetings that the missionaries are giving as part of the refined Preach My Gospel lessons. And we had a spiritual feast reading 2 Nephi 31 verse by verse and discussing it. It was billed as a 10-12 meeting that lasted until 2:15, but no one cared that it went over it was so great. (Except the LDS Charities couple that had a 3pm meeting across town. But they made it.) We discussed problems and concerns and got directions which way to go. We left the meeting feeling so uplifted, like we could conquer the world… or at least whatever concerns we faced. We ate pizza, packed the truck with all the manuals and such, and then went to shop at the Hilton arcade.

Sister B. had written all kinds of pricing and notes in her notebook so when she found something, she was sure it was a bargain (or not). Other missionaries indicated the best stores to shop at, and we got some Maasai blankets cheaper than any place else. We also bought a phone. You see, our phone conversations began to consist of “Hello Hello? Can you hear me?” “Hello. Hello? Are you there?” Er. No. They couldn’t hear us. Fortunately James told us exactly what model to buy, so we just had to find it. Well, that and learn to use it.

Friday night the couples gathered together again over salsa and scones, again just to visit. You see we have couples from Mombasa and Dar Es Salam in Tazania as well as the three distant couples in western Kenya—Kitali, Eldoret, and Kisumu who don’t get to visit with other couples much. We learn we have the same… and different problems. We share joys and successes. No one really understands what you’re experiencing as well as another missionary couple does. We’d learned to fill out the visa forms, but they’d been safely locked away for two days. So we stayed up far too late Friday night filling them out. They had to be black ink, block letters, and letter perfect. As it got later, I had more problems with the “letter perfect” part.

Saturday morning we visited with the B’s just back from the temple, and then headed home. We dawdled a bit and stopped to admire the tea fields.

We came home to find that we actually had water! Hurray!!! Great joy! Delight! It didn’t start coming in until Friday, so it’s a good thing we were gone for the week. And now we have a page long list of things that need to be accomplished here! And we are eager to get to work!