The good… the Bad

I think there’s an advantage to a failing mind. You don’t remember the difficult… but the glow of the good lingers somehow.

This week was spent doing some catch-up things. I inputted the Relief Society visiting teaching into the computer and I was delighted at how easy it was to use the MLS—the church membership program. I also wrote a short how to tutorial on how to visit teach. I explained that when we join the church we become the Lord’s family and need to look after each other. If a sister doesn’t come to church—find out why. Would you just wait and see what happened if your child didn’t come home? Of course not. You’d go looking for them. In the same way, we need to seek after our sisters, nourish them spiritually and strengthen them.

I also spend hours…. Hours I tell you… putting in seminary and institute students. With help from Nairobi, I think I got most of it done. There is deep satisfaction in finally getting those things organize. We still don’t have a teacher for the Manyatta class. So Saturday Elder Fox and I went over and showed a video about early church history.

Saturday was an interesting day. We had a baptism at 10 am. It was great. I love to see the happy smiles as the baptismal candidates come out of the water. Then we were to go to a funeral. However, we needed to wait a bit because someone was cleaning the church and either we or someone else with a key had to be there.

As the cleaning was going on we discovered—oh oh—no water in the upper tank. No water? Why not? There was city water. The lower tank was full. Ah. No pump. AKKK! No pump? Why not? Sigh. Elder Fox looked at the circuit breaker box. Some things were melted. That wasn’t a good sign. So he called our friend the electrician-- "Electric Isaiah" is how he's listed in our phone. The Isaiah was at a funeral up country but he agreed to come back into town. So we made a quick trip to our funeral and got back just a few minutes before the Isaiah arrived—at about 4pm.

He said the box was too small for the draw needed and needed to be replaced before he went on to the pump problem. Since parts were melted…. we had smelled something electrical a while back…. and it was impossible to turn power off if needed… and we needed water…. we decided to have him go ahead. He worked up until a little after 8pm on the problem. We lit candles. We ate by candle light. Finally lights came on. Hurray! Then he worked on the pump. For some reason, we weren’t getting power to the second floor. Anyhow, about 9pm we heard the joyful chugging of the pump. There was much joy and rejoicing as I had some fear that the pump had burned out. And, miracle of miracles—city water continued to come in during the night so that by morning, both the top and bottom tanks were filled.

Water, however, trickled into our kitchen and bathroom very slowly. Slooowwwwly. In the morning, there was not enough water pressure in the shower to power the hot water heater. So it was bucket bath time. We thought it might be air in the line. Whatever it was, by the time people arrived at church and started using the water, the pressure increased.

So the good news was we called Electric Isaiah and he was able to come quickly AND he fixed the problem in a professional way AND we got city water all night—when they typically shut it off. Great rejoicing!

And today was a good Sunday. During primary I took pictures of the children so the new primary leaders… and I… could get to know their names. This is just a sampling of some of the cute faces.

We moved forward with visiting teaching. We had a successful branch presidency training. We are learning and growing. The blessings of the Gospel continue to roll forth.

Monday we again walked to the Jubilee market to talk to the fundi making Tom's suit. The pants we had made first are an African cut-- a little higher at the waist, a little baggier. So he will revise the next ones. We shopped, we met with the Branch President, and worked on the church computer with finances.

We finally drove out to Pascal's to see his new house. While we were there, the fundi was mudding the walls inside-- taking globs of stuff and smacking it on the wall. It looked like dark cement, but I think it's a combination of mud and cow dung. Then he took a long pole and smoothed it, kind of like floating cement. Pascal has a large house now. This is Pascal. He's 16 or so, the only member in his family. If he can't get transport money, sometimes he walks the 10km or so to church. As he lives far out, he connects to the world-- or at least us-- but flashing us up to several times a day asking us to call him back. Mostly he just wants to greet us, to say "hi", or to ask when we are coming to visit. He can see the blessings of the gospel in his life-- including this larger house. We asked him, how has the gospel changed you? He said that now he has been able to find enough money for school fees-- at least he hasn't been sent home for the unpaid balance. He acts differently and feels different. And now students look up to him and he is a role model for them.