More Tender Mercies

Thursday Feb 10th we went to Sondu to see the saints there and see a Seminary and Institute class. The teachers were well prepared and the students engaged. We are so impressed with their faithfulness and their continued improvement in understanding and following the Gospel. They are good people and it’s always great to mingle with them.

Friday Elder and Sister F came our way to do audits. Saturday we drove to Busia to do training, do the audit, and hopefully see a seminary class. On the trip there, we got a call from the Mission President’s wife who was in Mombasa. Where were we? When we said on our way to Busia, she practically cried. What a blessing! One of the missionaries there was sick. She’d gotten a call he was coughing blood and having trouble breathing. Could we go and see him? Of course. What a small miracle that instead of having this missionary hours away in trouble—he was only 15 minutes away. While I taught relief society sisters how to hand sew cloth dolls and Elder F did the audit. E. Fox went and saw the missionary and dispensed fatherly advice and peppermint. After the training, we asked the one person who also had asthma if there was a person in town who was capable of helping the missionary. There was. We went back to the missionary, who was now sleeping better, and connected the missionaries with the sister and the doctor. After we left he went and got shots and is now much better. We didn’t get to see the seminary class, as the instructor was at a funeral. Funerals are ubiquitous here.

We have been working to get a second group—this time from Kisumu—to the temple. We decided if there were three families we’d go to the temple with them. That would mean the cost of flying to South Africa, but we’d leave our mission about a week early and fly directly home from South Africa. We thought—Is there anything we could do in a week here that we have not already done? Is there anything we could do here that would be as important as smoothing the way for families going to the temple? No. So we organized and set up and arranged for the Branch President to interview the families and by Friday we realized these families really were going to the temple. That meant we would fly home from Johannesburg.

We had planned on flying into the city where we’d have purchased a missionary car. We thought that would be Tulsa, but there were no cars to be had there. Suddenly we realized before we made our ticket arrangements, we had to know for sure where we could get a car. And the ticket should have been ordered 3 months before we went home. AKKK!

Again, the Lord is merciful. We sent out a plea to children and relatives. Catherine offered cars in Colorado. Steve offered cars in Richmond, VA. We were almost to the point of going to Colorado (cheaper car) when Andy chimed in with cars in Mississippi. That was a done deal when Jonathan offered Des Moines and Sally hinted at Southern California. So we will be flying into Jackson, MS probably around April 23rd. At least that’s the date we sent to the church travel department.

Lest you think it’s a simple thing to buy a car from Kenya, let me assure you… with the help of the Lord and a good son, it actually is! When we wanted to call the mission office of the car, our internet was down. Akk! Fortunately we had purchased a phone here and we “topped it off” with enough minutes to make the calls by phone—about 4cents a minute. Not bad. We figured a way to get the money to Andy. We figured out how to get it insured. And even called our revenue office and they were very helpful in telling us how to get it registered and get plates for it. And we did this all in a few days!

So once we figured out where we were leaving from and where we were arriving at, we asked for the tickets. Now we are waiting for that. We hope to be able to return to focusing on our mission, but everything seems to point to an urgency to tie up loose ends, review what stays or goes, and plan last events. We still have about 2 months—but it seems to be like tomorrow we will be departing.

So now, in spare moments we go through book shelves and drawers to see what we’ll be taking and what will stay. We don’t have a couple replacing us immediately so we need to write an “area book” for when they come, with directions, information, hints and helpful instructions. We need to get our families who are going to the temple passports, yellow fever shots, visas, and so on. We have scheduled a Seminary event for April 9th. And I promised to write up a schedule of events for a youth conference to be held in August. I also have two articles to write, and people to visit, and lessons to teach.

On a lovely note—the terrific heat seems to be dissipating. The weather is cooling and the breeze is nice. However, it’s been so dry some crops have failed and people are hungry. We pray for rain.