We have been crazy busy this week. A quick recap. Monday—Who knows. I went fast with laundry, prep for the Seminary activity, and visiting with Pres O, visiting some sisters and trying to set up a sister in a business.
For the seminary activity we invited students from Busia and from Sondu-Nyabondo. On Saturday we learned that the branches were supposed to pay for the transport. AGG. So we had to call the branch presidents and cajole them into spending their precious budget on that. Our theme was “The Armor of God” Earlier we’d made Shields of faith, Helmets of Salvation, Swords of the Sprit, loins girt about with truth, breastplate of Righteousness, and footies of paper for feet shod with the gospel of peace. Monday E. Fox lay on some cardboard and we traced a warrior and made all these parts for him. And we made signs explaining some of these things.
We continued Tuesday refining the program. We started with scripture mastery, and then had a speaker. Then the video of the Armor of God. Then we planned for them to break into groups and do skits. They were like: You go to boarding school and are busy and don’t have time to read the scriptures. How can the armor of God help you? Or you find a wallet and need money for school fees, how can the armor of God help you? Then we had lunch of sandwiches, bananas, and soda. After came games: About 15 min each: volleyball, “How do you love your neighbor?” and learning the Hokey Pokey, the Chicken Dance, and the Bunny Hop. Lastly we scheduled photos and a testimony meeting. So we worked on who would do what. While we were supposed to have someone else do institute… they called and E. Fox ended up teaching it.
We needed to pack and leave early Wednesday AM. We had a circuitous route. We went to see Bro. H. who has not been to church in months, then Ericah. Then we went to the hospital at Mbale to drop off training material for the neonatal training. Finally we visited Jane in Kakamega—an investigator. We had the missionaries with us to visit with all these people as well. We continued on to Kitale to visit with the Beechers. We got there about 6pm. We ate quickly and then the missionaries came over for their weekly night with the Beechers. They’d planned a video. Er. Power went out. So they had some games.
Thursday the Beechers and we went to Mt. Elgon. It was a lovely drive! Very relaxing and peaceful. We saw Columbus Monkeys and other monkeys and baboons. We saw waterbucks and impala.
I loved the peaceful landscape. 
We saw a great cave and a poacher… who did in an impala as we watched… from a distance. E Fox and Beecher went to check and found some snares and actually photographed the poacher and turned him in. 
In the afternoon we drove to Eldoret and visited with Pres. Kogo and then went to dinner with Pres and Sis. B and the E/S Scott from S. Africa. We spent the night at the Noble. It is a new conference center with lodging and quite nice.
Friday was zone conference. As usually it was fantastic. One quote: “Talking doesn’t cook the rice.” The missionary was speaking about how when you come in in the evening you may talk and talk about whose cooking dinner…. But it doesn’t get the job done. We had a great talk on symptoms of stress and how to reduce stress. We also learned about the importance of attitude (see 1 Nephi 17: 1-3, 21-22 to see same situation, different attitudes.) and about how to become converted missionaries.
After zone conference and lunch, we visited with Pres. Kogo while we waited for E. Beecher to give two patriarchal blessings. It’s awesome that we now have someone approved to give patriarchal blessings to those going on missions. Then they visited with Pres. K. I thought no problem. We have time to get home. Then we forgot E Fox’s suit coat and had to go back. Then there was this AWESOME rainstorm with hail and thunder and water so thick you could hardly see. And I began to think I misjudged the time to leave. We did get home after dark. Ugh. The Beechers were faithful and followed us all the way. We finalized plans for Saturday’s activity and crashed.
Saturday we were up really early to do the final set up and get things organized. We needed to buy the food for the lunch before people started arriving. We really had no idea how many people were coming, in spite of asking for numbers. We thought maybe 45 total. We actually had 45 youth plus about 11 legitimate leaders and maybe half a dozen others who showed up. The youth had a great time.
After the activity we were really bushed… although there was a high from a job well done… and a job being over (well done or not.) However, there was a farewell for us later that evening so we went to that. It was heart-warming to hear the kind remarks of the members. They will really miss us. And we will miss them. They are remarkable people. Again we got home after dark. We had to stop and buy more bread as we’d used up all our bread for the extra people at the activity.
Today we had more fond farewells. The Beechers did such a lovely job of sharing the gospel here. They bore their testimonies and gave such perfect comments. In Branch counsel they were right on in their comments. It’s so great to have another witness of how things should go. Branch counsel ran the best I’ve seen it. The branch is moving forward in a good direction. After church we helped people with family group sheets to send to the temple and visited to make final arrangements with those going in April and to keep those going in August on track. Sundays are tiring because often we don’t eat or drink from 8:30 to about 3 or 4. And then tonight, there was a problem with a leaky sink that had to be fixed as water was running over the floor. And the pipe on our shower has moved from a spiffy 90 degrees from the wall to a sagging 45 degrees and continuing south. It will have to be fixed before we leave. We can’t have a new couple arrive to that.
So we are finished with the last major project before we leave. Still have things in the area book to do… and packing… and some updating of branch lists… and visiting… and….the internet is down again and we are back to the wireless modem... and...
Good night. It’s too late to think of these things today.
No comments:
Post a Comment