Where did January go?

Usually January is a very slow month in Utah: cold, snow, cabin fever, longing for seed catalogs and anything spring. Here in the Congo, the Christmas decorations were finally removed around the first of February and the advertisements for Valentine's Day has begun. Is it because there is a strong Catholic population here or is just for the expats?  Well January has disappeared from the memory and now we look forward to March. Why March? We will be making a trip to South Africa to attend the training for the "roll-out" of the new Perpetual Education Self Reliance initiative.

We seldom see a bicycle, the man-powered kind but lately we have seen several. We wonder how they stay alive in this traffic. 

I dropped my cell phone (I have never had a cell phone but we are required to carry one). It was in the parking lot of our apartment complex and it hit in such a way that the screen shattered and sent a shard into the "brains" of the phone. I now have a new one and we have a new learning curve because it is not the same as the first one-not easy for a cell-phone impaired person. So some of the pictures we want to share were taken with the new Samsung phone.

For the past month we have participated in a Family Search Indexing training on Saturday. Sister Mary Clare is in charge and asked that we help. Mark's language skills saved the day again. I could remind him of how to do it and he was able to explain it to the group. Each week a different ward in our stake sent priesthood members to learn how to index. 

The first week was one of frustration because the Internet was impossibly slow so the next week we took our own internet mobile device, same problem slow response from the Church site and by the third time we had loaded batches of records from Belgium before we went, we had a great time. Mark also brought a nano projector, it is about the size of wallet, also battery power. We were able to project the computer image onto the wall making it easier for all to see what was going on. Mark's High Priest Group Leader who works at the U.S. Embassy joined in for a very effective class. The local brothers picked up on the indexing immediately and seemed to enjoy participating as you can see.

Another LDS family living in Kinshasa because of work (he works for USAID) invited all the senior missionaries to dinner at their home. They have three children, two girls and one boy. President Cook and Sister Cook were also able to join us. It was a welcome evening with all the grandparents in the room having an opportunity to interact with three wonderful children.

There are so many different plants but most are hidden behind dirty crumbling walls that surround most all properties. The white flower is near the entrance to our office. It has the look of an orchid, beautiful. We met President Haboko as he arrived and in his jovial way had us laughing as we entered the building. He likes to speak English and he also likes to josh with Mark who gives as good as he gets. When he wants to make a point about what is right, he starts speaking in Lingala - game over.

The Church has hired a landscape company and they have been working for weeks to "mow" the grass. They try to use an electric mower that is maybe 1/2 inch above the ground. There are many slopes around the chapel and SI building so last Friday they were using machetes to cut grass, it works but boy it is hard work.  

We are amazed at times what these people carry on their heads. They take offense if you try to take their photo so we try to do it without being observed. It is often others around that start yelling and shaking their fists at the white dude with a camera. This method develops great posture from all that "core strengthening".

We went to Shoprite when a bus full of preschool children were visiting the store. They were seated on a curb and a photographer would take several children with him into the store and  took pictures of each child somewhere in the store. They were so cute and the supervisors let us take some pictures and they like all students were wearing uniforms.

We hope Spring comes soon for you.

Mark & Elaine