Thanksgiving Week

Monday started early, 5 a.m., and the rain was light and gentle. When it rains here, the reactions vary from panic to hysteria among the pedestrians and especially drivers. Traffic is bad normally but on a rainy day locals drive their cars like pedestrians, rushing to and fro to avoid the rain, speeding, ignoring traffic cops and frenetic honking as if they don’t want their vehicles to get wet. They don’t stop for pedestrians caught out in the middle of the rain. Two hours later the rains are getting really serious and now I’m worried that our “pond” is full and spilling into our living space. My favorite rainy activity is to mop up flood waters.

Yesterday we attended Stake Conference. All the stakes in the South East Africa Area met in their own buildings to participate in a South-East Africa Area Conference. The message was a digital conference with the messages being produced in Salt Lake City and transmitted on disk to each stake for a one-time only showing. Elder Gay, Sister Jean A. Simmons, Elder Bednar and President Uchtdorf were the speakers. It was very specific to the needs of the members and leaders in this area discussing cultural issues that have hampered the spiritual growth of the members such as “bride price”, entitlement mentality, “we are poor”, you, the Church, are rich so the tithing should be coming from the church to us. If needs be we will take a job with the Church so the money can flow to us. Each talk reminded the members that they are responsible - not the Church and President Uchtdorf stated plainly, “the bride price” must end. There were other specific charges for the members that were so plainly stated that it will be interesting to learn what the members’ reactions were.

The expats were able to listen to the “Stake Conference” in English so afterward, Sister Johnson wanted a picture of her with the other expat sisters because it was her birthday.

The rainy season can be really hot but the rain acts as a great swamp cooler. One morning through the partly cloudy sky the sun came up with great color, even clear enough to see the blue sky also. Worth a picture or two.

We have two Fast Sundays left, time is flying by (mostly.)

As part of the Kinshasa Stake Conference, President Eustache Ilunga asked me to conduct a three-hour session on Saturday with the stake and ward auxiliary leaders. Well three hours sounded like a long time for someone that doesn’t speak French well. I thought that it would be all right because if I prepared for an hour, it would take another hour for the interpreter to translate it. We decided to have three groups discuss what each auxiliary could do to help the children, young women, and mature women to understand what they need to learn and do to be able to enjoy the blessings of the temple; that would take another 45 minutes, so I held out hope that they would cancel my part, but to no avail. With Mark’s help I tried to read some of it in French but what you really want to happen is to create interaction, so Missah Tarr, a graduate of the University of Utah and a Liberian, was my translator. Good experience but a relief to have over. I refrained from taking pictures because I thought it inappropriate, so I will treasure the mental pictures.

Sister Sneddon’s favorite holiday is Thanksgiving so we are having a full scale dinner late evening. I get to do the pies. I don’t know when we will have the time to do it all and still show up to the office because it is not a holiday in Kinshasa - but we will give it a go. An eight-pound turkey costs about $45 and I hear they are doing four of them. I will return and report the outcome.

Counting our Blessings

The past few months have been similar to the previous 14 months so how many stories can one write about the "police", the unfinished buildings, the bad roads, the torrential rains yada yada. Well things are changing at least for us. the couple-count is down to three (in order of "longevity") Smiths, Sneddons and Johnsons. President and Sister Cook have a different length but will be leaving July 1. There is only one couple scheduled to come in March

When we arrived the Smiths ("one") were the "senior" senior couple and had 6 months left. Now we are the senior Seniors finishing in 10 weeks with much left to do.

I have been asked to organize the Auxiliary training for the Kinshasa Stake in conjunction with the Stake Conference November 22 and 23. The task didn't seem overwhelming at the time, but I'm getting a little nervous about trying to meet the needs of eighty French/Lingala speaking sisters when I having a hard time saying bonjour.

Mission trivia:

The massive unfinished building across the plaza from this apartment has a new corrugated metal fence. It was shiny aluminum; good, I thought, something different. But when we got back from the office, the fence was painted Kinshasa blue. Now remember this fence is rather long. I would estimate its length to be 10 good Provo blocks long and it was put up and painted in 3 or 4 days. Something is happening here. Rumors attribute the "action" to rich "East Indians" that live in East Africa. They were purported to have started the project 8 years ago and some "partners" sold space but left the country with the money, not unusual. Now they are going to "finish" the building.

Because two apartments were closed we now have a clothes washer that works, a stove that doesn't smoke, an extra fridge (each is smaller by half than our one at home) and plants from the Bybees, three are orchids. Hope one blooms before we go.

We finally got to the "bottom" of our flooding flower beds. We had the soil removed during the dry season hoping that would solve our problem with water coming inside the apartment. A torrential rain proved that something else was causing the problem. When I saw river rock under the soil, I said that the ingenious drain system was plugged with a "rock". "No, we have to drill a hole in the concrete," they said. The removed the rocks and voilà a drain with something blocking the water flow. Only problem was the rock was stuck and could not be moved. Hope the rains stay down in Africa.

Three of office assistants have been released and three new ones have started. Because of the policy of limited contracts (three months) there is a lot of training going on. They are getting it just about the time they leave.

We miss the Gates who are now doing Grandparent duty helping with their grandson AJ at the Proton Medical Institute in Jacksonville, FL.

Mark has discovered portable modems for our internet and for our local WiFi - an inexpensive alternative to hard wire.

We are blessed to get to know so many great people that call Kinshasa their home. Not an easy place for them. One brother is building a home for his family of 11. We had lost power and were waiting around for the generator to be turned on. I asked him if he was installing a generator at his new house. "No," he said, "...too expensive and the fuel costs would be impossible to afford." They have power two to three hours a day or every other day depending. They try to take what they are given and do the best they can. Some just do a better job because they trust in the Lord and do all that they can to help themselves.

Mark is usually able to handle most of the vagaries of life here but on our way home we were in front of a Mercedes Bus that has a fog-horn horn that was used to let us know that he was there even though the traffic was at a stand-still and nowhere to go. He says, "Would they understand the gesture if I raised one finger, the way they do it in New York?" It was enough to break the tension that always exists when one is on the road in Kinshasa.

We made pizza for the office staff because it was Alex's last day. We made three large pizzas thinking that would feed 7 of us. But oops, someone forgot to tell the Smiths that the other call center for ldsjobs.org would be joining us, so we fed an additional 6 people. This is something that most of them had not eaten at least the way we make them. I guess it was good because there wasn't any left over.

We have had frequent visits from area and general authorities the last while. Bishop Stevenson, the Church Presiding Bishop came and met with the missionaries as well as with Church employees. Today Elder Hamilton of the SE Africa Area was in town and he will be returning around Thanksgiving for a special broadcast to all the stakes in Kinshasa. We all wonder what it might be about.

We still try to entertain ourselves with some cooking adventures. Today it was a pie. Recently we tried making Zucchini cake, cracked wheat bread, and a berry pie.

We went through the de-worming routine hoping that our stomachs would feel better, not sure yet.

And Ebola, maybe it is good that we will be traveling to South Africa to get a flight back home because there is little air traffic from "the Horn" of Africa where the epidemic is raging to South Africa. Hope so, don't want to spend 21 days in quarantine unless we are confined to our house, wonderful thought.