Our nephew Wayne Hardinger

The month of May will be remembered because our beloved Wayne Alva Hardinger died Saturday 24 of May 2014. Wayne was the first grandchild of both families, the Hardingers and the Gales. He was born July 2, 1960. I remember driving with Mom to visit Virginia and the new baby at the Roosevelt Hospital. He has grown into a giant of a man in many ways, tall and handsome, hard worker, a dedicated father who loved his wife and children and grandchildren. The Lord has welcomed him home.

Grandma Cleo lived close to the major railroad through Provo. On one visit Wayne, Donald and David wanted to get a close-up look at the train that was passing. I was outside and granted them permission to go. That train was southbound. I checked down the street and saw them watching the train. Because of the noise of the first train I didn't hear a second train going the opposite way. I ran to the street yelling their names but when I looked down the street - no boys. I thought, 'Virginia will kill me.' I got halfway down the block, certain they were dead, when the first train passed and shortly thereafter the second train passed. Standing in the middle of the road between the two rail lines was Wayne with one younger brother under each arm, all excited about the up-close and personal encounter with two trains. Wayne survived many experiences that were close encounters and made choices that helped him become great in our eyes as well as in the Lord's eyes.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell said to Elder Bednar, “I have learned that not shrinking is more important than surviving." referring to his lengthy chemotherapy.   "We too can plead with the Father, just as Jesus did, that we ‘might not ... shrink’—meaning to retreat or to recoil (D&C 19:18). Not shrinking is much more important than surviving! Moreover, partaking of a bitter cup without becoming bitter is likewise part of the emulation of Jesus”

Elder Orson F. Whitney said, “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God ... and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire”

Elder Bednar said, "strong faith in the Savior is submissively accepting of His will and timing in our lives—even if the outcome is not what we hoped for or wanted."

Elder Bednar was referring to a couple facing similar trials as Wayne and said of them,"[they] desire, yearn, and plead for healing with all of their might, mind, and strength. But more importantly, they would be “willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [them], even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19). Indeed, they would be willing to “offer [their] whole souls as an offering unto him” (Omni 1:26) and humbly pray, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42).: strong faith in the Savior is submissively accepting of His will and timing in our lives."

The last conversation I had with Wayne was just after his cancer diagnosis and he said, "I don't want to die." He also added that he would do everything he could to survive, he wanted to live. As the disease progressed he too accepted the will of the Father and his timing.

Elder Bednar's talk was a CES fireside last year. The URL is attached.

https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/print/ces-devotionals/2013/01/that-we-might-not-shrink-d-c-19-18?lang=eng&clang=eng

Kinshasa Stake Conference/Mother's Day

Today we attended the Kinshasa Stake Conference. The chapel where we attend church is also the stake center so conference was held there. Yesterday was the adult session. As always, no one seems to know what time meetings begin. I was told it started at 2:00 pm so I trusted the source and I insisted that we go early because it might be full way before the start - I should have known. We arrived before 2:00 pm. Oh yes there was a meeting that started sometime around 2:00, but the men were meeting in the chapel and the sisters were in the Relief Society Room. "Please go to the Women's meeting, Sister Cook is in there." Sister Gates and I declined; we are not in leadership callings in the stake. We asked again and again and finally there was a consensus that the general session for all adult members started at 3:30 pm. Sitting in the hot foyer the Elder Smith and Elder Gates decided to go across the road to the supermarket ShopRite and buy some bottles of water. As they returned, the doors opened into the chapel and the crowd gathered for the meeting.

We do enjoy meeting with the saints here, there is always a choir big or small, and they can produce a great deal of volume.

We have been blessed to work with many of the leaders because they are employees of the Church. The President is an area Temporal Affairs representative, his first counselor is an employee in the finance department and the second counselor is in the military and is in our ward.

They spoke in French unlike Didier's Stake when they spoke a mix of Lingala and French. Their messages were exhortations to be more faithful in their personal lives - not any different from talks that we hear in Utah. They have some unique challenges not seen in the U.S. like a dowry called a dot (pronounced "dote") which requires the man to comply with the demands of the woman's family to pay a certain amount in goods and cash as a "payment" for the daughter - the old idea that the more the man pays the more cherished the bride will be. The families of the couple arrange a meeting where demands of the bride's family are presented. President Eustache Ilunga told of some families that include in their demands the make and model and size of the HDTV and even the brand name of the shoes, bag and the designer dress they want for the bride's mother. He had them laughing, but this "tradition" has many of the young single adults wanting to marry but unable to do so because they cannot meet the demands. This is not a new concept, but it doesn't seem to be changing among the members of the Church. One leader, also a stake president, in a joking mood, compared the dot to the demands made of Isaac from the parents of Rachel. Abraham had sent many gifts to the family of Rachel as a token of their sincerity and their respect. Some also interpret the marriage laws in the DRC as requiring a "dot" because one of the official acts of a marriage is to meet in front of a magistrate and sign documents that they accept the offer made by the groom's family.

There are some parallels with "Society Weddings" when money is spent that forces the families, mostly the bride's family, to pay for a huge wedding sometimes causing financial problems for that family for a long time.

He also mentioned behaviors that are not acceptable among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There was a report that a man had some money stolen from his pants while he was dressed in white clothing to be baptized, cell phones disappearing from bags while attending church, food being taken from a church event before the event started and taken away for personal consumption, projectors disappearing from a table in the RS room, and more. He mentioned leaders who 'cooked the books" so they could get more funds for the ward, even if the funds are used to "build the Kingdom"; the rationale that it is all right to 'fudge" the numbers for a good cause. President Ilunga said, "Think again".

Sweet Ryan Dain brought roses for each of the Senior Sisters serving here and wished each of us a happy Mother's Day. He has a challenging assignment to build chapels and hopefully a temple here. Each day reveals a new challenge.

The wet season

One sleepless night with a thunderstorm raging outside, I went to the living room window to watch the lightning. I got halfway to the window and realized that I was walking or slipping in water. I turned on a light and saw a stream of water coming out of an electrical outlet on the wall. I hated to wake Mark, but when one suffers we all must suffer right? We mopped from midnight to 4:00 a.m.

This was the second "flood" we have had. The first time was when an AC unit clogged up and drained into the house. This flood was caused when rainwater overwhelmed the draining system in the flower boxes around our apartment. The rain came again the next day, and another flood to clean up. The third day it started again, so I got out the little shovel Mark bought and started digging into the beds that surround the apartment and started bailing water over the edge of the planter box down to a "patio" below. We were able to slow the flow and rest our backs from the bending. The building where we live is part apartments, level three to ten, and the first three floors are occupied by USAID. The building was constructed thirty years ago or more and the system of draining these flowerbeds worked, but as the roots have grown and clogged the holes they don't work as planned. Well I created holes deep enough to act as catch basins. So far so good.

Catch basin in flower bed just outside living room window

Bailing out the catch basin

A few days later, we had plumbing problems, so workers came in and "fixed" it so it does not work at all and the promised fix has yet to be completed. We do have a second toilet so we still have facilities. Then the tub faucet sprung a leak, so we called the mission office (they have jurisdiction over apartments) and scheduled someone to come and check it out. Didn't come when they said, so we went to the office. Some water was then leaking but it went into the tub, not to worry. Wrong assumption. When we returned at 4:30 pm the whole apartment was flooded with at least an inch of water from the front door to the back corner. We started the task of cleaning this up after trying to turn off the water into the apartment, finally finding the right valve. Elder and Sister Bybee stopped by to get drinking water and ended up spending an hour helping us mop up. Elder Bybee found the best tool was a dustpan. Thank heaven for good people like the Bybees. The Super, a local, got involved when a man that lives just below our apartment complained about water covering his living room floor. Next day repairs were made and all is dry.

The church General Conference was another great time; we were able to use a wireless modem, a projector, and a wireless speaker to host the couples for conference sessions. We were able to watch four sessions live streaming and the priesthood at 6:00 am Sunday, thus Sunday started at 6:00 am and ended at 11:00 pm, well worth it. We also attended three hours of church between Priesthood Session and Sunday Morning broadcast. Great day.

iPad and nano projector with conference image on the wall

Sister Cook asked the senior sisters to help her with a Sister Missionary Conference. Each sister gave a talk; my topic was getting along with your companion. Sister Cook instructed the sisters about the use of sacred funds among other things and gave each sister an apron she had made. The sisters wanted their picture with the aprons and they wanted to pose with Elder Smith and Elder Bybee who were wearing their wives’ aprons to emphasize that men do household work alongside their spouse and children.

Presenters Sis. Sneddon, Sis. Bybee, Missionary Training Ldr., Sis. Smith, Sis. Johnson, Sis. Cook

 

Bon Weekend!

We were able to do something different this weekend. Saturday Elder Smith played basketball, the only day he can awake and get up before 5:00 AM. He had a good time because he played on President's winning team. I was awake at 5:00 AM but my day started with laundry and Permethrin treatments for bugs in the apartment. I tried to think of something different to cook and decided to make tapioca.

The manioc plant, the most common plant in every garden here, produces the main ingredient for foufou and tapioca. We have tried foufou and it's hard to describe, but Mark calls it library paste. Leaves of the manioc plant are cooked and eaten as greens like collard greens, and the root is processed to make foufou. The root is "beaten" with a wooden mallet until it is a fine mash and then they add maïs to make it a tasteless dough. The locals prepare delicious sauces and the foufou is like bread that is dipped in olive oil. It has the consistency of homemade Playdough. It may be that the orientals made a similar dough but turned it into "pearls" that are dried and reconstituted in a liquid to make fillings thick. Our tapioca was a bit thick, but with a little (a lot) of whipped cream we were able to "smooth" it out a bit.

Saturday afternoon we joined other couples to attend a dance concert called "Rhythm in Motion In Celebration of Black History Month". Sister Ellsworth is the Director of a English Language Institute in Kinshasa and invited us to attend their concert. All the dances were accompanied by drums, even the dances that originated in the United States. There was a young woman playing a violin, first instrument besides a guitar, recorder and keyboard I have seen here - oops, I forgot the drum. The professional dance troupe displayed great athleticism and performed for about an hour and were about as energetic at the end as they were at the beginning. A couple of members were in the intermission troupe. 

  

After the show we were invited to a barbecue at Ryan Dain's apartment. He is the Construction Manager for LDS chapel projects and the Kinshasa Temple project. It looks like he is committed to work here for at least five years, maybe more. He has had two short-term helpers that will be returning to the states, giving us reason for having a social.    

The food was great, the company was great and we were able to meet Papa Norman, a Kinshasa legend. Papa is a native of Kinshasa and a member of the Congress and was a very wealthy man when a coup toppled the dictator Mobutu and put all those associated with him or his regime on a hit list. He was able to get his wife and three children on a plane to South Africa. He had worked in the airline business, so he had plenty of tickets. He was secreted aboard the plane through the catering services where he had connections. He left South Africa and went to Zambia, but had to flee when he was told that the "new" government was demanding he be extradited back to the Congo to face charges (and certain death). He then fled Zambia and flew to Washington DC and started application for diplomatic immunity. It was a long process, but he was able to live in the U.S. He is a big man with a booming voice so he sold hot dogs and hamburgers on the street. Later, with another change in DRC leadership, the charges against him were dropped and he was able to return and claim his property. While he was in DC he met LDS missionaries while he was selling hotdogs. They asked him if he would be interested in a message about Jesus Christ. The Congolese are accommodating, so he said yes.

Like many Congolese, a message about angels and heavenly visitors was believable to him. He agreed to go to church on Sunday which was a fast-day meeting and they left very confused. They decided they would find and go to a Baptist church instead. However, the missionaries did not give up on him and did service for him like shoveling out his snow-covered car and a "Secret Santa" Christmas. He and his family returned to the LDS Church.

The elders took the family to the Visitors Center and they walked around the Temple. As they walked he heard words like, "This is the true Church of Jesus Christ" and "Joseph Smith is a Prophet". He, his wife and three children were baptized in 2000.

The CEO of Westland Construction, Stan Houghton, has a son who was the missionary that taught Papa Norman the gospel. When Westland was discussing temple construction with the Church Temple department, he told them about Papa Norman and he has been instrumental in getting to the right people here in the Congo, making the process a little easier.

Dean Schick, Papa Norman, Stan Houghton, Larry Turley, and Ryan Dain of Westland Construction

Sunday we had another great adventure. We attended the Conference of the Ngaliema Stake. President Jean-Pierre Haboko works in the office next to our PEF office and invited us to come.

President Haboko consults his iPad.

We asked the Bybees if they would like to go because they knew (sort of) where to go. President Cook was also invited, so the three couples got in the President's SUV and headed out with Pascal, the Mission Office Manager, guiding us in another vehicle. It was raining and didn't seem too challenging for the first part, but closer to the chapel it became a "typical" DRC duck and dodge game. President Cook said it was the fastest time for him to make the same trip. He said it usually takes an hour and a half; today we did it in twenty minutes. We were ushered to the front row, not our favorite, but there were only six mundeles (whites) in the congregation of twelve hundred. Great meeting, but hard to follow because they mix French and Lingala at will. But the choir was a special treat. Choirs here rarely sing up to tempo, but this was up-tempo.

After the meeting we rushed to another chapel and then another chapel trying to find a baptismal service. President Cook had promised the husband that he would personally attend so after a longer-than-twenty-minute trip we arrived at the chapel to participate in the baptism of two women and one man. President Cook had conducted the baptismal interview of one of the women and had to say no because she said that she was not married. The husband and three children were already baptized (about a year ago) and President Cook wondered how that happened. The woman left in tears. Later the husband called president and explained that his wife was embarrassed because they had been married in a civil ceremony, not a big fancy public marriage. She didn't think she could call herself "married" officially. President Cook then wanted her to know that she was worthy to be baptized, and he promised to be there personally.

These little girls were at the meetings with their families, and they could all be sisters.

 

We have had a quiet evening and are ready to call it a day.

Elder & Sister Smith

The night is long and I am far from home, lead thou me on

When you cannot sleep it is forced reflection situation. One starts to think about loved ones here and passed.

The office in our apartment faces an abandoned construction site. It was "designed" to be a hotel with commercial spaces on the first floor. Only two times has there been any humans on the site but at 3:45 AM I see a guard walking around the first floor with a torch. I wonder if there are more or if this is a solo assignment.

There is another "hotel" being built out our "river" view side that has had work ongoing every day since our arrival. Our view is mostly of the back side (away from the street and river). The past few days two men have been putting a coat of "stucco" on the facia, each room has an air-conditioner installed and a swimming pool in the courtyard looks like it is ready to be filled, nice Caribbean blue, can't tell if it is tiled or painted that color. This is only one of many "hotels" being built here. It is uncertain who will occupy any of the rooms. I think it is a reaction by this "President" because a National Geographic article was very critical of the country and the lack of amenities for travelers so now there must be five or six of these thousand-room mega buildings going up along the two to three mile boulevard. I believe that this corrupt leader can skim more of the cream from these big projects than he can a "chapel" project. The government "red tape" makes a simple chapel project a twelve-year marathon. The chapels being built, five are now in process, are using a "pod" configuration so they can be built under the residential codes instead of commercial. Instead of one large chapel there are three or four pods, one a large open building to be used as a chapel with two or three buildings for classrooms, kitchen, etc. It isn't easy either but they have fewer "agencies" with their hands out (or is it under the table) trying to get a little more "grease" for the "President's" Swiss bank account.

The day begins in an hour and I don't know how I will fare with so little sleep in the tank.

I am intrigued by a fig tree that can be seen from apartment. In the six months we have been here this tree has twice lost all of its leaves and within days, new leaves are breaking out all over the tree. It is so out of the cycle of plant growth we are used to so it is quite a sight to see this tree one day dropping all of its leaves and within a week a new "crop" of leaves. 

 

There are two seasons - wet and dry. We are in the wet period. it is not a rain-forest ecology because much of the growing things in the beds around our deck are also dying mainly because there isn't enough moisture in the soil. The "soil" is mostly sand which doesn't help things grow. Produce like tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes, courgette (a lightbulb-shaped zucchini like vegetable), bananas and onions are available all the time. We spent $6 for a head of Belgian butter lettuce yesterday and you say - wow, what are we thinking - but it looks so good. We have discovered that "good" meat is available at a market called Extra. After eating canned tuna and eggs as our main sources of protein we decided to give their meat a try. We have tried meat from other stores and were not too pleased with the results but this time the meat is good. We bought some "stew" beef, a hunk of bone with some meat around it, and made beef stew for Sunday dinner, a great dish.

Mark loves marzipan and while shopping in a store called Hasson et Frères he found a 250g block of the genuine thing for $3.50, that may sound expensive but it is about the same as $6.50 a pound and it is delicious. Other finds; hot fudge sauce for $.50 a bottle also high quality, a French baguette as good as anything in Paris, and Mark's favorite pastry called a religieuse (named after a chubby nun) which he labeled even better than the ones he had while serving his first mission in France and a great baguette to boot. The bakery is called Eric Kayser and can be found in many large cities around the world. We left the restaurant after eating a religieuse and a molten chocolate torte suffering from chocolate overdose; next time we will restrict ourselves to only one dessert divided.

We have two favorite produce sources where we find excellent tomatoes, apples, cabbage, onions, cucumbers, potatoes, sweet potatoes (white flesh), carrots, bananas. There is a store called City Market where Mark's friend Amer is a manager.

Mark and Amer on the day he gave us a pickup load of food for the orphanage

Amer is from Lebanon and went to  Boston College. He has developed a promotional department where he puts items that are near expiration at deeply discounted prices. We have found many luxury products there like Nutella, Ocean Spray cranberry juice, Crisco sticks, honey, Betty Crocker cake mixes, Lay’s Potato chips, Raisin Bran cereal, Heinz ketchup, pickled onions, Ortega salsa, Orangina, canned chow mein noodles, and the list could go on. It gives us more choices of what we can eat and how we prepare it and brings in a little bit of home.

We have heard disturbing accounts of bad choices among the members. One person was caught selling fuel used to power the generator. Another was a sister going into the expats houses and stealing money from purses. One Canadian sister whose husband is here on assignment told us that they cannot stock cleaning supplies in the chapels. After supplies arrive the custodian closet is empty by the next week. Hymnbooks have to be gathered by deacons as the congregation leaves or they would disappear as quickly. Each ward (our chapel has two wards) has their own set of hymnbooks and guards them carefully. The Gospel Doctrine teacher left a projector in the Relief Society Room where the class is held and he went right back to retrieve it. It was gone not to be seen since. I guess things like this happen all over the church, but it is disappointing nonetheless.

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

The dearly departed

Tribute to the dearly departed, Elder and Sister Moon

When we arrived in Kinshasa six months ago we met all of the couples one at a time as they hosted us for dinner while we acquired the necessary stuff to make a meal. Our situation was also complicated because the truck assigned to us was "totaled" earlier the same day we arrived. We were chauffeured around by missionary couples until a "suitable" replacement vehicle was found, which took about a week. As Elder Moon was taking us to church he also tutored us on how to "drive" here. I remember the counsel he gave to "stay in the middle lane". It has proved to be the best advice (the police seem to "work" the left lane and the far right on the big boulevard. All the couples were generous and provided enough food that we could "survive" (we actually thrived).

Our apartment is "5A" and the Moons' apartment was "5B". They have been constant in their friendship, sharing and service to us. We shared many a meal at their table as well as great conversations and testimonies.

The Moons left on Thursday the 16th of January at 5 PM (the departure time was 11 PM but it is always good to be "early" because traffic jams and tedious procedures at the airport can fill that "extra" time.) The Moons' were a little late returning to "the compound" and we were all waiting to say goodbye. They had been to their office to complete last-minute items and to help the new couple, the Johnsons, with details of the humanitarian program which had been their work for eighteen months. We sent them on their way with a rousing rendition of "Called to Serve" part in English and part in French.

Our memories of the Moons include chocolate cake. Sister Moon shared some of her chocolate cake, to die for. Elder Moon is a great bread maker and their lasting legacy is showing us where to buy freshly ground wheat flour.

 

Their Congo experiences spanned the emotional continuum from joy to fear, being towed by the police with them inside their vehicle, seeing how water projects bless the lives of people in remote areas, how more newborn babies survive because the hospital personnel have been trained to perform resuscitation to clear air passages, how wheelchairs can bless many, vegetable gardens and many more projects.

The last day was their signature. They served faithfully until Thierry's  truck was headed out the gate to the airport. (Thierry is the Fleet Manager for the Church in Kinshasa).

Bless them, they will be missed.