Getting warmer and more humid!

October 15-21, 2012

            We are feeling warmer weather and can tell that it is more humid.  Elder Smith who lives just below us said that one day it showed 101 degrees on his thermometer.  He said it was in the sun which to me means that it registers hotter than it really is, but it was still plenty warm.  We have had more rain.  We are glad that it rains more during the night than during the day.  We hope that continues but we will see.  We find it interesting that we are actually starting to see people carry umbrellas to shade them from the sun.  I took this picture from our balcony just to show two people with umbrellas sitting on benches in the Place.

            We are fortunate to have air conditioning in our apartment, our truck, and at our office.  At church, the have air conditioning in some of the rooms but many times they just open the windows to allow some air movement.  Normally, we fair pretty well.

             This week has settled down from last week's big Summit Conference, but we still see lots of police and military, probably more than we noticed before.  We  got stopped by a long light and there were three policemen there.  Two walked up to us and tapped on our window.  We waved and then I immediately showed my drivers license, but that didn't seem to be what they wanted.  We played dumb and they let us go when the light changed.  Maybe they were just wanting something to drink because it was so hot outside.  We are told that the motorcycle policemen are the worse to get stopped by.  It usually means that you have done something to merit it, and they are higher up the chain of importance so we are told that they have a more demanding attitude.  When we see one, we just hope they turn or go on ahead of us.

              Traffic is again back to the normal with lots of cars on the road.  I had to take this picture of two cars in front of our apartment.  Traffic is supposed to make a circular pattern around the Place, but certain drivers will take whatever they want.  If you look close you can see the arrows painted on the road telling the cars to go up and left around the square, but they continue to shortcut across to head right.

                With the Summit Conference over, they are again letting vendors back on the street.  I took a previous picture of this area across the street.  It was actually cleaned up for the conference, and they put up the fencing that they painted blue.  Most of the vendors now have umbellas.  We assume because of warmer weather and possible rain.

               We have had another good week.  It seems that our time has been occupied by not only trying to learn and understand the big picture of PEF and its many procedures, but also being forced to delve into the detail of present students, their folders and records.  Then there are the new applicants and their needs as we work with S&I coordinators and priesthood leaders.  However, we must say that getting into the individual records and the problems with reconciling them with the financial side has actually been very insightful and helpful in our learning process.    Before we arrived in the Congo, we had been in touch with Elder and Sister Stagg who let us know that there were issues in reconciling PEF records with student receipts and bank records.  As they explained a little bit about the problem, they indicated that they were working towards resolution and hoped it would be finished before we came.  As we were told of certain bank issues, we hoped that what they said was correct and that they would be resolved before we got here because it seemed that if they weren’t, it would necessitate getting us involved into the nitti gritty details of every file.  Well, our concerns were right and we have had to get into each and every file.  We have been preparing PEF records and information so that we can soon reconcile each one with bank records.  For that we have been waiting on the bank to make certain corrections and give us the detail to verify that they have things right. 

               We keep telling you that we have meetings with the bank to get this done and that done but we are learning that here in the Congo, nothing is easy.  C’est compliqué!    Even this week, we were supposed to meet with EcoBank but our account manager has been in Goma, a political hotspot for DR Congo and he didn’t make it back.  We asked to meet with his supervisor but they had something come up and postponed our meeting until tomorrow.  We hope we have prepared well, but we feel that we will raise some questions that will force us and the bank to go back and work on things to resolve them.  We will keep you posted.

               When we first got here, we were leaving the apartment most every morning at 7:30 AM.  We stayed very busy and would return home between 4:30 and 5:00 PM.  When Thembinkosi was here from South Africa, he preferred to leave at 8:30 to get to the PEF Center just before our scheduled opening hour of 9:00 AM.  We realized that leaving at 7:30 just wasn’t giving us time in the mornings.  However, now that he is gone, we seem to have worked into a compromise and we leave at 8:00.  That gives us a little more time, but our study time in the morning is still lacking.  Laraine gets her reading in even with all she does preparing our lunch and getting us ready.  I hope to get better.  She usually does baking of cookies, cupcakes, or something else for our lunches during the week in the evenings. 

 

              We still feel pressure with so much to do that we squeeze in a 15-20 minute lunch or as on a number of days the last couple of weeks, we have just pulled out our sandwiches and continued working while we eat.  We guess that is what they call a working lunch.  We just hope it doesn’t cause a problem with us eating while we have PEF students in the Center.

               We often use the term Mormon standard time, but we are learning that there is a Congolese time too.  We had a little hole in the pipe between faucets in our shower that needs to be fixed.  We thought we had things arranged to have a plumber come Friday morning to fix it.  We had been told not to expect him to arrive on time so we waited 40 minutes and then called Pascal who had arranged for the plumber and who works in the mission office over missionary apartments.  He made a phone call and called us back saying they were on their way and would be here in about 20 minutes.  We waited another hour and no one arrived.  We again called Pascal.  He told us to wait because they should be there.  Well, they arrived a little more than 2 hours late.  They apologized and went in to look at our problem.  Immediately, they said they did not have the part, they would have to buy it and come back another day.  They talked about coming Tuesday but that is not for sure.  Anyway, we find that all too often we need to be prepared to wait.

               We had a special PEF video conference Friday afternoon.  This was intended for Africa Southeast, Africa West, and Europe.  It was from SLC starting 8:00 AM mountain time but was at 3:00 PM our time.  We have new leadership of the PEF Committee with Elder Carmack and Elder Cook leaving.  The new leadership is Elder Robert C. Gay, Elder Anthony D. Perkins, and Elder Enrique Falabella.  They were presenting a new direction from the First Presidency for the PEF program.  We had been told that we would not be able to stream the video conference because DR Congo does not have fiber optic internet.  We hoped that we could get a power point via internet on the computer and listen to the audio over the phone.  As it turned out, we only saw very few pieces of the power point (most of the time we had the message that the internet connection was too slow to project properly), but we were able to listen on the phone.  We are still trying to digest the new direction of PEF and hope to receive further guidance from our area manager in the next while.  It entails some pretty significant changes in direction.  We will keep you informed as we learn more.

               This weekend has been general conference weekend in our mission.  I assume it is something like this in other areas where there is such a great difference in time zones and with different languages.  With slow internet, they wait for the arrival of DVDs of all conference sessions in French.  They then schedule showing all conference sessions in the different ward and stake houses.  On Saturday they start at 1:00 PM and show two sessions.  On Sunday, they start at 10:00 AM and show 3 sessions.  Conference is shown in each of the buildings so members don’t have to travel so far.  Transportation is always a problem.  After talking to the other senior missionaries who said it just isn’t worth attending when you don’t understand anything, we decided that we too would stay home and re-listen to conference here at the apartment.  We listened to two sessions yesterday, but actually listened to the Women’s meeting since we had not listened to that before.  And today, we again listened to conference and enjoyed hearing again the inspired messages given.  Laraine and I talked last week and I mentioned that it would be good for me to hear the sessions in French, but she didn’t think it fair to force her to sit through all the meetings not understanding anything.  Therefore, it worked out very well.  We had to download and listen to one talk at a time because we can’t download the full session at a time.  That way we only get talks and not the music which we missed.  But Laraine listened in English on the iPad and I used ear buds and listened in French on the iTouch.  It really went very smoothly and we enjoyed it very much.

             We have mentioned before about Elder Billings who teaches a construction class.  He teaches construction to meet the church's standards and comments on the poor quality of construction here.  We have always remarked about how evident the poorer standards are as we have passed this building on our way to the office.  We finally took a picture but the picture really doesn't do justice to what it really looks like.

              I just had to put this picture in because there is a bench in the park that doesn't have legs.  We have always seen people sitting on the back of the bench with their feet on the sitting part.  Well this week, I finally saw a couple of people actually sitting on the seat with feet stretched out in front of them.

 

               We enjoy talking to family each week via Skype and using FaceTime.  We talked to Ryan and his family just after he was set apart as Bishop of his ward.  We are proud of him and his family, and know that this week will be much busier.  We hope we can find a time to visit.  We also learned that our grandson, Trevor, was involved in a collision playing soccer which resulted in a broken collar bone.  Trevor, we wish you well and hope it heals quickly.  We know our family stays busy as do each of you.  We appreciate your prayers as we definitely feel your prayers in our behalf.  We wish you all a great week.

Francophonie and Preparing for Elder Holland's Visit

Week of October 8-14, 2012

 

            It’s been a wonderful week, much better than I anticipated.  The Francophone Summit (all French speaking Africa countries) has been going on here in Kinshasa and we were told there would be heightened security.  We’ve noticed a lot more police presence on the streets and a lot of military with big guns.  Even this picture from our apartment window of the Place shows police (in blue uniforms with florescent green vests) in the upper left, two upper right, one in front of monument and one below.

 

 We’ve also been warned that the party that didn’t win the elections last December would be demonstrating.  Their candidate has been under house arrest since the elections.  (What a nice way to treat a political candidate!)  The man who is in office now is the son of the past president who mysteriously died when our present leader became president.  Well, enough about politics.  Although we are trying to keep track of all that’s happening in the U.S. election process.  (I hope they don’t put our defeated candidate under house arrest.)  It’s getting closer and closer to November and we’re excited to see the results.

 

            On Tuesday we met with another bank, called BCDC Bank to see if they could to a better job tracking our students’ accounts.  After seeing the problems that continue to exist with our present bank, I’m about ready to put my vote in for the new bank.  We went with Tommy and Eduardo, our two who head the Finance Department for the Church in Kinshasa.  Tommy’s a very distinguished, quite young Congolese who serves as a councilor in our stake presidency.  Eduardo has just been transferred here from England.  He’s from Spain.  I think I told you about him in an earlier email.  His wife is from Portugal and they have 2 daughters who are going to an international school here.  (It’s off the subject, but I’m happy to report they love their school and have many friends from the Congo and from India.)  Anyway back to the bank, we walked in and it almost felt like a bank in a big city back in the states.  It even had an escalator and a conference room and most importantly they seemed to have the services we are looking for.  I’m afraid we’re a little scarred wondering if what they tell us is really what they will do.  This is BCDC bank in downtown Kinshasa.

 

 

            Wednesday, at the request of our mission president’s wife, Sister Jameson, I spent a few hours at their home showing her how to navigate a little better through new.familysearch and how to do a little research.  It was fun!

 

            As we drive to work each day I haven’t been able to take as many pictures (because of the police and military presence), so maybe I can make a few observations:

 

1.                           There is no negative connotation when you see 2 men or 2 women holding hands.  It’s a sign of friendship and quite common.

2.                           All the services we find we can’t live without at home are brought to you at your car window at stop lights that can last as long as 2 minutes.  No need for a Maverick, we have young men coming to us to sell cold pop, cold water, many have whole cardboard candy stands on their heads.  More commonly we see vendors selling pocket packages of tissue and Congolese flags.  There’s also no need for an ATM, we have other young men swerving between cars with bundles of francs.  Our PEF volunteer said that it is primarily for taxi and transport drivers who run out of change and still need to make change for passengers, or other vendors who need to make change.  These money changers charge a commission to give change so it is their business.  They will sell change to anyone but for most of us, the commission is more that we pay to exchange money somewhere so we don’t use it.  It seems that we go to the mission office to change dollars into Congolese francs because if you go to the market, hair salon, bank, etc., there will always be someone appear to carry your shopping sacks to the car, to help you park, watch over your car and then help you back out.  If you don’t pay them 500 fr. (50 cents) we’ve been told they will remember and next time you park in the vicinity, something could happen to your car.  Fun thought, isn’t it!

3.                           As we drive through the city we see a lot of crippled people (people missing an arm or a leg or people with withered limbs).  We wonder if it is from birth defects, civil wars, or something else.

4.                           We still marvel at the beauty of the people, their beautiful smiles and their straight backs (probably from carrying heavy burdens on their heads.  This week we saw a man with about 6 to 8 flats of eggs with 30 in each flat, balancing and turning his head as he walked confidently down the street.)

5.                           If the Congolese were asked to go to war (and they commonly are) and they fight like they drive, I’d hate to be their enemy.

6.                           Eloping is unheard of in the Congo.  One of our volunteers, Kabeya, has just gotten engaged and he just beams.  Kalonji, our other volunteer has just had a brother and sister get married in the last month.  Their ceremonies are very important to them.  The food they honor their guests with should be some type of meat.  Meat is a greater treat than sweet desserts.  When Kalonji was asked if anyone ever elopes.  He said, “No, they think too highly of their families to ever do that.

           

            On Friday we got an e-mail from our mission president to stay home.  We called our PEF volunteers and told them not to come in and we stayed at the apartment and worked emails from home.  It gave us a chance to get some things done that keep getting pushed aside when we are in the office.  Friday and Saturday were the days that were most worrisome for demonstrations, and we were told we didn’t want to be caught in one.  But Friday night we were invited to come to the mission home to have dinner and pick up Brother Robert Milne from So. Africa, who is Manager International  Security Africa Southeast Area.  He and another man from church security, Ron Rumble from Tooele, Utah are here to prepare for Elder Holland’s visit in 2 weeks.  We’ve had the honor of housing Brother Milne during his visit.  Rob is on the rightand Ron is on the left.

 

 

We live in U.S.A.I.D. housing and it’s very secure as we drive in the gate, our truck has to be inspected underneath and under the hood for something suspicious (I assume it’s bombs).  A lot of people don’t like all the security, but we do.  Across the street is a big square and Friday night they were setting up loud speakers, etc.  I became a little worried and asked if we could return from the mission home a little early to insure we could get into our apartment.  We got home at 6:00 and everything was just fine.  In fact with all the police presence we’ve never had such an easy time getting through town.  We went to the roof (11th floor of our building) and took this picture today.  The actually installed a big television screed that is broadcasting happenings around the Francophonie Summit.  You can see the truck that brought everything in and some of the people standing in front watching.

 

            Saturday we hosted dinner at our apartment for Rob, our church security guest, President and Sister Jameson with Ron the church security guest they were housing, and Elder and Sister Smith from downstairs came up to dinner.  This shows everyone visiting before sitting down to eat.

 

The picture shows President and Sister Jameson and our two guests.

 

Laraine made chicken pot pies which were a big hit.  President Jameson said that they were better than those he always ordered at Cracker Barrell back home.

 

It was lots of fun and the Jameson’s weren’t as intimidated as I was so they stayed until about 8:30.  It was interesting to hear about the security concerns of each of the countries here in Africa and Rob was able to explain about the DR Congo history and culture in comparison to other African countries, but it was more fun to just hear about their families and share a little about our family as well.

            Speaking of our family, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CASEY!!  We love you and are so proud of you!!

            And I hope we’re not speaking too soon, but we know Ryan will be sustained today as the new Bishop of the Stevens Creek Ward in Evans, Georgia.  We love you and are very proud of you, too, son!!

            For Val and Laberta, we ran into a very handsome young man, Elder Ndonzo, who served in Uganda while you were there and even while you served as temporary president.  He glowed when we mentioned your names and said to tell you that the advice you gave him to go home and honor his Priesthood has been very valuable to him.  He thanks you for it.

 We said that we went up on the roof and took some pictures.  For us it shows the big changes made in cleaning things up, in planting grass in the Place, and in making preparations for this big Summit this weekend.  The grass did not exist when we first came.  It will be interesting to see if they keep it up.

This shows the fountain but also the central railway station across the street.

This pictures shows just how close we are to the Congo River.  It is one of the four largest rivers of the world.  One place we looked shows that it is second behind the Amazon River for flow at the mouth.  Because it is always raining somewhere along the river, it does not have the fluctuations of some of the other big rivers.  This looks across the river to Brazzaville, capital of Republic of the Congo.

This shows the many logs at the dock.  Forrestry is one of the large industries in DR Congo, but everyone indicates that it is not done with conservation and planning for the future in mind.

Some say that this is the most beautiful building in Kinshasa.  It is the government building.

This is Laraine on the roof as we look across the Congo River.

 





Things continue to go well for us.  We hope we can continue to move forward.  We just had 13 loans approved for funding so we stay busy.

C'est compliqué!!

October 1-7, 2012

We have had a very good week.  We feel that we are little by little able to identify some of the issues in the PEF files and records and get resolution.  There is a phrase we keep hearing here in the Congo.  That phrase is “c’est compliqué.”  It means “it is complicated” It seems we can ask a question or ask why and how, and they always start their response by “c’est compliqué” followed by a long explanation.  It has the connotation that nothing here is easy.  We have come to that same conclusion. Nothing in the Congo is easy.  We find ourselves documenting all our research by dates, reference numbers, and verification by more than one source.  It still has to go through the various people and departments, but we hope it speeds things up by our work.  We are getting some things resolved, and we continue to work with finance, South Africa, and the bank to get our PEF records corrected and up to date.  We have meetings with two banks this coming week to see what can be done.  At the same time, we have many new students that we help get funding on their approved loans so they can start their education, and we only see this growing.  We are becoming more convinced that the busyness of our days is not just because we are learning but will continue our whole mission. 

               Our Saturday was another full day.  We went to City Market to do some needed shopping, dropped off our groceries and immediately headed to attend “Planning for Success” workshop for those getting started after attending the PEF fireside last Saturday.  Brother Mbiya, S&I coordinator, conducted this workshop.  As we said last week, this workshop continues for four weeks.  We really enjoyed being there.  We can definitely see why it is important for the coordinators to conduct the workshops because they know and understand the local culture, economy, schools, and jobs to individualize the workshop to the needs of the young people here.  There is no way we will ever know enough to teach the material making it relevant to the Congolese in the way Brother Mbiya did.  There were probably 10 people at the workshop.

 

               Immediately following the workshop, we returned home to prepare a meal to start our fast, do our laundry, and be ready at 5:00 pm to listen to general conference.  Because of the time difference and the time needed to get conferences on DVDs in French, we have our regular church (fast Sunday) meetings this weekend.  Our general conference weekend with be October 20-21.  However, we are grateful for technology and the internet which allowed us to listen to conference.  We were able to use our iPad and the KSL.com app to listen rather well.  The 10:00 am session started at 5:00 pm and the 2:00 pm session started at 9:00 pm. 

 

                 The Priesthood session is not broadcast, and I don’t think I would have stayed up till 1:00 am anyway.  I stayed up through the whole afternoon session.  Laraine fell to sleep so we have been re-listening today.  As I mention the KSL app for iPad, I must say that I woke up yesterday morning about 4:00 am and was curious about the BYU/USU football game.  I turned on KSL.com just as BYU scored before halftime to go ahead 6-3.  By then I was awake so I stayed awake and listened to the rest of the game.  I should have been too tired to stay awake for the second conference session till 11:00 but I did, so it was a long day.  Then our church block starts at 8:00 am this morning, but we enjoy the meetings and especially to hear the strength of the members as they bear their testimonies.  It has been a great day.

               Last week, Kalonji, one of our volunteers at the PEF Center, asked me if I would talk to the English club about finance.  I eagerly accepted because I enjoy things like this and thought it would be fun talking from a perspective of finance back home but asking and learning about circumstances here in the Congo.  Therefore, on Thursday I had the opportunity to talk banking and finance to the English club.  Kalonji said they like to play a game before going into their planned activity and wondered if I had a game.  I thought I could come up with something so again I volunteered.  As I was preparing, I started to worry that maybe I needed a game more appropriate to young adults so I quickly fired an email to Kara who didn’t have much time to get me something but tried.  She emailed a Jeopardy template that used math questions.  I appreciated her effort but immediately could see that it was too much math for our English club and that I didn’t have time to change it.  Thank you anyway Kara, but I used something that I had used with boy scouts, and it seemed to go over okay.  After the game, I used a power point to help me talk about money, banking, budgeting, and responsibility.  It was very eye opening as I would explain something very common back home but totally foreign to them.  It really gave me some insight into how difficult it is for families just to have enough in order to subsist.  Young people here don’t get money from parents and even at very young ages (I got the impression at barely school age) have to find some means to meet their own needs even food and clothing.  Families of those in our group don’t take vacations.  Buying a home or a car is out of the normal.  I told them that $100,000 would probably hardly buy a very modest home in the US.  $100,000 was something they could not imagine.  And savings is almost a foreign concept to them.  Some had a vague idea what plastic money is.  None knew what a debit card is.  I enjoyed my time with them and took longer than I should have.  Laraine stayed in the PEF office and worked.  She said she got a lot done but was tired and very ready to get home.

                We got home just in time to join the other senior couples to go to a Town Meeting sponsored by the US Embassy.  It was held at the home of the US Ambassador to DR Congo.  

 

Laraine was tired enough that she would have loved to stay home.  However, we thought this would be a good experience especially since they were going to address how to vote absentee in the elections back home.  We had registered with the County Clerk before we left and had received our ballots via email, but in Wyoming we have to return the physical ballots with our signed statement.  They said that if we already had our ballots in an envelope with the proper US postage, they would take the envelopes and put them in the embassy pouch which goes back to Washington DC.  There they would put them in the mail for us.  We must say that US postage was not something we thought about bringing with us.  We called other senior couples and found that Elder and Sister Smith brought stamps thinking they would try to use the mission pouch system for a single page Christmas letter.  Anyway, they were good enough to give us a couple of stamps so we were able to turn our ballots in.

               We are proud to be Americans and have the right to exercise our vote even if we are out of the country.  We feel proud just to see the flag, even if we are not the most popular in some areas of the world.

 

               It was a fun experience to go and see the home of the ambassador.  He also talked a little about the security and safety issues right now.  This is not a good photo.  It is of the Ambassador taken with my iPod.

 

We signed up on-line to receive any travel/safety bulletins while we are here.  The mission president also forwards those he receives from the embassy or from the Church.  It seems that we have been receiving two or three bulletins a week right now because of the Francophonie Summit Conference being held here this weekend.  The opposition party has given notice of protests and we have been told not to be out after dark and to avoid any places with large crowds.  We have remarked the increased presence of military with bigger guns, and more local police throughout the city.  We are not sure if it makes us feel safer or more nervous.  We would love to take some pictures, but we were told from the beginning that we don’t take pictures of police, military, or public buildings.  We have alluded to the fact that the DR Congo is trying to make a good impression on all the Summit leaders coming for this conference.  They have been cleaning up the streets and fixing things up to look nice.  We just hope it continues after the Summit.

 

              This photo shows across the street and how they put up some tin fencing that they painted blue and the next photo is taken today when it is raining (yes the rainy season is starting and we are told will get worse) and no people but shows they painted the Congo flag on it just to make things look better.

 

 

             Laraine wanted to get this photo showing all the people as they leave the gare (central railway station) early in the morning to come to town.

 

               We haven't carried our camera this week and used my iPod to take most of these photos.  The quality isn't very good and we apologize, but we wanted to document some of our activities.  We are doing well and are happy.  We hope everyone there is also.  We appreciate your love, support, and prayers.

PEF and a couple of Firsts for us.

September 23-30, 2012 

               As we said, 23 new loans had been approved.  This means that we have been busy processing the funding of the loans so the students can have their money before their classes start.  We don’t know if things are busier just before the start of each school term or if it will be busy the whole time, but we want to be busy because that means the program is working.  We want to take a minute to help you understand the PEF process.  First of all the Stake President requests and organizes a PEF fireside.  The fireside is under the direction of the Stake President and Bishops but is conducted by the Institute coordinators. We are invited to take part. The fireside is to help the young people realize that they are not stuck in the same difficult life they, their parents, and those around them have been in just trying to subsist because they don’t have the technical skills, the education and the resources to get better work.  It is to help them dream and have hope that they can have a better life.  At the same time, it lets them know that it is not easy.  President Hinckley said it is a program to help ambitious young men and women.  It is not a gift.  It is a loan that they have to pay back, and they have to work while going to school because they have to make payments even while going to school.  They are told that they will have to attend a “Planning for Success” workshop that takes one month and is taught by the Institute coordinators.  They will have homework in putting together a “Work Plan”, an “Education Plan”, and a “Finance Plan”.  They will be asked to attend a “Career Workshop” to help them find out what kind of jobs are available and what they have an aptitude for.  They will be asked to go and visit schools to find out which ones provide the type of training and education they will need and to find out the cost.  Then they have to put together a financial plan to determine how much they and their family can pay for and how much they will need to ask for in a loan from PEF. It is done in a way to help them dream but to let them know that they must be serious and committed to the process.  I only wish everyone who came to the bank for a loan would have done as much prepartation.

               After the fireside, they meet with the bishop and stake president who give their endorsement and verify their need, worthiness, ambition and commitment to succeed.  Then the young adult attends the “Planning for Success” workshop, the “Career Workshop,” visits schools and formulates the three plans.  With that done, they are ready to use all their homework to make application for a PEF loan.  The loan applications are sent to the area PEF committee for review and if deemed satisfactory they are sent to Salt Lake City where final approval for all loans is given.  With final approval the loan papers are signed and we help with the funding of the loan.  We make sure that proceeds go directly to the schools and not to the students.  We follow-up to encourage the student during their studies and training, to make sure they are keeping current with their payments, to make sure they don’t get discouraged and to answer any questions they might have.  It sounds difficult and it probably is but it is an inspired process that helps these young people do things they could never have dreamed about.  You should see the light of hope in their eyes, even when it is just getting the training and certifications to be a painter or auto mechanic or becoming a business student at a university.  It is really a humbling experience for us to be part of.

               We mentioned that Elder and Sister Moon, our humanitarian missionaries, have been working on a wheelchair project.  It has been very enlightening to see how this works and we are sure that we don’t know all that has to happen, but they have been working on getting a cargo container of wheelchairs here to Kinshasa.  They have had to work through all the red tape to get them released.  They also find qualified people and organizations here to distribute the wheelchairs to those who need them.  This is Sister Moon with the Dows.

 

 

 

                Elder and Sister Dow are set apart missionaries who travel to countries in Africa where wheelchairs projects are being done.  They coordinate training of the local clinics, physical therapists, etc. who will be involved in distributing the wheel chairs.  Four other specialists came for this project.  They are professional people including physical therapists or people trained in fitting people to wheelchairs, teaching the proper use of wheel chairs, and even teaching in how to put them together correctly.  We enjoyed having them or to our apartment for dinner Wednesday night.  We find that these are people who give several weeks away from their professional practices to come and help.

               The first part of the project is having the local people from the organizations receiving the wheelchairs come in to be shown from step one of assembling the wheelchairs, to leaning how to adjust them to the size and disabilities of the recipient, to learning how they need to keep records and follow-up if they want to participate in future projects.

 

 

This is Elder Moon with the four volunteers training in the proper use of the wheel chairs.

             

               Then they invite six recipients to come in so they can practice on them.  However, it appears that the six people chosen told others that they were getting free wheelchairs because the day they came many others came thinking they too would get free wheelchairs.  Some actually became very angry when told that they couldn’t receive one.  Some even said that they would not leave until they got one.  It marred what should have been a very happy and inspiring time as these angry and frustrated people staged their protest around the doors of our building.  Despite that situation, it really was amazing to see how such a project is carried out.

               We had our first opportunity to attend a PEF fireside.  It was held in the Kimbanseke stake center which is quite a distance for us to travel and we will say more in a minute.  It was conducted by Brother Mbiya the institute coordinator for that stake.  We were amazed at how many came to the fireside.  Most were first time attenders, but some were already in the program and ready to renew for the second year.  There were probably 50-60 young people there.  If this is indicative of what the firesides in each of the five stakes might be, it shows that this program is poised to keep growing.  Brother Mbiya did a great job.  He tried to encourage but to be realistic as to the commitment needed to succeed and the obligation to repay no matter what happened.  He introduced us and let us say a few words.  I had thought a little about what I would say but also wanted to make comment about some of the things I observed.  Well, it was much like when you stand to bear your testimony and it doesn’t come out exactly like what you were thinking, and French made it even more challenging so I came away with a bit of reality knowing that I still have a lot to learn.

               There are five stakes in Kinshasa now and we understand there will be seven.  As we went to the Kimbanseke stake center, we passed another chapel not far away.  We had just driven past some very poor areas and even where the chapels are located, they definitely stand out because of the style but mostly the quality of construction and care of the facilities. 

 

This is the center court yard for the stake center.

 

This is along the road out to the stake center but definitelly not the poorest area we went through.

We have talked about the traffic and fear of being stopped by the police.  We had our first and second encounter with the police on this trip.  They can stop you for nothing and demand to see your papers.  Then they try and get you into a situation that you will pay them just to be let go.  The first was exactly that.  I won’t go into all the details but they finally wanted $50 which they would pocket.  I told them I didn’t have that much.  I made the mistake of pulling out my Congolese Francs to show them I didn’t have big money.  They still wanted money.  We were watched over because two young Congolese Elders came by, told the police that we didn’t have the money, and convinced them to just take the Francs I had and let us go.  If I hadn’t pulled out the money, the young Elders probably would have been able to convince them to let us go without paying, but we were blessed that they came and helped.  I’ve learned a couple of lessons but we hope we won’t be stopped again.  However, with all the time we have left, we’ll probably have to face it again, but it is now fun.

               Besides all the good things of the week, our dryer stopped working.  It took several days to get someone to come and look at it.  When we found out what was wrong and how much it would cost, we let the mission know, and they determined that because of how old our dryer was, it was better to replace than to fix.  So we got a new dryer, but it was not delivered until Saturday after we got home from the fireside. 

 

 

Remember we mentioned that water to our building was going to be shut off two weeks ago and that we were filling buckets and bottles to be ready.  It didn’t happen, but it happened yesterday without being warned, and we had emptied our buckets.  I guess that is Congolese way.  The water was supposed to be off one day only.  It came back on about 7 pm and we thought we were set and Laraine started to get a load of wash ready.  It went off again.  So we had a new dryer but couldn’t do our wash.  That will be part of our week ahead.  We thought it came on during the night but this morning it was still off so we had to get ready for church without running water.  We are grateful for sponge baths and heating water on the stove in order to shave, but we made it, and water came back on after we ate lunch and we have been able to do two days of dishes.

 

We also wanted to show all the letters, pictures and notes from our family now that they are hung on the wall of our kitchen above the table where we see them every day.  We love our family.

 

This is longer that we thought.  We hope we don’t bore you.  We are blessed to be here and appreciate your love and support.

A Big Big Big Surprise!! A Loving Family!!

This week we received a big, big, big surprise that merits a blog post all of it's own.

We think we mentioned before that Elder and Sister Moon, our humanitarian couple, have been working to  get a cargo container of wheelchairs through all the red tape.  We will tell you more about that in our next post.  Anyway, Tuesday morning we were working in the PEF Center when Elder and Sister Moon brought a missionary couple, serving as specialists helping with projects like this wheelchair project, in to meet us.  They were introduced as John and Marcia Dow. 

We were happy to meet them and they started to explain that they had been in Heber and attended the baptism of our grandson, Trevor.  It took a little more explained to help us understand the big picture, but we learned that they were there attending the baptism of their granddaughter, Madelyn Tanna Hardy who is Trevor's cousin.  As it turns out, our daughter Gina and their daughter Sarah married two brothers, Aaron and David Hardy.  It turns out that they were in Gina and Aaron's home eating and helping while we shared in Trevor's baptism over Face Time.  Little did we know what was going on behind the scenes.  We were truly grateful for technology that allowed us to participate even this much in the first big family event that we miss on our mission.  We were able to visit with Trevor and congratulate him and tell him how proud we are of him.  We could tell that he was happily playing with all his cousins.  We then were able to visit with Gina, Britt, and Kara for quite awhile with some of the other family sticking their heads in.  We were so grateful for that time because we didn't feel quite so separated on a big day for Trevor.

Our children found out that they had served a mission in Mozambique, Africa and were now serving a mission from home as specialists to travel to different locations where the church has wheelchair projects to oversee the training and distribution of the wheelchairs and that they were going to be in Kinshasa, DR-Congo.

Well, it didn't take our kids long to know that this gave them an opportunity they didn't want to pass up.  We assume the Dows asked if there was anything they wanted them to take to Kinsahsa.  They quickly put together a package and actually had to mail it to the Dows who then put it into a bigger box containing tools and training booklets that they were bringing.  After they told us the connection, Elder Dow asked if they could leave some of their things in our office.  He brought in his big box and opened it.  He pulled out a smaller box and we saw that it had Britt's name and address on it.  We weren't sure what to think.  He handed it to us and we opened it revealing the big surprise.

 

We remember the kids asking us what we were going to miss most.  Although we don't remember exactly how we answered, Laraine said she would miss her black licorice and we tried to let them know how much we appreciated the trail mix they gave us for our flight over even letting them know that we were hording what little we had left.  We told them that we were being very careful not to eat too much at any one time so what we had would last.  They came up with a great care package that we didn't expect.  What a great surprise and what thoughtful kids we have.  And knowing that we now have some more trail mix, that night I actually ate more of the old trail mix than I had eaten at only one time since we arrived.

They also took time to write us littlle notes and even the grandkids wrote notes and drew pictures.  How neat it was to sit down later and read them together.  How lucky we are.  And now we will have them taped to the wall over the kitchen table to remind us of such wonderful children and grandchildren.

We wanted to thank the Dows for the extra effort they made to bring us something so special from our family so we invited them and the other four specialists coming with them to dinner at our apartment.  We didn't serve them something authentic from the Congo but we sure had a wonderful time and got to know them and the others better. 

We give a big thank you to our children and grandchildren for their love and support and for such a great big surprise.  THANK YOU!  WE LOVE YOU!  And thanks to the Dows for bringing the surprise, but especially for the service they give in travelling all over to oversee these humanitarian projects.