IT ONLY LOOKS LIKE ALL FUN AND GAMES

We had a ward Christmas Party on January 9.  These are some of the ladies in the ward that were doing the cooking. The girl on the right just recently got her mission call- she is going to Scotland/Ireland.  She is the daughter to the stake president, President Lumbama.  Her mother is the one on the far left.

We were told that the party started at 11:00 but when we got to the church there wasn't a soul in sight.  When we came back at 12:30 there were a few people.  Then we got a phone call asking if we could help transport the food from the bishop's house to the church.  Because of rain and power outages, they didn't start cooking until 11.  We made 5 trips between here and the church and finally.....

at 4:00 we ate.  Everyone just kept telling us that it's African Time.  That's worse than Mormon Standard Time.  There were a lot more people than we see at church.  We barely had enough food to feed everyone but it was delicious.  I made a potato salad but it was long gone before Craig or I got to eat.  There was rice, macaroni, chicken, sausages, coleslaw and potato salad.

If you can't tell what this is, I'll tell you.  It's the swimming pool at the gym we found close to our flat.  We joined the gym and it has pretty much everything we need, except for maybe air conditioning, but we never see anyone working on the pool.  I think it's going to be a while before it's ready to use.

Soooo, lots of people get their L's and their R's mixed up, right?

And right across the street is the local Dr.'s office.  He wasn't in the office on this day, though.

Just about 20 minutes outside of Lusaka we found this little campground that had zebras and giraffes just wandering around and we got out of our car and wandered among them.  They wouldn't let us get too close but it was kind of fun to get as close as we did. 

I don't even know what this animal is called.  Some kind of antelope.  Abe, see if you can find out what this is.

Just so you know it isn't all fun and games out here, our work in self reliance continues.  Our groups are growing in size and we will be conducting several YSA firesides on self reliance this weekend in Ndola and Kitwe.  It is an inspired program and we love teaching it's principles.

This past week I read the talk given by Elder Larry R. Lawrence at the 2015 October General Conference. It is titled "What Lack I Yet?"   I loved it although it's hard to look at your own weaknesses.  One of my weaknesses is that I look at my weaknesses too much.  What do I do about that?  Tell me your thoughts on this talk.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016

Christmas morning we had the other senior couples and the sister missionaries over for breakfast.  On the right are the Bodily's from Arizona, who are welfare missionaries and the other couple, the Groesbecks, are from Sandy, Utah.  They are the office couple and this is their second mission, the first one was to Mongolia.

These are the name tags of the sisters.  Try saying those 3 times in a row.  Sister Nyachwo is from Uganda and Sister Andreamamonjisoa is from Madagascar.  They live next door to us right  now but that changes frequently.  It is so hard to remember all the missionaries names- especially the African names.  We have been to some teaching appointments with them and they are fantastic missionaries.  We love them!

This string of tinsel was my only Christmas decoration this year.  I was kind of a Scrooge- it just didn't feel like Christmas to me.  I had to remind myself the day was not about me but about the birth of the Savior.  That really helped me put it all into perspective.  Being stripped of all the shopping and holiday cooking and parties and gift giving can really make the season a different experience.  These sisters don't have a car- they walk everywhere- and Christmas Day was no different.  

This little friend was in the shower one morning.  No big deal.  

There were two baptisms in the parking lot after church last Sunday. There were only 2 cars.  Sometimes, ours is the only car in the parking lot.  Every baptism we have been to has been held on Sunday after church so the members can just stay a little longer and don't have to make another trip to the church.  It's a long way for most and no one ( well, almost no one)  has a car or even money for transportation.

We had a flat tire and had a hard time finding somewhere to get it fixed.  It was New Years Day and everything was closed but found some guys by a gas station that tried.  We ended up having to change to the spare and after figuring out where everything was and trying to squeeze in between cars, it was done.  It only took about and hour and a half and it was so blasted hot.

I was just hanging out by the gas pump in the little bit of shade I could find.  It was so blasted hot!  I got lots of people staring at me and I'm sure they were wondering what is this crazy white lady doing?

Everyone loves to put something about God on their cars.

One thing that really bothers me here is all the garbage everywhere.  This is just about a block from where we live but very typical.  Plastic water bottles are a big problem. Some people have no water   in their homes- I don't know if that's a contributing factor but trash is a big problem- especially in the city.  No one seems to care.

Compare it to this beautiful sight we was today as we went with Elder and Sister Bodily to visit some sights for the water projects they are working on out in the bush.

In order for the church to come into a village and pay for a new bore hole (well) to be drilled, the village must come up with some of the funds.  Otherwise they won't take ownership of it and they won't maintain it.  This takes lots of time, paperwork, and negotiating between the welfare missionaries and the people representing the villages.  The Bodilys have been working in this particular area for about 6 months trying to get 6 bore holes done.  They go home in March and are so hoping to get done before they leave.  There are no other missionaries coming to take their place.

Coming to get water at the bore hole is a daily chore.  Imagine how heavy that bucket of water is on this woman's head and that's a container of water on her back also.  It is about 2 kilometers back home.

This is the school in the village..... 

And this is the bathroom.  So count your many blessing, name them one by one.

CHRISTMAS 2015

This is a Christmas party we had with some of the Elders, Sisters, and couples in in the mission. We had a dinner and exchanged white elephant gifts, and at the end of the night we watched the movie "A Christmas Carol".   It was a lot of fun.  We really enjoyed meeting a lot of the missionaries. Their stories and testimonies of how they came into the church are miracles.  A lot of missionaries are from other countries here in Africa. The Lord's hand in leading these people to the Gospel is undeniable.

A lot of  these missionaries are the only members of their family in the Church.  One sister's father became ill, and when she would call home and they told her everything was fine.  Then one week she called home and her father had died.  She was able to go home to Zimbabwe for the funeral, and she was back in like 4 days.  She  has such a good spirit about her.

   This cute Sister got my shorts as her gift.  They are a little worn out.  She'll have to take them in a bit!

This Elder got some bread in the shape of a crocodile.   He was pretty excited. 

 The next day we went to the Copper Belt area and along the side of the road are these fruit stands,  This picture doesn't do it justice but the color was unreal.   I thought of my dad-  he would be in heaven with all that watermelon.  We bought some melons, and other fruit, it was really good. 

More melons,   

This is Pres. Manasse Tembo, he is the Second Councilor in the Ndola District Presidency  He is also the Self Reliance Specialist for the District. He joined the Church when he was like 15, served a mission and has a strong testimony of the Gospel, This is his little boy Amon, cute little thing. He said he named him after the Book of Matthew, where is says Manasse begat Amon,  We looked it up, and  Chapter 1, verse 5, says Salmon  begat  Booz!  This could be a great name for a future grand kid! hint hint!  His wife just joined not to long ago,  They  hope someday to be married in the temple.   His Mom is not a member but we went and visited her; what a great lady. 

She has a little store in the neighborhood.  It's about 6'x 8', clean and very well organized.   Notice his home- no ceiling, but really clean inside.  We love working with him.  Great man.   We attended his Branch on Sunday before Christmas.  When we got there he asked me to speak,   I thought I would probably only need to fill in for a few minutes.  After all the speakers concluded, they left me 20 minutes.  Nothing prepared, so I just followed the spirit! Before I got up I asked Terry if she would bare her testimony,  GOOD LUCK ON THAT.   Anyway it went ok, I guess. 

4 days before Christmas we went with 2 other couples on a Safari!  This is a picture of the sunset, can you believe it?   Not a lot to do the week of Christmas- not much training we can do, so President approved, even encouraged us all to take a little break.  We had a ball. It was about a 4 hour drive out of Lusaka.  We stayed in these little huts, ate great food, and saw lots of animals. 

 Two brothers hanging out. It was kind of freaking me out.  We were in an open vehicle and all these guys had to do was jump up and grab ya and yank you out, and have some diner. 

End of another great day.  You can't believe these sunsets.  And to think we took these pictures!  

We love the Gospel, we wish all our family and friends Merry Christmas.  This is a special Christmas to us.  We miss everybody, especially the grand kiddos.   Nana asked Pops to do this post, so forgive me for all the mistakes.  MERRY CHRISTMAS.   LOVE NANA AND POPS.  

SETTLING INTO LUSAKA

We have such a beautiful backyard.  No need to worry about cutting the grass or watering anything.  No shoveling snow.  Also, no dryer- I do have a washing machine but no dryer.  I also do not have a dishwasher or a disposal.  It's such a rough life.  The laundry smells wonderful and everything is nice and crisp.  I actually love hanging my clothes outside to dry.

Crocodile burger..... Yum.  Not kidding.  There is a crocodile farm here in Lusaka and they sell crocodile meat.  Why not?

We finally got ourselves a GPS and it has saved out bacon.  Once we find a the place we're looking for, we save and then we can always find it again although sometimes it takes us down some crazy roads.......

like this one.  I think it was just a shortcut but we were hoping our GPS knew what it was doing.  It did.  Going through some of the villages and compounds is just a maze of  dirt roads and it's impossible to tell where you're going.

And this is what we were trying to find.  The Lilanda Ward is renting a home that they use as their church.  This is the chapel.  We came to meet with a return missionary who is trying to get his school on the preferred list for the Perpetual Education Fund.  I just love the return missionaries here who have so many challenges but are doing their best to become self reliant.

We took another trip to Mothers Without Borders to take the kids a little treat for Christmas.  About half of them were not there.  They were sent to spend the holidays with extended family.  Normally there are 32 kids living there.

Rice Krispie Treats, of course.  They had never had them before.

This is my friend, Patricia just stirring up a little nshima for those sixteen kids- everyday.  Isn't she beautiful?

Another bug to add to our collection. This scorpion is just a little bit bigger than the one that Craig stepped on at Lake Powell.

This is Kasnos Paradzai.  He is our self reliance manager- an employee of the church.  He lives in Zimbabwe and covers all of Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia.  He is one hard working guy, always traveling and trying to solve problems.  We would be lost without him.  He was here just last weekend and had a flight to go home early on Sunday morning.  We got a call from him about 7:30 AM and his credit card wouldn't work (which is very common here) as he was trying to check out.  He needed 51 kwacha (about $5) before they would let him go.  Craig ran to the hotel to give him the money and the minute Craig walked back in the door at home, Kasnos was calling again.  He had been pulled over by the police for an improper lane change and they wanted 1500 kwacha ($150) to let him go.  He didn't have it so they took him to the police station and were going to impound his car if he didn't come up with the money.  Elder Salmon to the rescue again.  He talked policeman down to 1000 kwacha and even gave him a Book of Mormon.  They became fast friends.  What a guy!  What a missionary!  Maybe Craigville isn't such a bad place after all.

This lady is crushing rock up gravel.  It is all done by hand and then separated into different sizes.  It's a common sight in one part of Lusaka but it's a hard way to make a living.