Kasungu

We were in Kasungu, Malawi the past 10 days organizing 

a large group of people who want to join the church.  

There are about 150 people, all non-members, who have been

 meeting together for several years and have been converted

 to the restored gospel through online teaching and their own

 study of the the Book of Mormon and other available

 church materials.  We have been assigned to hold 

Sacrament meeting and Sunday school there and evaluate 

whether missionaries should be sent there to

 teach and baptize them and form a branch.  

We rented a school building and worked to

 find housing for us and some Elders this week.

  Quite an experience!

Kasungu Mountain next to the town of Kasungu. 
The white spot near the bottom is a large mansion which was the home
 of the first president of Malawi.  We'll have to tour it sometime.  

Some of the vegetation around the area.  With the rainy season upon us,
 people are planting maize and some of it is up about 4 inches.
 It rained for about an hour or two every day there and when it rains it really pours!  

We had to stay in a hotel (the only one in town).  It was nice enough.
 This is the view from our room.  Kasungu mountain in background.  

In Kasungu, many people ride bikes.  Here's a shot of many bike taxis.
 Kasungu has about 88,000 people but is quite a small town with a main road
 about 2 kms long where all the businesses are.  

Grandpa couldn't resist trying to help the groundskeepers with
 starting the lawnmower.  Couldn't get it going without tools.  
Told them to replace the gas but they didn't take me up on that.

Our two waitresses at the hotel.  We teased them about their boyfriends
 and really enjoyed them.  Often we were the only ones in the restaurant.
 This was just about the only restaurant in town to eat in.  

We found a large hall at a Secondary school that they were willing
 to rent to us for church.  A cleaning crew of about 30 people showed
 up to help clean it up and prepare it for Sunday meetings.  

Our first Sacrament meeting and Sunday School in Kasungu.
 There were 138 people attending, only 3 of us are baptized members.
We had to teach them that we sit together as families because they
 were used to having all the men sit together, women sitting together, and children.
  We asked two people to give talks and they did a great job. 
 Grandma also gave a good talk on the correct name of the church. 
 Translation was needed for about 70% of the people.  Grandpa taught Sunday school
on the Doctrine of Christ and Grandma taught Primary (48 children)

  We found a nice new house that would be good for us.
 We are negotiating with the owner to rent.  Not many options here. 

  This little guy, Wisdom, stuck very close to Grandma as we toured the house.
  He never uttered a word but he sure stayed with us. 

When we returned to Lusaka, 6 young missionaries flew with us
 for transfers and going home.  The President only had the van so 9 of us
 with all our luggage were stuffed in.  Everyone was holding suitcases on our laps.
  Pretty funny.

Forgot to add that while in Lilongwe, about 2 hours from Kasungu,

 we stayed one night with the Fakalatas, another missionary couple.

 They are so fun to be with.  A family from our ward in Lusaka also 

were there visiting so Elder Fakalata got us all singing.  

Mongu MNC training

After a week in Lusaka working on projects, attending zone conference,

 and taking care of mission office responsibilities, we loaded up our

 truck with equipment for the maternal and newborn training and headed

 to Mongu in Western Province.  A 7 hour trip with about an hour on some

 very bad roads.  The training was fantastic and the team of Doctors and

 nurse from the U.S. were excellent and fun to be with.  

Sister Eme... had taught Sister Olson how to make Nshima and these sweet sisters
 asked if they could fix Nshima for our dinner so Sister Olson could show off
 her new found skill.   It was so good!  We loved it.    

Had a great Zone conference and were taught well by Pres. and Sister Whiting
 and the leaders.  

Completely loaded up our truck with the equipment for the maternal and
 newborn care (MNC) training and headed to Mongu.  

Our little bungalow we stayed in.  Surrounded by mango trees.  

Because there is no branch of our church in Mongu, we decided to attend another church.

 The first church we attended was a large Pentecostal church but was more like a rock concert.

  So we went to the United Church of Zambia and had a nice service with a great choir.

  But we weren't accustom to the preacher yelling his message the whole way through.

  We went back to our room and held our own short sacrament meeting with a very good spirit.  

Training the trainers.  The first three days they train midwives from all over the
 province on mother and infant care, focusing on postnatal bleeding and
helping the babies breathing.
 It is very hands-on training using the equipment provided by the church.  

These are the trainers. 
The team from the church and 5 from the midwives association of Zambia.  

The first graduating class.  The next two days these instructors taught students
 from the local nursing college.  They did an excellent job.  

The auditorium lights were all burned out so had to use phone lights at times.

We finally went and purchased some new light fixtures because
 there were no light tubes that fit these lights to be found in Mongu.
 The electrician just improvised and put in the new lights
 without even turning off the power to the lights.  

While we were there, we visited a Food Security project that the church has sponsored.
  The Church teamed with Catholic Relief Services who did all of the on-ground support.
  Farmers and mothers were selected (100 households in each of 3 districts).
  They all received training to increase productivity and nutrition, seeds
 for 8 different crops, and how to set up village savings programs.  

This headman showed us his rice field.
 He said after receiving training he prepared his fields very differently
 than before and it helped his rice better survive the drought we had last year.  

The church provided treadle-pumps to be shared between 1-4 households
 on the program.  They used these to pump water to their gardens.
  Their gardens produced more and helped them have a greater
 variety of food with better nutrition.  

Grandma's little friends in the village.  They love having their picture taken and
then looking at it.  She tried to get them to sing a song but they were too shy.

We were able to sample cashew fruit from a tree by our lodge.
 The cashew is inside that end that looks like a cashew.
 We tried to break the shell but it was very, very hard.  

Our Thanksgiving turkey!!
 The only thing we could find that was on the traditional
Thanksgiving  menu was mashed potatoes and they were really yummy.
 We bought this watermelon and mango with a cashew fruit for a gobbler.
 Great Thanksgiving with the USA team.  

Running Up and Down

This week has been full of taking missionaries to immigration,

 Dr. appointments, and airport.  We were able visit a couple of projects

and did lots of financial paperwork.  Some challenges

with power outages so we ate out a few more times than usual.

  Because of last year's drought, the dams aren't producing much power.

  Some missionaries are without power from early morning

 till late at night.  Quite a challenge for keeping food from

 spoiling and for cooking.

  But it is amazing how resilient our missionaries are!  

Picked up missionaries arriving from Malawi.  Unfortunately we waited
 for 2 hours for one missionary to get through immigration.  He never made it and
 had to spend 2 days/nights in the airport jail, then had to fly back to Malawi.  

Loading up sisters and helping move them during transfers. 

Sisters Tuiaki (Tonga), Finn (Nigeria), and Mahe (Tonga).
 They are quite the characters.  Such fun personalities. 

Grandma loved the flowers on this tree.  

We got two long, steady, hard rains this week so our rainy season has officially started.
  These kids were so excited to gather some bugs that emerged from the ground.
  They fry them up and they said "They taste nice!"   We aren't convinced.

The Sisters next door did a heart attack on our front door.
 Sister Darkwa, (Ghana) and Sister Emezirinwanne (Nigeria) and
 Sister Olson ( Utah) did it.  Sister Olson was sick so didn't make the picture.
  We put Sister Darkwa on a plane to Lilongwe, Malawi.  

Visited Nyabombwe School to inspect the latrines and teacher's house that are finished
.  Hopefully now they will soon get two paid teachers to add to the head teacher
 to teach the 180 children there.  

Completed Nyabombwe 2-teacher house.  

The Nyabombwe garden.  Much of the garden died because their borehole
 stopped working for a while until they could get it repaired.  

Today was the Primary Program in the our ward. 
The 15-20 children did great with their songs and talks.
They were really cute.  Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.  

Mwachisompola Health Clinic Handover

This week was full of many office duties including airport runs,

 flat repairs, accident reports, getting supplies,

 teaching at missionary leadership council, monthly report, etc. 

 The highlight was the handover ceremony at the

 Mwachisompola Health Clinic.  World Vision put on

 a big show with about 500 people there, including

the permanent secretary of the National Health Ministry.  

The Church donated hospital furniture including these beds and medical equipment. 
We gave them their first ultrasound machine in the entire district.
 Most of the project was supported by World Vision.
 They built the maternity clinic and a new water system.  

We were told the program started at 9 a.m.but, it got started at Noon.

  So we tried to find ways to pass the time...

Young boys posing for us.

Before the program a group from the United Zambia church sang.

  They were really good.

Lots of impromptu dancing by the young boys

 before the program started.

When the dignitaries arrived, they were escorted in by this group.  

We found a member of our church with this group.  

There were about 500 people from the surrounding area who attended. 

This group of nurses kicked off the program as they sang the national anthem. 
We have learned enough of it to be able to sing along with most of it now.
  It's really a nice song!

Some locals performed a few dances. 

And more dancing after the program 

while dignitaries were touring the clinic.

Just to show that we do other things besides going to programs,
 here's a shot of the missionary truck that was hit by a bus.
  Lots of paperwork and repair quotations and insurance work.

Visiting New Schools

This week we visited 6 new schools and hope

 to start a project with one of them.  Got our contractor 

started on the Twikatane health post and the Bauleni school.  

At one school they really had to pump hard and a long time
 before water would come out.
 Hope we can just do a bit of repair work to make it better.  

Grandpa trying to learn their language.  They thought that was pretty funny.

They hold classes here for Grades 1-3 because the closest school is very far.
 55 students, one teacher.

Inside of that thatched classroom.  No desks, dirt floor.  

The community had two shallow wells.
 This boy is pulling up the water to water the cattle. 

Words in their language for counting.

Work at Twikatane.  The church is building a health post
 and the community is building a staff house and latrines.
 We are racing to see who finishes first.  They got a head start already. 

Twikatane with Chuma, our contractor

Such beautiful trees here.  Sorry for the washed out picture through our windshield. 

At month end, we get all the power and water bills paid
 and input all the vehicle odometer readings and gas cards replenished.
 Also dealing with accident reports for two accidents
 of young missionaries this month.  Thankfully no one was hurt.