It has been exciting all week knowing that this weekend we would have the opportunity again to listen to a Prophet’s voice.  We forgot about the time change in USA so our first talk Sat. night was in the middle of the first session with Elder Dube.  He was the

general authority we invited to come to Jinja and speak at a YSA fireside a few months ago.  If ever we feel lonely for the voice of the Ugandan’s we can again listen to that talk. His Zimbabwe accent is pretty close to Uganda.  If we are sounding homesick it may be because we are facing our departure date.

We will leave here Nov. 3^rd

And return to the USA.  It will

still be Nov 3^rd, when we get

back to Sky Harbor International

Airport at 6:45 PM.  

We still have 27 days to be the best PEF directors we can. We plan to implement all the wonderful talks that we heard and will hear this evening from conference.

Sunset out our front window.  We will certainly miss this beautiful setting.

Sister Casperson has been my hair dresser for the past eight months.  Her pay is in home grown lettuce.  I gave her some lettuce starts so that when we are gone she can still have a nice fresh salad.

 Rachel came all the way from Mbarara for her exit interview.  We spent the week calling PEF students and meeting with those who have graduated.  Most of the interview is spiritual in nature, encouraging them to live the principals of the gospel so the Lord can bless them "to prosper in the land" a quote taken from the Book of Mormon.

Rehema is a PEF graduate that we did an exit interview with.   Her degree was in design.  She has a business of renting wedding gowns.  She has also taken up making bouquets from the flowers growing around the church yard for the bride to carry on her special day

Beatrice and Abraham are signing their wedding certificates.  Tomorrow Beatrice will be baptized.  Abraham is already a member.  This is the wedding Rehema was decorating for yesterday.

The Hibiscus is blooming profusely all over town.

A new building in the neighborhood.  This is at the turn of Nathan's Studio.
We worry that this two story Ugandan style shack will topple over with the
first big storm.  It has rained a lot all week so this bright shiny day has the
laundry drying on the grass up front.  We found that we didn't get to exercise as much as we usually do.  With mud everywhere it was a bit discouraging.  We don't remember it raining this much last year.

We spent part of the last week in Kampala working on Exit Interviews for the PEF students who have graduated.  Some are so inspiring and have great plans for their future.  We certainly admire them and hope something that we say and give them also makes a difference in their lives.  Having the gospel of Jesus Christ to lead and guide us and them makes all the difference.  We have so much to be grateful for here as we serve the Lord the best we know how.

Commercial Street is the road that the Kampala LDS apartments are on.  This is a typical sight as there is a water spicket just down the street.  Most dwellings are upscale but not all.  You can often see folks collecting water to carry home for their use

Just across the street from the water spicket is a luxury building under construction

This is a wall around a compound that is unique as we walk for exercise.  We have learned to be more discreet as we greet people we pass on our morning walks.  At home we give a hardy "good morning".  Here we nod our head or smile and lift a hand in greeting.  The smiles we get are so heart warming.  We appreciate their kind smiles

Preparing food for the Couples fireside.  Not all food is cooked in the kitchen.  Ivan appears again as our PEF chef to over see the fixing of the food for the Sat. event at the Bugembe Chapel

Kitchen crew are preparing the vegetables for the sauce that will be cooked to go over the chapati

Chicken cut to be deep fired and minced meat (hamburger) being fried for a very nice meal to the right

Our punch from last year was a hit.  We were asked to provide it again.  Thanks to Mary and Judith who made the fresh pineapple/passion fruit juice that was the secret ingredient that made it so good.

Vilate Ssmpala leading the "What would your spouse say?" game.  Pres. and Wife Jaker from Njeru with 1st counselor and wife, Palossi and District Pres, Mbiro and wife (also youngest child of the Mbiros)

We are not going to miss the noise from this church just over the wall from our apartment.  Today (Sunday) there must have been a thousand "born agains" who dance and sing to all kinds of noise.  The round wall on the lower right is our living room.  I am standing on the porch to take the photo.  

Today we attended Iganga Banch maybe for the last time.
 The building is completed now and has the church's sign on it at last.
This was the building that was under construction 16 months ago
when we first visited here.  The Branch has grown so much and
one of the youth asked if Iganga would soon be a stake?
The teacher laughed and said we would have a Jinja Stake first
and Iganga would be part of that stake.
Could Iganga become its own stake?
The way it is growing maybe in 10-15 years.

This is the view of the chapel now.  Last year this was the construction zone
and the area to the back was used as the chapel.
Today that part is the Relief Society and YW rooms separate from each other.
By the time church started this whole room was filled.

These two beautiful birds came to visit us each morning.
They flirted with the glass in the window that is mirror like.
They were so happy to dance around from our window to the neighbor's.

I took this picture to send to Anna's son who is serving a mission in Zambia.
 The granddaughter, Angel was born just as Sam was leaving.  How she has grown.

This has been a wonderful week of realizing just how Self Reliant our members are becoming.

This has been a big overgrown field that this past week we found people digging in preparation for planting.

John Apule, Elders Quorum Pres. from Mpumudee branch waved us down and came to say "Hi".  He and his wife have a plot that they are farming.  He was so happy to be working hard to grow a garden to provide for his family.  Vegetables grow so easily here if you have a place to plant them.

Ivan passed us on his way to school.  He is a PEF student studying to be a chef.  He is so proud of his  new skills and certainly looked sharp in his school uniform.  Ivan is the father of three and his wife is preparing to become a PEF student this next year.

It's the rainy season and driving anywhere turns your truck into a deep red as you bump along on the rutted roads.

Terra is our weekly Truck cleaner.  He is preparing to leave on a mission after the first of they year when he will have been a member for one year.  After joining the church he took an interest in playing the keyboard and pretty much taught himself.  I have been able to help him a little between our trips to outlying Branches.  Unbelievably two weeks ago he played the music for Sacrament meeting and did a good job.  I was able to obtain a keyboard for him from the Harmon Music Grant.  He has been very committed and happy is an understatement.

Last Sunday after the block we were asked to drive the counselor from Mpumudde to meet with a congregation 20 kilometers from the Mpumudde branch.  They had requested that Godfrey come be their pastor.  We took the missionaries with us and we explained to them a little of who we were and what we believe.  They asked the missionaries to come back and teach them.  There are members that live that far away from an established branch but somewhat rare.  If they catch the vision and develop a testimony they could possibly become a "Group".  Haven't heard yet how the teaching went yesterday when the missionaries went back to meet with them.  Our Priesthood certainly looked like dignified men of God.

The building these 30  fine people have been meeting in was about 10X10.  Half of them had to set outside as they conducted our introductory meeting.  

Sister Ida and her husband Ibengo asked us to meet with them.  They told us that their goal is to become more self reliant and wanted our advise.  Because they are both over 30, PEF is not an option but we counseled with them and believe that next year when the Self Reliance Center comes to Uganda Ibengo can borrow enough money to take a driving course and get a driving permit.  With five children to provide for they have had quite a struggle because Ibengo  does not have a skill.  He has been a "hooker" which is a salesmen that carries a board with his items to sell on it.  Having a shop in which to sell his items  has a rental fee  too costly for them.  I saw a hooker and tried to get a picture but we were driving one direction as he walked the other and the picture isn't very good.  See below

We so admire this couple and their hard work.  One day they will become self reliant because that is their goal and Heavenly Father can't help but bless them.

Wanted to share just a little of our time with Kensie and Josh. 

I guess you'd say we took a vacation from our mission however we share the restoration with our Safari drivers which resulted in a good gospel discussion and referral for a Book of Mormon 

This is our first view of the Serengeti,  Great Rift Valley that extends through many countries not just Kenya.  We traveled along a road carved out of the mountain by the Italian Prisoners captured in WW11 by the British.  

This is what we were hoping to see - a wilder beast crossing.  No crocs or lions interfered with the safety this day.  Our guide told us only 10% who come here actually see a crossing.  We were in the 10%.

We watched this lion pawing at the ground trying to dig something up.  She finally got tired and walked over behind a tree.  We were curious so drove up to see if we could tell what she was digging.                                      Imagine our surprise when a medium size wart hog bolted out of the ground right in front of us.  It had enough of a head start on the lion that it got away.

My favorite part of this trip was visiting a Maasi village.  Recently they have been trying to comply with government mandates that they educate their children.  Guests like us pay to participate with them in their village life and that pays for the kids teachers and school uniforms.  First the men danced for us -

Then the women danced.  The clothes they wear is so vibrant and colorful.  We were surprised to find that in spite of their strange traditions they are Christians.

Here we are with our Safari guide, Symo.  We stayed in a camp where we lived in a tent that had a separate roof and a bathroom with shower and toilet.  All the conveniences of a campout plus someone else fixed the food.  

One of Kensie and Josh's friend's had told them they should eat at the Carnivore in Nairobi.   We left the Maasi Mara right after breakfast and drove straight to the restaurant for a lovely meal of croc, ostrich, turkey and the usual meats that we like except for maybe the ox balls, not a fan

Stopping for a picture as we board the plane headed for Uganda

Spent a day in Kampala then took the gals from the PEF office with us to dinner then a night of African dancing

We told Kensie and Josh they needed to see where we shopped for produce.    

Our last couple days was an excursion to see the Mountain Gorillas in Bwindi forest.    Everyone did well on the steep hike but me who for sume reason suffered from altitude sickness.  We had hired a porter to carry our lunches and extra stuff so he took my hand and helped me get there.  This was definitely the experience of a life time.

At first we were sure what we were seeing but we were close enough that eventually we could tell they were gorillas.

This was our group that hiked to visit the Mubare family of Gorillas.  We had a guide, two guards with guns, incase we run into wild gorillas, our porter and two tourists from Portugal

Heading back to Entebbbe airport we stopped at the equator.  Kensie and Josh are now back home in the Northern Hemisphere - Seattle Washington

It has been a busy week getting everything done up so we can be gone for a few days.   Thursday we drove to Kampala and set up a booth for a Public Relations hand over on Fri.  The service projects each ward or branch performed will be the turn over.  The news media will be there and we will have our secretaries there to answer questions much like the "Launch" of the website last Feb.  Many other booths will also be set up to explain our Seminary and Institute, welfare, missionary & humanitarian programs.  We hope it went well.  As for us we flew to Nairobi Fri morning to spend some time with the Kenyan PEF couple and confer with the church's finance department.   Sat. we took a P-day with the Richardsons to visit some of the interesting spots in Nairobi. 

Kensie and Josh are on their way to Kenya as I write this.   We will meet them at the airport tomorrow morning to begin showing them around Africa.  Excited is not a strong enough word.

Here a care taker is feeding this baby elephant in an elephant orphanage.  Most of the elephants are at least a year old.  They need a care giver with them 24/7 because they need mothering since they lost their mother to poaching.  At night the care giver sleeps in the stall with the elephant and his job is to keep a blanket on him.  Elephants sleep with adults elephants who keep them warm.  You can adopt one of these elephants for $50.  Then you can visit him on off hours and have your picture taken with him.  It costs $900 per week to feed an elephant so there are many who sponsor each elephant.  The formula in the bottle is human milk.  None other agrees with him.                         The elephants will eventually be able to return to the wild but not till they leave this place to learn to live in nature.  One problem elephants have is that if they catch pneumonia they usually die because their lungs are attached to their ribs which makes it so they can't sneeze or cough.  Bet you didn't know that.

Sister Richardson is asking the guide a question and the giraffe looks like he is just as interested in her question.

Elder Richardson is petting this reticulated giraffe.  he is a "reticulated" giraffe because his spots have black in them and stop at the knees.

This is Lynn, quite the friendly giraffe

Elder & Sister Richardson picked us up at the airport and took us to the offices where they work.  A ward meets on top of the mission offices

In Uganda a car is decorated beautifully with wedding bows.  None of the tin cans and shave cream used in USA.    In Nairobi they must have more money because these friends of the groom were decorating the car with roses and bows. 

Rand is standing with the finance team that services Uganda.  They work from Nairobi and are in the Church's Service Center.  It was great to sit down with them and discuss our challenges with PEF checks.  Charles on the left served his mission in Uganda many years ago and baptized some of the leaders now serving in Jinja.  Joshua is on the left and is a PEF student.

Getting ready for our Gorilla hike in to Bwendy Forest in a couple weeks we hiked stairs at Jinja Nile Resort.  I counted over 500 stairs that we went up and down.  Hope that puts us in shape.  The Nile is below me so the stairs lead down to the Nile from the Bunge Jump and the resort.

This structure is the bunge jump that the monkey is dangling from.  His purpose is to reach under the base into the cob webs for yummy bugs.  So funny to watch

For three days we did a bunch together.  Elder Hoffman is the South East Africa medical experts and a Patriarch.  He came to Jinja to give Patriarchal blessings.  Next is the Caspersons, us and the Jonson's who were the guide for the Hoffman's and the Ugandan Medical experts.   Tue. night we enjoyed a meal at Ling Ling's then had a movie and popcorn at our place which is not far away.   I learned that wearing a head scarf is hot.