June 8, 2014 - Clark

Sunday, June 08, 2014

The weekend report for Saturday and Sunday is pretty uneventful.  We spent the morning cleaning our apartment.  It was a challenge because the power was out all day.  This is a regular occurrence and yet we have pretty reliable power from around 6:00-11:00 pm.  We have to recharge all of our electronics and we have a regular charging station setup for that purpose.  2 iphones, 2 computers and 2 ipads.  Who would have thought that mopping all the floors would be the highlight of my morning?  The smell and the feel of clean is a welcome event here.  I couldn’t do the laundry, one of my jobs, due to the power outage.

In the afternoon we went to a late lunch at the pizza restaurant at the Zoo which is in our neighborhood.  We invited the senior sisters, Sister Riendeau and Sister Anthony.  They are both from the Tri-cities area in Washington and worked together in the Temple.  Sister Riendeau is from France originally and this is her second mission.  Sister Anthony was married to Gary Jaggi from Brigham City but later divorced.  She is originally from Tremonton and was a Bear River Bear.  I believe her maiden name was Smith.  They work in the mission accounting office and I’m glad that’s not our job.

They were our wheels for the weekend because the other senior couple, the Clawsons went to Likasi and Kilwezi again this weekend.  After lunch, we came back to our apartment and played 5 crowns together until we ran out of daylight. (around 6:00 pm)  We spent the evening watching a couple of videos.

Sunday we went with the Clawsons and the senior sisters to Nyashi Ward for Ward Conference.  The choir was practicing outside as we arrived.  They were supposed to start at 10:30 but people just kept coming and coming and the priesthood moved into the chapel before starting the lesson; good thing they did, the chapel was 2/3 full by the end of the lesson.  I’ve mentioned before the faithfulness of the men.  This ward is in Justin’s stake and it was a delight to see him in his element.  Around the mission office, he has to speak a lot of English and holds his own, but as the stake president he was a commanding figure.

The sacrament meeting was translated from French into Swahili and neither is very close to English.  We did recognize the sacrament, but it put a smile on my face when they used the water trays without lids to pass out the bread.  There is no scrimping on the bread they give you a sizeable bite.  You can still feel the spirit of the meetings and the children are always curious about the white people who show up, but it is a challenge not knowing the French language.  We read along with the gospel doctrine lesson and the teachings of the presidents during priesthood, relief society and Sunday school.  I have also taken up Ensign reading during meetings.  No one seems the least bit drowsy and I don’t want to set a bad example as the American High Priest who can’t stay awake in meetings.  

This afternoon we were invited to dinner by the McMullins who were hosting a dinner for returned missionaries.  These are missionaries who have served with the McMullins and are living in the Lubumbashi area.  A couple of the missionaries brought their wives, but marriage is a challenging proposition for returned missionaries here because of the Labola.  It is a system of paying for your wife through a set price or dowry.  President McMullin said they actually call it an invoice and the girls promote it because they like to boast about the price paid for them.  He said they never show “Johnny Lingo” here.  It is a practice the church is trying to overcome but tradition is strong and it’s the reason many of the returned missionaries aren’t married.  They generally seem to marry later than one would expect.  

Although we didn’t understand much more than we did from sacrament meeting, we enjoyed being together with the returned missionaries and the McMullins.  They have taken us in and we’ll be sad to see them leave.  They even sent us home with their car.  Things here are shared and not possessed.  

We’ve had a good weekend are looking forward to the new week.  We’ll try to keep you in the loop as we travel but we’re unsure of the connectivity we’ll have.  It may be quite a bit more sporadic but we’ll try to keep good notes and take lots of pictures of our travels.  

Love, Dad