June 7, 2015 - Shelley

June 7, 2015

We’ve had a frustrating week that ended with one of our best days ever!  Who could ask for anything more?

It feels like we have LIVED at the Ministry of Health Building.  Every official in several of our projects has an office there.  And let me just say that one might expect a building with “health” in the name to be the picture of sanitation.  Well, no.  The windows are broken out, junk is stashed everywhere, it reeks of unattended restrooms, and it’s just plain filthy!

BUT we’ve come to love several of the poor, underpaid people who have to work there.  And on Friday, after making three unsuccessful visits there on Thursday, everything magically came together!  All the people we needed to see were in their offices, the red tape in our projects disappeared, we got the signatures we needed – it was a very rewarding day!  We know without a shadow of a doubt whose work we are doing!

Last Sunday afternoon, Sister Draper and I went to one of the apartments of young sister missionaries and conducted a 4-H class, so to speak.  I had taken some “ambrosia muffins” to them a few weeks ago, and they have been pestering me ever since to teach them how to make them.  It was quite hilarious because they know very little about measuring or baking.  Sister Draper and I demonstrated while they took a video of how to make the muffins.  Here they are with their cameras making a video.  They were

quite pleased with themselves in the end, and we had a fun time together.

I was reminded that we were still in the

the Congo when Sister Mbala grabbed my box of supplies as we left and carried it out on her head!

We’ve really enjoyed our new home in

the mission complex.  I’m enjoying it

even more now that Ilunga, the gardener/guard, trimmed all the flowers off of the jasmine bush in the front of our house.  Anyone who knows me will understand.  Jasmine is apparently used in many perfumes.  It blooms at night and is HUGELY fragrant.  I had to resort to holding my breath anytime I was near it – so things are much better now!  Ilunga spends most of his time cutting and trimming the growth around the complex.  It’s easy to see how it would become a jungle if left unattended.  Everything grows like crazy!

Clark had another episode at the lumber yard as he and the contractor gathered materials for phase II at Kamweneja School.  The ladies who run

the lumber yard think he’s wonderful.  Me, too!

It’s pretty funny to see the lumber stuffed into an old van for delivery.  But anything is legal as long as it has a red flag on it! haha

Our English class is full of very nice missionaries who can’t speak a lick of English!  ☺ And I’ve just about given up

on calling them by name.  Most of their names start with either a “K” or an “M”.  Examples from this group:  Kapinga, Kasonga, Katumbayi, Kumakele, Kapanda, Katabuyi, and Kajingulu.  PLUS there are two sisters who are companions:  Kabangu and Kabongo!

And they struggle to say “Davis”.  Seriously, it’s “Dahvee”  or “Dayvee”.  However, we have a few missionaries from Madagascar – and those names really take the cake!  Rakotondrabe, Randrianirina, etc.  It could be worse!

We were recently contacted about a crisis in the prison in Mbuji-Mayi.  Out of 911 prisoners there, 200 of them have tuberculosis!  Some NGO like UNICEF is providing the necessary medications, but in order to help them recover, the prisoners need more than one meal a day (that’s what everyone usually gets).  We put together a proposal for one meal a day for 200 prisoners for six months.  BUT – this is when we know that we don’t understand anything – we found out that the prison itself was only built to hold 150 prisoners!  So it’s virtually impossible to separate the sick people from the well ones.  So I’m not very confident that the extra food will make a difference.  It’s so tragic that these conditions exist!

We don’t have many opportunities to be involved in actual missionary work, as I have mentioned before.  However, we met a woman on the street who asked us about our church.  It’s quite an amazing story, actually.  Anyway, Clark and I attended a missionary discussion at her home.  Two sister missionaries led

the discussion.  Euphrasie, the gal we met, is in the blue dress.  Her mother, brother, and uncle also attended.  Her mother only speaks Swahili, so the missionaries had to give the discussion twice.  And, of course, we understood pretty much none of it!  The implications of the Tower of Babel have been made much more clear to me since being here!  They all came to church with us today.

Elder Hamilton is a counselor in the Area Presidency in Johannesburg.  He and his wife were here last week after going on a mission tour to the Kasai Province with President and Sister Thomas.  Sister Thomas asked me to be in charge of a dinner for them last Tuesday – so I was pretty nervous about that.  Everyone pitched in and it turned out fine.  Probably the best thing was that the Thomases and Hamiltons have been eating freeze-dried meals for a week and ANYTHING would have tasted good!  Elder Hamilton is on the right

and David Frischknecht is on the left.  Brother Frischknecht, who is the Director of Temporal Affairs for SE Africa, was also in town and attended the dinner. Bro. Frischknecht is special to us because we LOVE his brother’s family who lives in Brigham City!!!!

And one funny thing happened this week.  A few weeks ago I wrote about a Catholic school UEA-type event where thousands of teachers had dresses and shirts made out of the same fabric.  Well, Pere Gideon, the priest who is over all the schools, gave me

the last remaining chunk of fabric.  I had a needy seamstress whip up aprons for all of the senior missionary sisters.  The name of the Catholic Church is all over the fabric.  So we’ll all have a Catholic apron that we got while serving an LDS mission in Africa!  

Well, the African people are wonderful and good things are happening!  Bishop Mbidi and his ward don Helping Hands shirts every Saturday morning

to go clean a local hospital.  It makes cleaning the church look pretty easy! ☺

Happy Birthday to our grandson, Davis Roche, this week!  I can hardly believe that school is out and summer has officially begun!!!!  We hope you are all enjoying it!!!  Much love,  Mom/

G-ma/Soeur Davis  (DAH-VEE!!!!)