June 21, 2015 - Clark

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Father’s Day and I need to record a few reflections about George William Davis.  There were many endearing characteristics about my father that drew people to him.  He was an original and never tried to be someone else.  He was comfortable being himself and was pleased when you did the same.  Growing up in a small town, I felt everyone knew him and he knew all the residents of the entire county.  If he didn’t, my mother could supply you with family backgrounds and the latest in gossip material from her ladies clubs.  

I remember on several occasions as an adult going to him for advice.  It was just nice to be able to visit and his common sense, I found out was fairly uncommon.  He had a down to earth way of getting right to the heart of the matter and usually had sage advice.  Mom has replaced him as my sounding board with the same type of wise counsel, but what I wouldn’t give to spend just an hour or two together with him!  Usually your life’s problems didn’t come all at once and it required ongoing installments of counseling and mentoring to cover the full range of challenging situations.  I remember sitting in his office at Brigham Implement or having a hamburger at Murph’s Inn or just visiting on a drive with him in his pickup as he was visiting his friends who were also his customers.  

It’s funny now because I don’t recall many of the exact golden nuggets of wisdom he shared with me, just the fact that he was a listening ear and with a wry smile, I could tell he had been down this road himself.  I do remember how he usually left me with a smile and “keep smiling” wish.  There was always hope in his message and the words of scripture that “know this my son that all these things shall work together for thy good”.  I miss him yet his influence lives on as I try to make him proud of me and my family.  The eternal nature of families and the blessings of the sealing power of temple ordinances becomes more priceless to me every day.

Just yesterday we had a music celebration at the Lubumbashi Stake Center.  It was a song festival where different wards of the stake performed; first the children and then the adults and the missionaries were the concluding numbers.  There is a wonderful tradition here where the audience will not let someone who is performing fail.  If an individual is singing and is faltering, the members of the audience begin singing along as backup.  There can be a trio or a quartet singing and you would think it was the entire ward choir.  The music is a common language and it is so exhilarating to hear the saints here sing the hymns.  They do add some new frills and variations that make the music quite a bit jazzier and the volume is never an issue.   

I took so many pictures of the children singing.  There is no end of great photo ops here and I know they will never tell the story but we have accumulated over 14,000 to this point, so we do have some stories to tell. I also visited the lumber yard again this week.  We are working a roofing project for Kamweneja School where the roof and ceiling tiles are being replaced.  There is not a lumber yard that will accept electronic payments and so we have to pay 100% cash.  The problem is that we are limited to about $1,000 of cash at any one time which means that we have returned 5 or 6 times.  We have become acquainted with the president of the lumber yard association that is run exclusively by women.  When we first showed up they didn’t want me to take any pictures and this time they were all posing and requesting to be part of the picture parade.  The problem is they all want hard copies of their picture immediately.  I tell them if they can provide me an email address, I’ll send them their photos.

It was especially fun this time because there was a beautician at the lumber yard doing hair.  I’m learning lots of lessons in extensions and how they are attached.  Almost all of the women’s hair here is in the form of a wig or extensions.  The women change their hair often and it makes them more difficult to identify if they are wearing their hair in a different style which means a different wig.  We took both still and video pictures and had a lot of fun visiting with the ladies through our translator.   The women who own the lumber yard are Muslim and were just starting Ramadan.  They fast for 36 days which means they only eat an evening meal.  I didn’t ask many more questions on religion.  They always seem to be amazed that we have 7 children because their view of America and Europe is a family of 2 and selfish adults who are self-consumed.

We had been asked to write a letter to Johannesburg with ideas for water projects for 2016.  We sent in our thoughts and a suggested listing of future projects.  Just last week we had visited Kisanga General Hospital that serves a population of 233,000 residents.  They have running water but only in   the mornings and they have no water storage.  They use contaminated water from a shallow hand-dug well during the afternoon and nighttime.  One of the 2016 projects we suggested was to provide water storage at this general hospital.  I submitted the recommendations on Wednesday and Phillip called us at home at 8:45  pm  that evening and asked if we could complete the Kisanga project in 2015 if he could find the money.  It was such a departure from the normal extended waiting process of getting a project approved but we were elated that he read our email and acted on it in the same day.  We have since returned to the hospital twice and are working with Serrge of Regideso to properly design the storage system for capacity and delivery.  We’re excited to be able to see the completion of this project in person and not just on paper.  

My email is going to be cut short because we have been invited to have dinner with Patrice and Christiane.  Patrice is a counselor in the Lubumbashi Stake Presidency.  We need to be there by 3:00 pm.  Electrical power is not usually available in their homes on a consistent basis and most meal invitations are when they sun is shining or before it turns dark which is about 6:00 pm.  

We have enjoyed living at the mission complex because we seem to do more things together with the other senior couples.  Last night we went out to dinner at the Lubumbashi Hotel which is downtown near the stake center.  Almost everything here in the form of business seems to be controlled by Indians.  They either own or manage about every prominent business establishment in town.  It would remind you of the Jewish pension for the management of money.  One good thing about the Indian people we meet is that they speak English and are very accommodating.  We enjoyed our night out on the town.  

We just returned from Patrise and Christiane where we ate a typical Congolese dinner.  We had fish, Bukari (fufu), Sombe, sausage, French fries and juice.  The water specialist from the MTC said anything is safe if you chase it with a coke.  My coke habit will have to be broken upon our return.  These people have been married for 9 years and they have been unable to have children.  They are wonderful people and shared their family albums with us of their dote party, their marriage, college graduation, their subsequent trip to the Johannesburg Temple.  We meet so many wonderful people to whom the church means everything.  The food is to be tolerated but the people are to be cherished.  

Happy Father’s Day; it’s my most treasured title.

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)