Last the Best of All the Game

I suspect that this will be the last entry of our mission. We leave tomorrow, February 1, 2011. It's been a most amazing, challenging and wonderful experience. We're grateful that the Lord had a better plan than we had. I'm sure Young Adult Outreach in Lyon, France would have been great, but this mission has been an experience beyond anything we could have ever imagined. We have done so many unique things and met so many amazing and inspirational people. We have seen the gospel come into and bless so many lives. We've seen faithful saints who sacrifice all for the restored gospel.

We had never personally had our own missionary experience of seeing someone through the process of conversion. We have thought several times that we were going to be able to teach somebody, but it's never worked out. It was a bit sad to go home without a single baptism of our own.

There was the man in Lubumbashi who worked at the security company and talked to us each time we went to pay our bill. He made several appointments with us, but never kept them.

Then there's Hermes, who worked at Leo, the phone company, and who's been coming to church. He is planning to be baptized after having the lessons with the elders, but not before we leave.

Next, we met and talkedwith the dentist when I lost a crown. That was scary, but we thought it would have good results.

She was interested in what we had to say and took literature, a Mormon Tabernacle Choir CD and a Book of Mormon and said after the holidays she and her husband would meet with us. But after the holidays she never answered her phone. Then just this week, we tried again, she answered and accepted the missionaries. Then she invited us to come to her home for a goodbye visit. So, we went on Saturday. She's just wonderful. Her husband is in the Burundi Senate and very impressive. Their children are beautiful and very poised. They're all well educated and a fine family. We sat on their patio, drank juice and ate snacks and had a great visit. They even presented us with a beautiful Burundian table linen set. They weren't able to come to church this week because of a family funeral, but promised to come and to see the elders. We're thrilled and hope to hear that they've come into the the church someday. What a great family!

Corinne, Celeste and Maman..........................One son is missing in this picture

But we can now say that it's never too late in your mission to teach the gospel. With one week to go we had a wonderful experience. We finally got our chance to teach and be involved in a baptism. Sister Rose, who has a daughter and a son who joined the church earlier and who was baptized last week along with another son and two more daughters, asked us to go and talk to her husband.

They are a very strong family of 13 and we believe all of them will, in time, join the church. She seemed to feel that some old people coming would make a difference. They live in one of the nicest African homes we've been in and in quite a nice area.

Once you get off a couple of main roads, dirt roads are all you find, but this one was nice and the homes were large and well kept.

When we arrived the zone leaders were there teaching the new-member lessons. It was so fun to walk into the yard and see them doing their job. The family was gathered on the porch and on the ground listening and reading the scriptures together.

Miriam, a beautiful young adult daughter, was braiding a little girl's hair. She told us she was doing her work. I guess she's a hairdresser and this is just about all a hairdresser would do in Africa. It was fun to watch her work. In the hour that we were there she braided the little girl's hair while the little girl sat perfectly still, without making any fussing at all.

We talked to Minos and he agreed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about the truthfulness of the gospel and to come to church again on Sunday. We felt the spirit as we talked to him.

The next day the elders called and excitedly told us that Minos wanted to be baptized and he wanted Brent to do it. He said that he'd had a dream that he was baptized and Brent was the one that was baptizing him. The big problem was that he needed special clearance from the mission president and the area presidency. We told Minos that it might not be able to happen. It would be almost a miracle if the paperwork got done in a week.

He said he would still be baptized, but he believed that God wanted it to happen the way that he had dreamed it. So, Brent sent the paperwork off to President Packer on Saturday and we prayed that Minos would be right and we would get this little end-of-mission miracle. Sunday morning at 6 am an email was waiting on our computer. It gave Brent permission to teach all the lessons to Minos this week and baptize him on Sunday. There was great rejoicing in our little chapel that Sunday!! Brent went with the Zone Leaders as they taught Minos every night last week.

Sunday he baptized Frere Minos and two more of his sons.

Francy and Juma

What a great thing to see this good family united in the church

( Well, three more to go, but it will happen.)

Brent also had a privilege of baptizing Jean Claude. He's a sweet young man who was baptize in 2004 in Kenya. He was at church the first day and has never missed a Sunday although he walks 45 min. to get there. He's working at the missionary home doing yard work.

He's cutting the grass with a golf club like tool.

That and a machete are his only tools. But he works hard and is glad for work.

Since we got here we've been searching all over Africa, actually all over the world, for his records. They are not to be found, so we were instructed to rebaptize him and he asked Brent to do it. Like many Africans who have not had much experience being in water, he was terrified and shaking when he climbed into the pool. But it was a sweetest moment to see him rebaptized and officially a member of the church. It was very tender to watch the two of them embrace in a joyful moment immediately after his baptism when he was FINALLY official!

This brings our total baptisms since October to 60-Total member 68 plus 12 missionaries and we love every one of them. Our average Sacrament meeting attendance is 185%

Those involved in January 29, 2011 baptisms and those attending the baptism.

There's nothing better than going home wet!!

We are so blessed! What a way to end your mission!

PS. Today we went to visit and say goodbye to our dear African missionary sons.

We love them dearly and will miss them. We have shared a bit of Camelot

(a precious unique moment in time that will probably not happen again.)

This is the sight that will be forever in our minds.