Bishop Edgley's Visit

This week we had visitors from Salt Lake and South Africa. We were very happy to have Bishop Edgley, a counselor in the presiding Bishopric of the Church, and Elder Soares of the 70 visiting Kinshasa.

Elder Soares, Jamesons and Bishop Edgley

They were accompanied by Leon Holmes, the director of Temporal Affairs for the SE Africa, and Robert Milne, security officer, who both come from JoBurg. They worked here with Daniel DeAlmada and others from our Regional Temporal Affairs office. They toured buildings and church-owned property,visited the mission office and even went to Brazzaville. Bishop Edgley was amazed, just like the rest of us are, by the crossing of the Congo River. They evaluated the needs and plans for buildings in our part of the area, met with the stake presidents and Brent and looked at temple sites. They spent three days here and we had a chance to see them and discuss things that were on our mind on three different occasions. We're grateful when anybody from church headquarters comes here because, without doing it, you could never understand what it's like to be here and what the needs of the people are in our part of Africa.

We thought that the wives of Bishop Edgley and Elder Soares were coming, but when they got here we found that they had left their wives in JoBurg. We had dinner on Tuesday night. We didn't know until they actually arrived how many or what time they'd be here. That's a bit of a challenge that seems to occur often for us. At the dinner it was just the men folk and me. It was an excellent opportunity to visit in a comfortable,casual environment and we were able to address some of the pressing needs that relate to the mission. We felt, after our evening together, that Bishop Edgley would carry some important messages back to the Brethren and it turned out to be a very pleasant way to spend an evening.

Left to right-Robert Milne (security),Leon Holmes (Area TA director), Elder Soares (first quorum of the 70), us, Bishop Edgley, Vincent (regional travel), Daniel DeAlmada (regional TA director), and Da Tarr ( real estate)

De Tarr is mentioned in the book, Safe Journey, written by Elder Glenn Pace about the church's arrival in Africa. He has an amazing story as one of the first members of the church in the Congo.

Just before leaving for the airport on Wednesday they held a meeting for all the church employees and full-time senior missionary couples.

It was a helpful and interesting visit and we're grateful that they made the effort to come, to see the Congo, to understand more about this land and it's unique needs and to show their love and support for the people here.