Frantic February-Part 1

The month of February passed in a blur for me. It was packed with visitors, activities, and trips and I didn't have time to write even one blog.  Now I'm trying to play catch up.
We started out the month with visitors.  We had Stan and Susan Martineau and Jeff Clatyon, Area attorneys, in town. We had them for dinner and spent the evening enjoying both their company and their good advice. Both of them have been mission presidents and talking to them was most interesting.
 Sister Matrineau is a great shopper and had in mind some things that she wanted to get here in Kinshasa for herself and Marge Clayton. So, all the ladies headed out for a day at the shops of Kinshasa. There aren't a whole lot of them, but it was fun to see some that I'd never been to before.
 Our shopping day also happened to be Thierry's birthday, so we all had to get a picture with the "birthday boy."  He's a remarkable man and we discovered that he's young enough to be our son, so that makes it even more amazing how wise and skilled he is.

We went to a delightful little place called Symphonie des Arts. It's a very nice shop run by a German family. It has beautiful crafts and a lovely, small garden with peacocks and crown cranes wandering through it. It was like we'd stepped into another land   

 We found some cute little African Angels that will look darling on our Christmas trees someday. We walked around in the gardens and just enjoyed them.

Next we went to a place called Art Development. It had hand-made crafts and furniture. It was in a tiny house on a dirt road in a congested, dirty part of town, but there were also some nice things there.  We're going to buy three new tables for the mission home there. They'll be good additions to our decor.

Last, and best of all, was the place we call "Thieve's Market." That's just our name for it. It's an open-air market with thousands of items for sale and you have to bargan to buy them.  It's lots of fun, a little creepy and full of interesting things and people.  I love it. Brent hates it. This trip I found some great deals on things I will love to have to remember Africa. 

Some fun jewlery

A nice, unique nativity

          

A carved wedding glass, a wooden box  and a very interesting cane made with copper, leather and bone.

Funny how a little outing does the ladies so much good! 

Our other visitors were Taylor and Jean Hartman. They live in Johannesburg and he serves as the area mental health specialist.  It's interesting that they came through Kinshasa on their way to the Republic of Congo. We wonder if we're cracking up and don't even know it and they had ulterior motives.   If your mental health wasn't good when they came, it sure would improve from their visit. He's the author of the Color Code books, which are a very interesting treatment of personality based on four different personality types that he identifies by color.  It's an interesting concept and we enjoyed learning more about it.  We now don't call him Dr. Hartman or Elder Hartman but just Mr. Yellow!  He's a party waiting to happen and we had a great time, laughed a lot and learned some good things too. They travel all over Southeast Africa meeting with individual missionaries and with groups of missionaries.  They truly know how to minister to "the one" and are a great asset to our area. 

             

We even made a trip to our favorite place in all of Kinshasa.  It's called NICE CREAM and it's actually great ice cream.  We go there now and then for a big p-day outing, sharing our great place with the Hartmans.

We really love having visitors. Getting to know other senior missionaries is one of the great blessings of serving as a senior couple. We mostly missed out on that blessing on our last mission, so we're really enjoying it now.  Having visitors was how we started our month of February. Acutally, we had visitors all month and we loved it.