On to the English Conferences

We arrived only about an hour late in Pointe Noire.  On the way from the airport we stopped quickly to see a new apartment that the Wheatleys are thinking of moving into and then headed to their current home. Brent's getting to be a pretty skillful negotiator and worked with the landlord to get them down several hundred dollars a month on rent and get some things repaired, including adding rolls of barbed wire to the walls around the property and security bars on the windows.

By the time we got to the Wheatleys' home all the elders were waiting for us.  We walked in, sat  our suitcases down, grabbed our scriptures and began zone conference.

 These young elders are just remarkable. They are so full of the spirit and so willing to do whatever they're asked to make the work move forward. They are a joy it is to be with them!

I always feel a great sense of relief when we get to the cities where we can do our teaching and training in English.  It's such a relaxing time for me to be able to express my thoughts with the vocabulary built over a lifetime.  I'm grateful that I can communicate in French, but wow is it great to be able to do a visit in English in all three of these outlying cities!

Right after zone conference Brent had business with the branches and worked until late that night on matters relating to the three branches over which he presides as a stake president does over wards. 

The next morning before heading out of town, we went to visit a missionary apartment.  It's always good to see how things are going and how the elders are living.






 It's a good apartment.  We did have a little visit about their stewardship toward their home. We felt like the parents of teens again as we encouraged them to work a little harder to keep it both clean and neat. They seemed to understand the importance of a "house of order" and  hopefully there will be a little  improvement.

This is the view from their apartment entrance  It's a typical Pointe Noire Street.


From Pointe Noire we flew to Douala, but had to do it through Bangui, where we stopped briefly to drop off  some passengers.  We and spent a few hours Douala with the Gaileys, who were kind enough to pick us up and take us to their home until ourr flight to Yaoundé.  It was so nice not to have to sit in the airport for four hours.  We had a nice lunch and visit before time for the next leg of our journey.  "You can never get there from here" in Africa. It always takes a few stops.
We had a wonderful zone conference with the missionaries in Yaoundé and then Brent took care of some important branch business in .

 These are the missionaries now in Yaoundé.
They are dedicated and serious missionaries. What a nice group.



But this is who they are when they relax and just be young guys!  We love being with the North American elders. They are hard working and dedicated, but they sure do know how to have
FUN!!

Again we had a look at the  new apartment for the elders. It was nice and perfectly kept.  It was even so clean and neat that they got treats for their efforts.

 The apartment is  located on a main, busy street that's kind of crazy, but it's a convenient location and has good security. We hope that it will serve us well for a long time.

From the strange catwalk that leads to their apartment, there was a great view of Yaoundé.

Yaoundé is my favorite city in the mission.  It's cooler, nicer and cleaner than any other place. It's also quite hilly and I enjoy the contour of the land there.  Since it's elevation is higher and it gets more rain it's greener with lush vegetation.
After our time in Yaoundé we flew back to Douala where we had conference with the elders there and again, more church business.

  

Mild mannered missionaries.......................................... who enjoy a chance to let their hair down.

 Unlike our usual frantic trips we had part of a day in Douala without meetings or other needs, so the Gaileys took us to the ocean.  Douala is a sea port, but we'd never seen the sea there before. There's a great deal of commerce that goes through Douala, but we bypassed that  area and went to a little point that leads to a Naval base. We just stopped and enjoyed the ocean view for a few minutes.

The road along the coast that leads to the Naval base.

We saw dugout fishing canoes with sails bringing in the catch of the day.

Fresh Fish Market on the beach in Douala

On the way home from our trip to the ocean, the Gaileys stopped to buy a bottle of roasted peanuts.  These women sit all day on the side of the street and pour very small peanuts, which they've roasted in a pan over an open fire, into used bottles.  Often they use fancy liquor bottles, but these ladies mostly use old pop bottles.  They use a stick to push them tightly into the bottle and it's amazing how many peanuts you can get in a liter bottle. Gaileys visit this group of ladies often.  Brent has learned to really like these crunchy little nuts so we bought some to take home. If we if just don't think about where they've been, they're delicious!

 Then we began our interesting return trip. Life is always interesting when we travel.  We flew from Douala to Pointe Noire, where we were to make a 30 min. stop to drop off passengers. When we got there, they had us get off the plane and ushered us into a room  (gratefully one that was air conditioned). The little lay over, which was to be a 30 stop on the plane,  turned into four hours in the Pointe Noire airport, with no explanation as to why this had happened. When we finally did board a plane, it was like a Twilight Zone plane.  It was plain white with no markings whatsoever.  Inside all the writing was in Arabic and the crew were Arabic, and spoke almost no French.  Just a little unnerving!  Fortunately we arrived safely in Brazzaville late that evening, ate our camping meal in the Hotel Adonis and anxiously awaited our trip across the river early the next morning.  However, when we awoke, it was raining and that meant no river crossing until the hard rain had stopped.  We waited three more hours in our room in Adonis for the rain to let up enough to cross.  It was a pretty soggy crossing .but we made it and in record time.

Love the solution for the rain bothering your hairdo. A plastic shower cap is totally acceptable head ware. 

Finally we arrived in Kinshasa more than 30 hours after we left Douala, which is a trip of about 850 miles total distance and could have taken us about an hour if you could "get there from here" directly. Like we say Rule #1 is always in force in Africa.  Nothing is easy in Africa!  But it's always worth it to visit with those who work so diligently and faithfully in these out-of-the-way places.