Visitors, Visitors and more Visitors

The last week of March and all of April was a time for visitors in addition to our regular mission life.

Public Affairs Visited   

 It began with Public Affairs visitors, Michael Otterson, church director of Public Affairs, and Michael van Rosen, also from headquarters in SLC, Sean Donnelly, Area Public Affairs director and the Bybees, our country public affairs directors.  We had them in our home for dinner and had a most enjoyable and informative visit.
I have never really appreciated the "business lunch" and always thought it was just a way to get a meal and have it paid for by your business. But I have learned on this mission that a lot of good and much understanding comes over a hot meal. It's always a blessing to have people come to our home for dinner.

Left to Right- Jamesons, Bybees, Michael van Rosen, Sean Donnelly, Michael Otterson

Carol Petersen Visted

Then Sister Carol Petersen, the wife of a former Kinshasa Mission President came for 10 days. She made a trip to Lubumbashi for the weekend and stayed with us the rest of the time.  Her husband had been Brent's trainer in France forty-seven years ago and was a great influence on Brent. We had only seen them a couple of times since then when we went to mission reunions.  I remember the first time we met them they had just returned from their mission and told the group about it. I was so amazed that anybody could have done what they did.  I certainly had no longing to do what they had done and no thought  that we would ever share the experiences that they'd had.  After we arrived in Kinshasa Brent Jameson. and Brent Petersen communicated by email and Brent Petersen was very helpful to Brent.  The Petersens had always planned to come back together, but he died last year. She's a courageous lady to come by herself to live their dream.                                                                                                                

 She was determined to come anyway and was courageous enough to do it alone.  We had a great time together. We talked and talked about this unique life experience that we've shared. She was able to have many joyous reunions with people she loved

Thierry's wife, Natalie, was one of the Peterson's missionaries
and was there for the reunion. 

Sister Peterson joined us for our Sister's conference and then she went to Lubumbashi for the weekend. She returned to Kinshasa overnight and then flew home again. She's a courageous lady and was rewarded for her efforts with a wonderful time revisiting Kinshasa, Lubumbashi and  the Congolese people who she loves.

Sandy Taylor and Curtis Butterfield visited 

Left to right- Curtis Butterfield, Elder Billings, Aimé Ngoy,

who works for us,  our RM ,Aimé Mbuyi, Sandy Taylor and me. 

We enjoyed having Sandy Taylor, the head of Human Resources for the SE Africa Area and Curtis Butterfield, a human resources director from church headquarters in Salt Lake come to visit and have dinner in our home. 

They were here to hire a new supervisor for temporal affairs. Sadly for the mission, but a blessing for him and for the church in our area,  they got the best man for the job, Thierry. He'll leave his job at the mission in June 1. We will miss him and in our hearts we can't imagine life in this mission without him, but we understand that this will be a good career move for him and a great blessing to the organization of Temporal Affairs in Kinshasa.  We're still friends with Sandy, even after she took Thierry from us, and we have enjoyed working with her over all these years. We ended up at the construction project at the same time while they were here and we had a great dinner in our home with them. What good people work for the church! 

During this visit Georges Bonnet, head of TA in the Africa SE area who was also visiting, took time to talk to the church interns and employees there.  It was so thrilling  for us to see six of our RM's in the front row. They're gaining a trade and happy as can be. 

Jeff Clayton visited 

We very much enjoy having visitors at our home. It's fun to see people and enjoy their company and it's good to have a little quiet time to talk about business and about life.  In April Jeff Clayton, the church attorney in Johannesburg was here working on legal matters.  He joined us for dinner and it was a great evening  Jeff and his wife, Marge graduated from Highland High in the same class as me. Isn't it amazing that we're here together in Africa over forty years later.  It's been nice to reconnect.

Visitors keep us busy, but it's such an enriching experience to share time with them and so good for them to spend time in the Congo. Their ability to help the church grow and succeed here depends on people coming  and knowing how things can be done here in this unique most place.