The Last Days in Pointe Noire

The last city remained on our farewell trip was Pointe Noire.  It was such a nice thing to have a plane leave on time, go where it was supposed to go and arrive with so little difficulty.  We had done some of our hardest flights of our mission on this trip.  I  was very tired by the time we headed for Pointe Noire.  On the plane I couldn't help thinking that I just wanted to get to Pointe Noire and fall into bed.

However, Sister Wheatley had arranged ahead of time to have a little dinner party with the branch presidents and their wives the night we arrived. Thankfully Sister Wheatley was wiser than I. She had planned a perfect evening for us and it was just what I needed. She had made all the preparations for a delicious meal, had the table set beautifully and all was just fabulous. Our little gathering was just delightful and I felt  refreshed and ready to move on after spending this time together.  Many thanks to the Wheatleys for always going the second mile.

Brent with Presidents Sombo, Deckous and Caillet

This group of  people were among the first to join the church in Republic of Congo having been baptized in the 1990's when the church came to their country. They  have been stalwart leaders and are the pioneers of the church there.  We have come to love these devoted leaders and are inspired by their efforts.

Saturday was our day with the Pointe Noire missionaries and the Wheatleys. We held our  last zone conference on that side of the mission. These conferences have truly been one of the great joys of serving.  We love being with our missionaries. 

                                                                        

Then we took the missionaries out to lunch at a little Italian restaurant owned by a member of the church. It was fun to do something  nice for them. They seemed to enjoy it, even if it meant being crammed into the back of a truck to get there.  

It was a pretty hard week of goodbyes, but we will always remember our time with them.  Most of the missionaries in the outlying cities are North Americans and we have high hopes for seeing them again.  We tried to remember that as we said our goodbyes. How could you not have tender memories with pictures like this in your head?

Sunday we went to church in all the branches for at least part of the meeting.  We went to Priesthood/Relief Society in one branch and then headed across town to the other building in time for sacrament meeting and then the Wheatleys and I went back to their apartment for a couple of hours between meetings and Brent began interviewing 7 brethren for the Melchizedek Priesthood.

Then we had plans to go back to the last ward for sacrament meeting. However, on the way back to the church all the streets were closed because the Presidents of the Republic of Congo and of Ivory Coast were driving across town. We had to wait for almost an hour before any street to the church was open.  Looking closely at the picture of this bar you can see brave Elder Wheatley sitting in the front row of spectators waiting to see the presidential motorcade. Sister Wheatley and I chose to wait in the locked car until they ordered us out of the car just before the motorcade arrived. Since there were police with automatic assault rifles present, we complied but have no other pictures of the traffic blockades.

When the streets were finally opened there was a monumental traffic jam. We had to go to the church through a different neighborhood and it was an interesting drive. I had never seen these homes behind the church. There wasn't really any road. We just meandered through the area until we came to the church.  It was quite an impressive site as we finally drove up to the beautiful oasis of the church property and lovely building.

 

I thought that perhaps we were late enough that I would miss my speaking assignment, but we got there just in time.We had spoken in all three branches. In each branch we had to say goodbye to the members and priesthood leaders.  It’s so hard, knowing we won’t see these people again. 

We had planned to take an 11:00 flight to Brazzaville, but the night before our departure Aimé called to say that Monday was a holiday and river crossings would end at noon. So he put us on a flight at 8 AM instead.  When we arrived at the airport at 6am, they couldn't find our change listed. It was another tense airport day. The young man at check- in told us to just give him our luggage and go and wait for him to see if there would be room on the plane for us. This was TAC (Trans Air Congo) on which we fly business class because they tend to oversell and will only make sure you have a seat if you fly business class.  It was a tense couple of hours, but just before they boarded the plane the young agent arrived with tickets and luggage tags.  It would have been a real problem to have missed the flight  and the trip across the river, as our next zone conference was at 9 the next day.






We were met upon our arrival in Brazzaville by Gaetan, who has been our trusted aid and friend.  He took us to the beach where we waited in the comfort of his truck while the "formalities" were done by Isaac who has helped us cross the beach many times and has also been a friend.

Time to say more goodbyes to these great members who move the work forward with their faith and hard work as they make the necessary physical arrangements for our travel. We couldn't have done any of these trips without them
In nine days we visited five cities in four different countries, holding zone conferences in four of them. We've said goodbye to 48 missionaries.  At the end of this trip, which was filled with travel trials, we were quite tired but we have a week of zone conferences ahead of us and then another trip next weekend to Matadi, so we have to find energy enough to persevere.  The Lord always provides.