New Friends are Silver

We had the chance last week to make some new friends, the Evansons. They're public affairs missionaries who came to teach workshops in Kinshasa and Brazzaville.

These are wonderful people and such a good example to us. They served as mission president and wife in the Ivory Coast more than 10 years ago. While here they also held reunions with their returned missionaries from their Ivory Coast mission. Some of their missionaries are now leaders in the church and some work for the church here in Kinshasa. What a great payday it was for them to see these young men and women being happy and successful. Sadly, some were still struggling to find a way to make a living. Life is not easy in the Congo.

Elder Evanson next served in the temple presidency and as a temple president in Canada, where they live. Then they decided that all of their service had come through a "call" and they wanted to show the Lord that they were willing to voluntarily serve him. So, they put in papers to serve as a missionary couple. What an example of devotion and good attitude they are. We enjoyed visiting with them about their mission president experience and got a lot of good tutoring.

I remember a little poem from my childhood. It said:

Make new friends, but keep the old

New friends are SILVER but the others are GOLD

I'm not sure that I'd consider our new friends, the Evansons just "silver friends," but talking about old and new friends is why I thought of this poem last week. The Evansons now live in OUR apartment on Mutaho Road in Bujumbura and have been working with the Frogleys and the wonderful "golden friends" that we know and love in Burundi.

It was fun to talk to them about all the crazy, funny and difficult things about our apartment and about Bujumbura. The wild traffic, the mattress carriers, the ice cream vendors, the "cruise" to see the hippos in Lake Tanganyika. It was a real stroll down memory lane to visit with the Evansons about Burundi.

We were able to hear updates on things that are happening there to our "golden" pioneers of Burundi. What a joy it was to hear about our branch members. Like the sons of Mosiah, we rejoiced in hearing that they were still faithful and we are still one in the Lord.

Just as Elder Holland promised, the progress has been steady and just less than one short year after the orignal exploratory visit to Burundi, there are now two branches there. One still meets in our little chapel above DHL in downtown Burundi.

The other branch has a big new building out farther from the city center in an area where many members lived. It's a great blessing to have their branch closer to them and to eliminate the 45 minute walks that they willingly made to get to church.

The Frogleys and Malabis are still there giving great support and leadership.

Most the people who are serving in leadership positions in these two branches are people who we knew and saw come into the church. We know, personally, every member of the leadership in the two branches and almost all the priesthood and auxiliary leadership. One notable person is Brother Minos, whom Brent baptized two days before we came home from our first mission. His family is a great strength to the church there now and he's serving as a counselor in the branch presidency. What a joy it was to talk with the Evansons and hear all about Bujumbura.

With this transfer, as Elders Mpoyi and Diazola finish their missions, our original "Burundi Bunch" of eight elders will be gone. But other good elders have taken their places and all's well.

Annie, who moved to join the church, is still bringing people to the church and Method's whole family has been baptized. These people who we saw enter the waters of baptism are strong. They have remained in Burundi so that they can have the gospel until it's in Uvira. In Uvira, DRC the day is getting closer when the church will exist.

Some people have been baptized and there are now priesthood holders there. Those who were baptized travel as often as possible to Bujumbura to attend church and are members of the Bujumbura branches.

The number of people in the church has more than doubled since the creation of that first little branch in Jan. of this year.

We love the people of Burundi.

Bujumbura was a great chapter of our lives and a truly "golden" time.

At the end of this month the Evansons will move to Lubumbashi and live in the Luano apartment, which is located above a store called Enos. When we were there, we arranged to rent the apartment for another couple who was coming. That couple now lives in Mbuji Mayi.

(Now that's what you call pioneering!! ) The apartment belongs to our dear friends, Sister Kieu and her husband, Michel. They own Enos too. It's probably one of the nicest stores in Lubumbashi. It's a computer store, copy store and cyber cafe. Our only dinner invitation in Lubumbashi was to their home. A great young RM friend, Lily, also works at Enos.

Our time spent with the Evansons was just wonderful. It seems like we have so much in common that we were instantly bonded and we must consider them among our

"golden mission friends."

Matadi

One of our recent adventures was to visit a town near Kinshasa called MATADI. We have a branch and four missionaries there, so it was time to go see the elders and visit the branch. Since this is a mission branch, it's under the direction of the mission president. It's important to visit these isolated branches and missionaries and give them direction and support. Without this direction it's possible for them to get off track and the integrity of the church can be compromised.

The choice for a trip to Matadi is to make a five hour drive down a curvy, dangerous mountain road or to take a one-hour flight on a 15-seat Congolese prop plane. We decided on the plane trip. Again, like our trips to Kolwezi, the choice for me was 1 hour of terror or 5 hours of terror.

When we got to the airport it was just a little landing strip in the middle of the city from which a few small planes take off.

Whenever we travel it's always hard to go through security. We're always nervous. Sometimes they go through your luggage, take out every item, examine it thoroughly and it takes forever. When we got to the luggage check area a man looked at our tags and asked if we were the legal representatives of the church. Why not? So we answered boldly, "Yes we are!" With that they passed us right through security without even looking at our luggage and took us to the VIP lounge. Awesome! They offered us beverages and it was nice to sit in a quiet room away from the crowds of people. A couple came into the VIP room and we chatted a bit and found out that he was a senator from the province where we were heading, Bas Congo. The church rents one of our buildings from him. He gave us his card and phone number, although we weren't quite sure why. It's always good to make contacts with people who can become friends of the church.

The flight was short and reasonable until we were just about to land. They even gave us a bottle of Fanta mid-flight. About the time of landing, I looked out and saw a mountain right in front of us. I honestly wondered if we were going to crash right into the mountain. It turned out that we were landing ON TOP of the mountain. The runway was dirt and went right to the edge of the mountain. We landed in a cloud of dust and all was well.

There was a little cement building and a tower where the "air traffic controller" was visiting with a young lady.

They had a small baggage handler and a waiting place for passengers (a few plastic chairs in the shade of a big mango tree.)

We were met by the branch president who had hired a taxi to take us into town. It was quite a ride. It was about a 45 minute drive down from the top of the mountain on a windey dirt road.

And there, at the bottom of the mountain on the banks of the Congo river, was MATADI.

Matadi is much like any other African town but very hilly. The missionaries teased that you had to walk to and from church uphill both ways.

We visited the branch on Sunday and held meetings with the members.

The church and baptismal font in Matadi

We saw the Relief Society, Primary, YW, Priesthood, Sunday school and Sacrament meeting and many good members of the church in this little branch . There were 99 members there for Sacrament meeting. We have some concerns about things there. It's hard to keep the church on track when you're far from the direction and leadership of the church, but we also know that the hearts of the members are in the right place and we hope to give them support that will help the branch to grow and progress in the right direction.

The next day, before leaving tow, we'd made arrangements to see the missionaries. We called them to come and show us the way to their apartment and when we went out of the hotel all four of them were waiting for us, on p-day, dressed in their white shirts and ties.

Three of these elders come from different parts of the Congo, but Elder LaGuerre, the big guy next to me, comes from Central African Republic. He's a true pioneer and the first missionary to serve from that nation. He's a giant of a man in more than one way. When he returns home soon, he'll give great leadership to his country. In the next few months we'll have two more missionaries come from CAR. There is one branch in Bangui. We hope to get there someday soon.

As we headed out to see their apartment, the elders said it was just a short walk and it was, but it was down a hill that was at about a 60% grade. The walk down to the apartment was a bit of a challenge. I had to be careful not slip on the sand covered cement and slide down the hill on my face.

Coming back up the hill was even more challenging.

The elders we very patient, encouraging and cute with me and we all made it successfully back to our very nice hotel.

After a short meeting with the Branch President, we headed back up the mountain to the airport. We arrived there only to be told that since no passengers had come from Kinshasa to Matadi that day, the plane hadn't landed, but had gone on to other cities. We weren't sure that we were going to get home and it didn't seem for awhile that the workers could figure it out either. However, after making a few phone calls, they assured us that the plane would come back by for us. While we were waiting to see if we'd have a plane to go home in, we watched several goats and a few farmers wander across the dirt landing strip. It was all a little unnerving. About an hour later the plane arrived and we boarded. We headed off toward the end of the landing strip, which also was the edge of the mountain top. We lifted off just as the strip disappeared on the mountain's edge. What an adventure!

I'm pretty proud that I made this airplane trip and didn't have a nervous breakdown in the process. Being a nervous flyer and having a bit of claustrophobia, these trips are a significant challenge to me. But we made it and we were happy to see the landing strip in Kinshasa, imperfect as it may be.

Just another day and another adventure in the Congo!

The Furniture store

The Binghams, our wonderful humanitarian couple, invited us to go the "the furniture store." They'd had a book case built and were going to pick it up. Here in Congo you can buy things already made and standing along the side of the road or you can order them exactly as you want them. The designs are usually quite a bit alike, but fabrics and dimensions can be specified. You can even just draw them a picture and they'll make it for you. The furniture store is about an hour from our house, but still in Kinshasa. It takes a lot of space for 10 million people to live in a city. A ride through Kinshasa is always an adventure.

So, we went along for the ride to "the furniture store."

There were many men working with only the most primitive tools, but doing some very fine work with just those few simple. I think it's amazing what they can do.

I found some baskets that I really liked. They were woven in a beautiful pattern with very fine reeds of two different colors.

When we walked deeper into the furniture market we saw the men who were weaving baskets. They called the man over who made the baskets I liked to "talk about the price." I just couldn't resist buying the baskets. I also couldn't resist asking the man who made them if I could take his picture. The picture is as a big a treasure as the baskets.