Commonplace? NEVER!

I seem to get more and more hopelessly behind in blogging. Sometimes it's because we're very busy and sometimes it's because it seems that life just goes on in the same way and I've put this all in our history  before.  But honestly, once we leave our compound, every day is amazing!  I often think about something that somebody  advised us in the MTC.  They said that we should take a lot of pictures in the first weeks of our mission because soon it would all seem commonplace to us.  COMMONPLACE?  NOT SO! 
 I have 5,000 pictures and I could still take a picture every minute.  I am constantly amazed at what we see every time we leave the mission home.  This is a typical outing. We went to church in another part of Kinshasa yesterday. Kinshasa is massive. There are about 12 million people. It takes about 45 min. to get to this place on a good traffic day.  But this is just a taste of what we saw.  (I put large pictures so that you could really see these places, but even they do not do it justice.)

There are so many amazing things to see every day. There are carpenters' shops, street furniture stores,  marchés with all kinds of food and wares to sell, canopied restaurants full of plastic chairs, hardware stores, tin and homemade brick houses and shops, street vendors plying their wares, kids playing Foosball or with homemade toys, checkers, car repairs done on the street, overloaded vehicles and transport buses, insane traffic that goes all over and off the roads to get where they want to be and so much, much more. 

 

    

              

 

 





Then suddenly you come upon a nice, little place with grass and bushes and a neat and comfortable look about it and you've found one of our churches. There are a few church-built buildings, but many are rented.  The members try very hard to keep them looking clean, repaired and inviting, which isn't always easy with intermittent power and water and lots of dirt streets and walkways.  It's always with a sense of gratitude for   their efforts that we visit these wards and branches and mingle with the wonderful, faithful pioneers of the church in Africa.

Commonplace environment?  Not feeling the need to take any more pictures of your surroundings?  Certainly not the case for us in the Congo. We could take a picture a minute and never tire of it.  NEVER!

Hard Things

Little baby Ryan gave us all quite a scare last week.  He had what his parents thought might be a seizure, turned blue and passed out. They took him to the ER and he spent several days in newborn ICU.  They ran EKG's and echo cardiograms and other tests on his heart, which they thought might be the problem. He has a benign heart murmur. Not the problem! Yeah!  They did EEG's, and brain scans for a neurological problem. All clear!  Yeah!  They finally decided it was episodes of "breath holding" and told Corinne and Klint that " he'll"drive you crazy for a few years!"  But all is well.  When he gets upset, he just holds his breath until he passes out.  Then his body kicks in and all is well.  Interestingly enough, his uncle Ryan was also a breath holder as a baby.We're so grateful that this isn't a significant medical issue.

 

It  is very hard to be away at difficult times.  Missing anything at home is one of our challenges. We've missed lot of happy events-weddings, baptisms, graduations, ordinations, and lots of ballgames, and performances. We would like to be there for everything, but the hard things we've missed are the real tests. We're very grateful for a wonderful family, who support and love each other, and for good friends and ward members who have helped our loved ones to carry their burdens without us for a few years.  We're grateful for the blessings that have happened and for the bad things, that could have happened, but haven't.
We pray for those we love, both here and at home!

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A Labor of Love for Baby Ryan

April 10, 2012 was a wonderful day for us.  We got a call from our kids, Corinne and Klint, saying that they were on the way to hospital for what they hoped was the birth of little baby Ryan.  They didn't feel very sure that this was really the day. Corinne had  been to the hospital many times during this pregnancy and was pretty convinced this was just another trip there.  So, we waited anxiously.

 About an hour later we got a skype call and were greeted by this beautiful little boy and his Mom and Dad. It was so wonderful to actually get to see them. Since he was born in the middle of the night in Arizona, we actually got to be the first to see him.

 

Ryan Karl's name is a special one since it's the name of his Uncle Ryan and his great-grandpa. All three of their boys have family names and that makes the name even more special.  It's fun too that Corinne used cars made for her boys by their great-grandpa  for the theme in decorating  little Ryan Karl's nursery. She put up the cars, truck and helicopter and then used the brown color scheme for the room, which also contains the cradle and changing table made by great -grandpa . 

  
Not being able to resist being a part of this wonderful event, we decided that there just had to be a little quilt to go in baby Ryan's room. So, we went to work to make it happen. We were determined to get a quilt  made and make it a surprise for the whole family. It was indeed a challenge. I wasn't able to get any fabric that would go with the car theme. They have beautiful bright-colored, printed cotton fabrics here in the Congo, but nothing suitable for a baby quilt and nothing BROWN.
So, with the help of my good friend in Utah, Beth Ann, the process of getting a quilt made began.  She went to work to help me get fabric chosen and delivered to the Congo. This great friend went to fabric stores and took pictures of fabrics. She emailed the pictures to me so I could see what was available and chose the combinations I liked.  She made a few trips, sent lots of sample pictures and then went back and bought the ones that I had chosen. She even made the extra effort to be the first person in the store the day of the purchase, since that gave her a big discount on the fabric. Thanks BA!

 

 About that time a new couple was coming to the mission. Beth Ann's sister, who lived near our couple, delivered the fabric to them. Thanks Claudia!   BA even gave me daily Fed X- like tracking emails of the fabric's movement.

Our new couple packed the material into their already full luggage and brought it to us, giving up precious packing space was a real sacrifice. Thanks Elder and Sister B.!
The next job was designing a quilt that would go with the room. So, I got pictures of the cars, without Corinne knowing why, and designed patterns and appliqued cars and trucks that match the vehicles made by great-grandpa.Then it was time to figure out the layout, and the fabrics and colors for the sashing.

   

 The next thing I had to do was to explain quilts to our African staff member, Pascal.  The whole concept of a quilt was unfamiliar to him.  I needed him to get the frames for my project. I had brought clamps from home, but needed the frames. So, I told Pascal that I was making a blanket for our new grandson and needed some boards to help me make it. I told him that I was cutting material into small pieces and then sewing those pieces back together in patterns. Then I'd put some more material inside and backing material on the other side. I'd sew it all back together again. I couldn't believe how silly it sounded as I was explaining it. I knew that Pascal was wondering why I didn't just buy a piece of material  to wrap around him. I tried to explain that it was an American tradition and he just wasn't sure about it at all. But he knew that I really wanted those good boards and somehow that would make it so I could make a special blanket for my new grandson.  Pascal went to the furniture maker who does all our missionary furniture and the next day we had  four great 2x4's all stained and varnished.  They're made of hardwood and are the sturdiest, fattest, heaviest, hardest to pierce quilt frames I've ever seen. Thanks Pascal!  The clamps that I brought from home were much too small to fit around these big boards and I was distraught. Brent said that he thought there were some industrial strength clamps at the office.  It was late at night, but he went right down and found some. Voila! We were back in business. Add four folding chairs for stands and I was ready to go. Thanks Brent!

 

 Conference weekend was the perfect time to enjoy general conference and quilt furiously. Brent took over some household tasks to help out. Thanks again! We even had to move the quilt aside for a zone leader council. It was pretty scary, but we moved the quilt to the office, where there was barely room for it, and the quilting went on.

  

Finally, on the very day that baby Ryan was born, I finished the quilt. Now the only task was getting it to Arizona and to that cute little baby.There's no mail here. A friend said that she'd take it to France the next week and mail it from there. I wasn't too sure about that.  We could take it to S. Africa when we went to the mission presidents' seminar and mail it from there, but that was a little unnerving too. 

    

Then we met some doctors from the US who were working on a short-term humanitarian project in  Kinshasa.  One of them offered to hand carry the quilt to Utah and give it to Uncle Ryan and Aunt Linsey so they could mail it.  Later he actually decided to mail  it himself.  So, we left it in his care and headed to our conference in South Africa, with his promise that it would be sent as soon as he got home. And it was!  They even gift-wrapped it for us. Thanks Doctor and Sister D.!  

Stacy set up the surprise opening of the package.  She arranged for us to be on skype when Corinne and Klint opened their package. Thanks Stacy! 

It was such a fun project and I love nothing more than a good project.

Now the little quilt is finally in it's home.

It was indeed a labor of love from a lot of wonderful people. We love you, baby Ryan. 

Thanks everybody!

Round and Round We Go

It seems as if we're starting to fall into a pattern here on our mission.  It makes for less interesting journaling, but it also feels good to be in some kind of rhythm. Things just seem to go in one continual round.  Life goes on a 6 week cycle that revolves around transfers.  Week one is for taking care of business and making sure that things and schedules are in place after the transfer and for our next trip. Then there is a week or more of travel to our outlying cities for visits, interviews, zone conferences or whatever requires our being there. Next we spend a week with our five zones in Kinshasa doing the things that we did in our travels. Throw in a little company and a couple of dozen meetings with missionaries, stakes, districts and zones and life gets a bit wild.  Then there's  company that comes. We have visitors  from the area office and  general authorities coming for stake conferences, mission tours, training, and other services that they do for the church here in Kinshasa. Two weeks ago we had the IT team from Johannesburg here for week installing new computers. It was our old friend, Graham and his side-kick Mathew.  They worked all week with our IT guy, Konde. We're grateful for the support we get from the area office. They help us in many ways as they visit and lend their expertise. Plus,we have a lot of fun with them.

Matthew and Graham with us at our home.

   

  Then we're on the road again traveling to someplace where there's a special missionary need or branch business.  Zone leader council is held the next week and staff meetings and meetings with the assistants are every week. Throw in having to deal with a few "dumb things" done by missionaries who are still trying to get into the missionary world and Brent's famous phrase, "Now, you know that you can't do that anymore!"  There are always a few challenges with physical facilities and our 11 mission branches.  It's a complex and busy life. Finally there's the week of preparation for and then the craziness of transfers. Making the transfer is a huge job.  It takes much prayer, thought and research to get all 150 of them in the right place every 6 weeks.There are always surprises.  Last minute switches are the rule, not the exception. This time we found out upon the arrival of our new missionaries that one of them has brother in the mission (they don't have any name in common, so we didn't know.) It turned out that he had been assigned to be in the same apartment with his brother.  What's the chance of that?  With 150 missionaries in 25 apartments in six cities and three countries who would guess that they'd be assigned as roommates?  Crazy! 
Transfers are  a three-day process full of welcoming, interviewing, training, feeding and moving new missionaries. This time we had only two African elders and 8 Americans coming. The Americans go directly to their assigned cities, so we had lots of help from the Nuttalls and Wheatleys, who work in Cameroon and Republic of Congo with the branches and missionaries there. 

New African missionaries assigned to Kinshasa

 New Yaoundé Missionarie

Sadly, we also say goodbye to seven in Kinshasa who are going home. After exit interviews, dinner and a testimony meeting, we send them off to the employment center to help them get headed in a good direction and start trying to think of possibilities for their life after their mission. We pray for a bright future for them, and worry about how difficult life will be for them when they return home.  

Seven leaving from Kinshasa

Our nine American missionaries are headed home with many plans for the future. 

Seven Elders leaving from Cameroon

Two elders leaving from  Pointe Noire

 We're grateful to have served with all these faithful missionaries and wish them all the Blessings of Heaven promised to those who faithfully serve the Lord.  They return with Honor!  
We love them dearly!

After that the merry-go-round starts all over again.  One round it's zone conferences and the next it's individual interviews with missionaries, but it just keeps on going round and round.  There are many other things mixed in, but we're getting to really plan on this cycle. 
Pictures of each zone are an important part of the history for our missionaries, since few have cameras and can take their own pictures. We give each missionary a few pictures as a remembrance of their mission.

Brazzaville Zone

Pointe Noire Zone

Yaoundé Zone

Douala Zone

Kimbanseke Zone

Kinshasa Zone

Masina Zone

Mont Ngafula Zone

Ngaliema Zone

 Zone conferences include training, teaching, role playing, speaking to and singing with the missionaries.  

All these meetings are held in French and the missionaries are very kind to listen to and figure out what I'm saying as I speak. They seem to understand and I'm so grateful for the gift that the Lord has given me to be able to communicate, even though it's far from perfect.  They all love to hear Brent speak with his wonderful French.  His language skill is a great blessing!                             

 

        Conferences also means prepare and serve about 175 meals and washing hundreds of dishes.

 

                        It includes transporting and photographing and making zone pictures for all of  them. 

                                          

 

But we love being with them. It's the best part of the calling!

We have five days until we're on the road again.  Round and Round we go!