Monday June 28, 2010

We have been busy the past three weeks while we had Bronte here with us. We enjoyed our time with her and almost hated to see her go home on Saturday morning. We did however head off to Marondera right after dropping her off as we had some training to do there with Mayfields and Pres. & Sister Dube for the branch conference. I was assigned to do training about the Young Women’s program. As they were not doing the Personal Progress yet that is what I mostly talked about. They have 20 active young women in the branch which is pretty impressive.

Elder Bullock and Pres. Dube interviewed all the Melch. Priesthood holders (only 10 of them) as they were looking for a new branch president. They found a good man to fill the spot – Bro. KepeKepe. Pres. Banda was released. He was the branch president for the past 10 years. He was made branch pres. when he was 25 and single (a returned missionary). He married a lovely girl, Mary, and they have a little girl. There were only a few members then and now they have an average church attendance of about 80. They have 170 on the records but some people left when things got bad over the past few years and went to find work elsewhere. Pres. Dube paid a nice tribute to Pres. Banda and told how the branch is what it is today because of him and said he is a ‘pillar’ there. They have no full time missionaries there and so the branch missionaries do the work. Last year they had 16 baptisms and 3 so far this year. It is a good branch and they will be getting a chapel sometime soon – they presently meet in a house that has become too small for what they need. After the meetings Elder Bullock had to do an audit of the records before the new Presidency takes over and Pres. Dube did the setting apart.

We went to the office and checked emails and then headed home and warmed up a couple of meat pies in the microwave for our supper. Shortly after that the power went out AGAIN but at least we had eaten. We made a fire in the fireplace and read our scriptures by candlelight. It was a good day!

Today we are out at Pastor Sikiyani’s orphanage/preschool. (I have the computer with me to type this). Geo Pumps (Bruce Vera) got here this morning and is putting a new electric pump into the borehole. That is done and they are now checking the water lines to the two taps and putting in a tap beside the wash station. Elder Bullock is right in there with them working on the trench etc. As usual the people are excited to have this project – Thanks to LDS Charities and the donations made to the humanitarian fund of the church. We also brought out about 60 blankets (the last of our striped ones) for him to give to a new group of orphans that he is looking after – he will take them out to them by ox-cart. This is the same pastor who took us on the donkey cart ride a few months ago.

28 June 2010 - Elder Bullock cleaning out drain on wash station & his helpers right in there watching

More helpers

Cute helpers

Getting the water line in a little deeper

Pastor Sikiyani came a few minutes ago to tell us they had sadza ready for our lunch. It was served with green vegetables fried in a bit of oil and salt. We ate with our fingers and it tasted okay.

My lunch

Lunch with Bruce and his guys at Sikiyani's Preschool

Now even bigger helpers

AND there's water!!!!

Water to the wash station

They love it!!

They love their picture to be taken

The borehole shed - fixing the electrical

Pastor Sikiyani, Bruce Vera and Elder Bullock

Lots of giggles and smiles

Tomorrow we have a meeting with the assistant DA in Goromonzi growth point to get permission to do a water project there. The water specialists, The Johnsons, will be here next Tuesday and will spend almost 2 weeks with us and then we head back to Zambia for the measles campaign.

We are doing well and staying healthy. We are still playing squash most mornings. We were able to give bicycles to the 3 squash players and they were VERY appreciative. Their bikes were always falling apart and breaking down. They do well to keep them going as long as they do but ..... The bikes here are mostly bought in China and they are very poor quality. We got the same ones that the church buys for the young missionaries and got the church discounted price. Those bikes come from Taiwan and are nice bikes. Ishmael calls them ‘machines’. He said that someone stopped them and ask what company they work for that bought them such nice bikes.  We have enough money that was donated to buy at least 2 more bikes and so we are giving it some thought and prayer about who should be the recipients. See the rest of this story HERE.

Ishmael makes me run!

Elder Bullock chasing the squash ball

Tuesday: The email wasn’t working last evening so I didn’t get this sent off. We spent most of our day running around. We had to go to Marondera to visit the PA (provincial administrator) and get a letter giving us permission to do water projects in the Goromonzi area. The PA was sure a friendly, down to earth guy. They had no electricity so he had the girl hand write the letter for us and ‘stamp’ it. (They love to stamp things here!) We dropped it off to the District Administrator on our way home. Too bad we don’t have time to get to know that PA better.
Friday we have a ‘hand-over’ ceremony at Kowoyo Clinic where we did the transformer and water. That should be good. In the afternoon is the 4th of July celebration that the US consulate puts on each year. If we get back in time we will try and go with the other couples. We went last year and it was fun.

Love to all, Elder & Sister Bullock