Sunday, June 6th, 2010

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

We made some butter last night as we can no longer buy it here. There is an embargo now so they cannot import it from South Africa as someone here who makes butter put up a stink. We went to Cheeseman and bought some cream and now we have butter!!! It tastes really good too. At Cheeseman they said there is also a problem bringing cheese in so we bought a big block of cheddar for $40.

Yesterday when we were out in Harare we stopped at a corner and I was giving some kids a sweet. We were in someone’s way so Elder Bullock decided to pull over a bit and didn’t realize that we were on the edge of the road and the pavement dropped straight off into a ditch. I said, “No, stop” but I wasn’t fast enough because as I said it the front wheel dropped off the edge. We were going really slowly so we just stopped on the spot with the front wheel suspended over the edge and the opposite back tire was off the ground!! Not good!! However, we had several spectators who came over and about 8 of the men lifted and pushed and we managed to back up and get out of our predicament. We were grateful for their help, needless to say.

We had a good meeting yesterday with the parents at a school where we are planning to drill a borehole for them. They formed their committee and made some decisions. We are getting quotes on the drilling etc. We will likely do 4 more boreholes in the same area as the STS water specialists have told us that it sounds like a really good project. We are getting all the groundwork done before they come in early July.

We went to Kadoma today for church and we picked up Mr. Muranje and his wife and 3 children in Chegutu and gave them a ride 30K to the church. During Sunday School they were given the 1st discussion and it went really well. He is the head master at Danangwe School that has been to church a few times now and expressed interest in getting baptised. We just need to get him taught and his family, which consists of a 12 yr. old son and two very nice daughters that are 15 and 17 yrs. President Dube has given permission for the Elders who are serving in KweKwe to go to Kadoma this week and meet up with the Branch missionaries and go teach the next discussion. We are excited about that as we would really like to see this family baptized while we are still here. Mr. Muranje will be a good leader in that area.

It is definitely cooler here these days – well mostly at night. It is cooler, earlier than usual though this year. We can see our breath on some mornings. There is no indoor heat but we do have some area heaters in our flat. The mission office does have heat and it has been on lately. When the sun comes out and warms things up the days are not too bad but we are wearing warmer clothes and the natives here are bundled up as if it was -20. Well some of them are bundled up if they have a coat to wear – some do not. We built a fire in our little fireplace the other night and it was kind of cozy. We shut the bedroom door and turn on the heater in there to warm up the room before we go to bed and then we shut off the heat.

After we showed Bro. And Sister Beck and Elder & Sister Watson our grinding mill project a couple of weeks ago – Elder Watson, from the area presidency, has reported what a fine project it is. He really liked it and consequently he was eager to approve a mill project that was presented to them from the couple in DRC. We have now been given permission to go ahead and submit more of the mill projects if we want. We were just approached this past week about doing a mill in an area over by the Mozambique border and we will go check it out in a couple of weeks. It sounds really good. I will tell more about it when we go there. We have also been asked to do mills in 3 other locations but we will pass that info on to the next couple as we are running short of time. As you know from our past emails, we really like these projects as they are so ‘self-sustaining’ and really can help a school to help themselves.

Bronte, my niece from Utah, arrives this evening and will spend the next 3 weeks with us. We have a lot going on and she will get to see quite a lot of the country, including Zambia, as we go up there to prepare for the measles campaign and look at a couple of projects that they want to show us there.

We have our return flight plans now for Aug. 11th, with a 5 day lay over in London, on our way home. We will arrive home August 17th in the evening. We are eager to get home but not so eager to leave our wonderful friends here. What a great experience this has been for us. Love to all and thanks for your ongoing support of us.

Elder & Sister Bullock