Wednesday Aug. 9th -- 09/09/09

Hi everyone, Just a quick update. We are selling some vegetables from the garden now - 2 cabbages/$1.00, Tomatoes $.80/kg., 8 onions/$1.00. The restaurant down the street buys all the spinach and now a place called "Hamburger Hut" buys a lot of the tomatoes. (Note: the hamburgers are gross but they have some other things that look tasty).

Last evening we went with Wellington to the Celebration Center to a meeting of different church leaders and some others as well I think. They talked about uniting in the cause for Zimbabwe. They talked about what we can do for the destiny of the nation and feel that men
of God can change things. It was mentioned that if people would pay their tithes the Lord would bless them. One speaker said, "Zimbabwe used to be the bread basket of Africa but now it is the basket case of Africa". Their goal to to try and feed the nation in 2009 & 2010 regardless of the President and ministers of the country. The main focus is on "Farming God's Way" which basically means to teach the people to stop burning their fields etc. and compost instead. Instead of digging/plowing the fields they dig holes, put in some compost material, put a little dirt on top and then plant their seeds. All this is generally done by hand and this new method would be less back-breaking work as well. The yield from this method increases dramatically. They don't seem to know much about composting here and think they need someone to give them fertilizer all the time.

They showed us a movie they had made about it. It was in Shona with English subtitles but it was hard to read the words as the background was too light. We got the idea though. I think it would be good to try and teach it to some of our rural pastors who are going to be planting corn maize next month.

Today we went out and checked on Emmanuel's little family. We took them some rubber gloves (that mom sent with us) and 4 candles. She is going to have the baby any minute!! He is staying close to home. The wife doesn't know a lot of English but Emmanuel's is really good. We hope they may want to hear the gospel one day.

The weather feels warm today - almost hot. We decided it is time to take the flannel sheets off the bed and go back to regular ones. Beauty is at the flat today doing that. She even irons our sheets (we told her she didn't need to but she still does). She does a good job. We did get a hose pipe (garden hose) for her as neighbors were not letting her always use the communal one so now she can fill the washing machine with that instead of having to haul the water in buckets. (The washer and dryer are outside, on the side of our flats, enclosed in locked cage. The water comes from the borehole (well) since we have no municipal water still (well we did get enough for 2 toilet flushes this week). We aren't complaining though because we have not had any power cuts for 8 days now and that is really great!!!

Yesterday we took some school kits out to two primary schools that don't have a lot of kids (as we don't have enough school kits to hand out at a large school). Pastor Sikyani took us. He is one of our favorite pastors as he is so humble and honest. He asked if we wanted to arrange to go with him by ox-cart one day to take some things to some of his people that cannot be reached by vehicle. I think I want to more than Elder Bullock but we are going to do that. :) He said
it is about 45 - 60 minutes one way. There are 60 children there that could use some clothes and school kits or whatever we can take. We will try and do that late in the month after our Marondera Branch conference is done. Should be an interesting experience!!!

Sikyani's primary school by his house

I better get back to work. Hope everyone is fine.
Love, Elder and Sister Bullock

Saturday

Hi, We came into the office early this a.m. after our walk and managed to send a lot of pictures finally. It has been so hard to send them the past couple of weeks. I guess we will have to try Sat. mornings more often - less people on the internet.

This rock is kind of neat - the colors and all. This was at Motopos Park near Bulawayo that we drove out to on Sat. afternoon and we saw baboons and lots of cool rocks.

Baboons -- there were a lot of them

New mothers receiving 'new-born kits' as they were getting ready to leave hospital

Brand new baby (on right)

At hospital in Bulawayo when we gave out 'new-born' kits. There were so many premature babies.

On wall of hospital office

Zimbabwe flag

Kids taking water home - we gave them some candy

Kids making lunch (sadza and relish). Notice the 2 balls in his hands.

Ali, the gate guard at the mission office

Some kids outside Zvikomborero's house

Elder Nell, Panashe and Elder Mabhena
We went with the elders to teach Panashe and his mother Zvikomborero. The elders do a really good job to teaching in a plain and simple way.

We are going grocery shopping today and taking it easy. This afternoon I am teaching some music - piano/conducting etc. to a group of young people at Highlands ward. Sis. Deppe and I are taking turns and doing that every other Saturday for a couple of moonths or so. It is only for 30 minutes so I should be able to handle that. It is pretty basic.

We go to Marondera tomorrow for meetings and to make preparations for their branch conference in two weeks. President Bullock will be presiding and speaking. We will go down on the Sat. and do branch training so we need to set that up and figure out what we will be
doing for the training. I am a little nervous about that.

The weather is getting warmer now. The nights aren't so cold anymore, although we still are using our flannel sheets - not ready to give those up just yet. I can wear just a T-shirt for our morning walks now. We still have absolutely no water in the taps at our flat.

Pres. Dube is having us get prices on installing a 2500 ltr. tank outside our flats with a pressure pump. We can fill the tank with a hose from the borehole and then the tank is hooked up to our water pipes and we can have water from that. It will cost somewhere around $800 plus or minus for everything but we could have water to bath and flush toilets etc. The geiser (hot water heater) would fill and we could have hot water for a change. The mission is looking at paying for it to make life easier for the couples! It would be a real treat!! Hopefully it will get approved. The electricity seems to be a little better lately - not off quite as much as it was. I guess we are lucky though - a couple serving in Ethiopia got an electricity bill for 13 cents because that is as much power as they received last month!!! Sorry Esplins.

Must run and get to the grocery store and get on with our day.
Love you, Elder & Sister Bullock

Pictures

On our trip to Bulawayo we encountered the first of the new highway toll collections. It is a new thing here and supposedly they are going to use the money to repair potholes, roads, etc. We will see!!! It can add up - there are 3 of these on the way to Bulawayo so that is $6 round trip. I think there are 2 on the way to Mashvingo and also Mutare. O well - not much we can do but smile and pay up! :)

Our first highway toll stop

Price of tolls -- 3 of these on way to Bulawayo

Emmanuel, wife and Hanniel (She is about the prettiest little girl we have seen)

Elder Bullock looking at a book with her

Kids making lunch (sadza and relish). Notice the 2 balls in his hands.

New pictures

I have added several new pictures to the last post. It's been really hard for Mom to send them through lately, so she has been trying to send some over the last few days. Check the post below.

Kim

Wednesday

Hi, We are tired tonight. We didn't seem to really do a lot today but we were busy! Does that make sense?

This morning we went out to see Emmanuel and his pregnant wife (the one we paid the $50 to the maternity clinic). She is doing better and is expected to deliver any day. When they go to the clinic to deliver they have to take gloves for the nurse to wear while delivering, 3 candles and matches if the baby comes in the night as there is usually no power, and a few other things. We thought that was rather interesting. They are a nice family. I will send a picture for the
blog if I can get it through (it has been difficult to send pictures lately).

This afternoon we spent some time sorting shoes that came in the container. They come in bags all mixed up ( men's womens, and children all together). It took a little while and it was hot in
the sun where we were doing it. We haven't been giving out shoes for a while as it is hard to do that when there are a lot of people to try and fit.

We have one of our branches that is having a branch conference in a couple of weeks. Pres. Bullock will be in charge as Pres. Dube can't be there. We also have to do the Saturday training for the branch. We have a lot to do to prepare for that - especially since we aren't sure what we are going to do.

When the new couple come on the 21st they will take over our two branches that we have been responsible for and we will be doing Mashvingo branch(3 hr. drive) - as well as Mutare District. When the couple come we will take them out and introduce them at the branches.

Must run. We want to get home. We are doing fine. Love to all, Jim and Nancy