Our Bank Account

We were just at the bank here -- Yes, we now have a U.S. dollar bank account for LDS Charities. In the past we had to get our cash from the office Elder and it gets charged back to LDSC. Even though we have an account we still cannot write cheques, use a debit or credit card. We will withdraw the cash when we need it or keep a petty cash fund and keep track of which project or expense account to charge it to.

Anyway - our account was to have $10,000 transferred into it on Sept. 7th, at the latest. The money comes from SLC. On Sept. 11th there was nothing when we went to check -- that is because the banks here in Africa hold onto the money as long as they can. When we start asking
where our money is then it suddenly appears in the account. However, there is money missing (almost $3000) as of today. The bank says money has been debited out from our SA office and they have to figure it out. We just hope it is them because then we can get it transferred back. Hopefully it isn't some mysterious person taking our money. I emailed our money person, Sarika, in Jo'berg and she will sort it out for us. Lots of fun!!

We just got the audit report from 2008 - we have to have an external audit done for LDSC. I guess it was a challenge to figure out the report for last year as there was the massive inflation of the Zimbabwe dollar and they had to try and convert that to USD. We think they take as long as they can to do it so they can charge the church more for the service. It gets a little pricey.

Little boy shooing away the goats

3-5 year olds at preschool

Holding his baby brother

Kids in the school - we gave them some school kits

There is a guy laying across the chairs in front, sleeping.

Young man getting water out of manhole.

Love, The Bullocks

New Airdrie Reunion Chapel

This past weekend, the new LDS Chapel had an Open House to the public. 5,000 flyers were delivered around Airdrie inviting the community to come view the new chapel and attend some activities that were happening over the weekend. In the flyer, there was a write-up of Mom and Dad and the work they are doing as missionaries in Zimbabwe. If you click on the picture, it should get bigger so that you can read the write-up.
Kim

Just posted

Hi everyone,

I just posted three letters and some pictures (Saturday, September 5th and Wednesday, September 9th and Monday, September 14th) that Mom and Dad sent while I was on vacation. Be sure to check them out!

Kim

Thursday

Hi, We just had zone conference today and it was an excellent day. We had Elder Watson and his wife here (they have been on the mission tour for the past 10 days or so and we are the last stop). He is a councilor in the area presidency and has been serving for a year so far. He is also a member of the 1st quorum of seventy. Before this he was secretary to the 'twelve' and the first presidency and took the minutes, etc. at their meetings. He did that for 38 years. He talked
about missionary work, of course, and working with members and with the bishops/branch president and the ward councils.

Sister Watson talked about the articles of faith and the doctrines covered in them. She ended by telling us: Be strong, Don't give up, Endure to the End.

Pres. Dube talked about how the gospel of Jesus Christ brings us all together, no matter where in the world we are. He also talked about the atonement. Sis. Dube talked about looking for Christ-like attributes in our companions and also about faith to follow the Lord's commandments and not to ever doubt. The conference ended with a wonderful roast beef fillet dinner with peppercorn sauce or mushroom sauce, scallop potatoes, butternut squash, broccoli and ice cream sundaes for dessert.

We are going to Merci's at 5 p.m. to give her a new member discussion. She wants us to teach her about 'gifts of the spirit' as she missed that Sunday School lesson week before last. When we saw her a couple of days ago she told us that something really good happened at church on Sunday. She said a lady sat by her in SS class and she found out from her that she and her husband had been driving by and decided to check out our church as they are looking for a new one. She said they never drive down this particular street but for some reason did Sunday
morning. Merci got them Book of Mormons and introduced them to the missionaries. (the missionaries have a discussion set up for Saturday). Merci said that in R.S. she and the lady (Lucy) were talking and she ask Merci where she worked and Merci told her that she had a restaurant and what it is called. Lucy ask her if she worked with 'Merci' and she said, I am Merci. Anyway she had recently talked to this lady, Lucy on the phone when she had called to book a birthday party for her daughter at her restaurant. Merci is SOOOO good. She told Lucy that it wasn't just by chance that they drove past the church that morning. She explained a few things to her and told her that she was a brand new member and how wonderful it all is. Lucy ask how long it had taken for Merci to be taught and get baptized. I guess in R. S. there was talk about getting baptized for the dead and Merci explained to her that it sounds "weird" but that it is okay.

Merci wants us to go see them and explain more about the church. We will try and do that tomorrow if we can get hold of Lucy - so far we haven't been able to.

We met our friends Carol and Ellson on our morning walk yesterday and they, along with their mother, have been reading the Book of Mormon we gave them. Carol said she has a lot of questions and want us to meet with them. The mother called yesterday and will call in a day or two to set up a time for next week. :) This is so fun!!!!

We were out yesterday talking to people in a community about a borehole (well) that they would like us to do. We are working with them to teach that they need a water committee and what the committee needs to do. They are starting to understand it all and get themselves organized. When we left the area we saw a boy down in a manhole in the street bringing up water in his container - it wasn't sewer water, but I'm sure it wasn't too clean. They get water
wherever they can. Hopefully we can get some boreholes in the area for them - we are looking at 3 schools and 2 areas in business centers where we would like to do boreholes. It is a lot of work to get it organized but we are working on it. It will take some time to put it all together. It will be exciting if it all happens or even part of it.

SA has requested that all the humanitarian couples go out and check on previous projects and see if they are still functioning and if the committees are doing their jobs. This will take some time but should be interesting. They want us to select a few (mostly water projects) and get what information, feedback and recommendations. This will take some time but they want the reports back by Oct. 23rd.

Need to run and go to Merci's.
Love to all. The Bullocks

Monday, September 14th

Nice to talk to you for a few minutes Pam but then we lost the internet and that was the end of that. It is still gone so I will write this on the computer and attach it to an email later.

We had a good weekend in Masvingo. We met with the new branch president and discussed a few of his concerns. He is young but certainly doing a great job. These young returned missionaries make good church leaders here. We attended their meetings on Sunday and things went well. We are happy to have our branch assignment changed to Masvingo now. (Not that we didn’t like the branches we had.) We go down once a month and we go on a Saturday and stay overnight. We stay at the “Inn on the Great Zimbabwe”. I had forgotten how beautiful and peaceful it is there and the food is good too (served in a ‘fine-dining’ atmosphere with attentive waiters). We open up the drapes so we can watch the sun come up and it is a beautiful sight.

On our way home we came across an accident where a little girl had been hit and killed on the side of the highway. There were a few people there diverting traffic around her. We stopped and Jim got a scarf from someone and put it over the girl so that everyone didn’t have to drive by and look at her. The mother had run off, as I am sure she was very upset. It was very sad! We stayed for just a couple of minutes and drove on. They said someone had gone to get the police. It isn’t really surprising that someone could get hit like that as there are so many people walking along the roads and running across the roads and the vehicles drive kind of crazy a lot of the time. We pray every day that we can drive safely and not get hit or hit anyone else.

Sorry to have missed mom’s 80^th birthday party but we wouldn’t miss this experience for anything either. Glad that Tara, Pam and Kim and their families could represent us. We are certain that they had a good time together too. We hear that there were a few manicures, pedicures and facials that took place at Diane’s school. We did get a shower at the ‘inn’ on the weekend and it felt REALLY good.

I’m having a hard time sending photos for the blog lately. I will send more when I can.

We now have a U.S. dollar bank account for LDS Charities. In the past we have had to get cash from the mission office and it is charged against our LDSC projects, etc. There was suppose to be $10,000 put into our account on Sept. 7^th so we went to check on it Friday the 11^th and found that there was no money in the account. We have heard that sometimes the bank here will hold the money for a while – which is what it seems they did to us. We went back again today and suddenly we have money that was deposited Friday after we left the bank. However, there have been a couple of transfers from our account in the amount of over $2200. We explained that we haven’t taken any out yet so they suggested that there has been a mix-up with another account. They are sorting it out and we will go back tomorrow and check again. It seems we will have to keep a very close eye on things. Everything is done in cash here – no checks, no debit cards, no credit cards. We will have to go get cash when we need to pay for something and then we keep records here of what is spent and send in a report to South Africa.

President Bullock has been doing a few polygamy interviews with people who want to get baptized. It has to be determined that they are not sympathetic towards polygamy and that they have not lived in a polygamy family. There is a fair bit of that here so the church has to be careful. If their parents practiced polygamy then a report has to go to SLC to get approval for their baptism. If it was grandparents then the area authorities in South Africa can approve it.

Time to go home. Love to all, Elder & Sister Bullock