Hi to all,

We had a great week away for our couple's conference. We had a few hours of meetings at the hotel that were really good. It was nice to get to know and be with all the couples in the mission as we never see the ones in Malawi and Zambia.

Four of the couples drove to the Falls and we stopped on the way (about 2 hrs. before the Falls) at Hwange National Park. We stayed overnight there at a lodge. It was just okay there. In the evening and morning we drove around through the animal park for a while but really didn't see a lot. Apparently there is usually quite a bit to see. There was no food to be had there and we decided that rather than drive a few km. to a nearby place we just combined what we had and made-do. We each had half a sandwich, a few chips, and a piece of fruit. It worked out just fine.

The next morning we left for the Falls and ate lunch when we got to our hotel. We stayed at the Kingdom Hotel and it was VERY nice. What a treat it was for all of us. We went on a 'sunset cruise' on the Zambezi River. We didn't see much wildlife but it was relaxing and beautiful scenery. Wednesday morning we were picked up and taken to Botswana where we had another river cruise on the Chobe ?? river. It was really nice and we did see a lot of hippos, neat looking birds, a few crocodiles, and a lot of elephants. We saw one group of hippos where we counted 48 total - just basking in the river, keeping cool.

We had lunch and then were taken on an animal drive. That was fun and we saw hundreds of elephants. We were right up close to them but were assured that they wouldn't hurt us and they didn't. We were on a safari vehicle, not walking around. It was pretty neat. We also saw a female lion and her cub laying under some trees but I didn't get a picture. It was a great day of sightseeing. We returned back to our hotel at Victoria Falls and had a nice supper and they had some entertainment - traditional dancing and singing.

Thursday morning we went to see the Falls. They were amazing with sooo much water going over. It is the end of the rainy season so the falls are at their fullest and it was extremely misty. We got thoroughly soaked, even with our rain coats on. The mist was so much at times that it just poured rain on us in certain areas. My new camera got damp and quit working but we managed to dry it out and it seems to be okay, for the most part. Whew!! It would be nice to see the falls again when the water is not so high but we likely will not be able to do that. We could not see all the way across the falls due to the mist. There is enough water going over the falls in one day that they could supply all of Jo'berg with water to drink and for their crops for 1 year.

We left Thursday afternoon and drove back to our lodge at Hwange Park and spent the night. We got up early and headed back to Harare. We had a great time visiting with the couples and enjoyed the time together.

Posing with singers and dancers

Along the Zambezi River

Zambezi River Cruise

Sunset on Zambezi River

Zambezi River at dusk (on cruise)

Beautiful - huge Zambezi (runs into Indian Ocean)

Kingdom Hotel at Victoria Falls - very nice!!

Entering Botswana for another River Cruise and a game drive

Hope this sign helps!!

Teak Trees along river

Lily pads on River

Lily pads, etc. on river

Young crocodile

Interesting looking tree and vines

Look at all the hippos!

Hippos

Wow! Here come the elephants for a drink!

Thirsty

Here comes the BIG daddy

Bath time - See the one splashing muddy water onto her baby (on shore)

Hippos

President and Sister Dube'

Dung beetle - pushing a ball of dung (lays eggs inside and then it feeds babies for 2 weeks)

Pregnant giraffe. Babies are born with mother standing. The drop 'kick starts' them. If born with mother laying down they would die.

We saw sooooo many elephants (hundreds of them in Botswana)

View of river from land animal cruise (the river was very high)

Our group of missionary couples with Pres. and Sis. Dube'

Part of Victoria Falls -- so much water!!!

Lots of mist

More of the Falls - Water is at it's highest at this time of year

Vic Falls

Further along the Falls

The main falls -- because of the high water and mist we could not see across the whole falls at once

Fascinating

Victoria Falls

Still more of them

This is from the mist which is a lot of places was heavy rain. We got soaked even with our rain capes.

Yesterday we went to Kadoma to church and the head master from Danangwe school went to church again. Afterwards he told me that he wants to get baptized. I told him that he needs to be taught the discussions and that we would like to teach his family along with him. He has a wife and 3 teenage children. Actually the branch missionaries from Kadoma will teach them. Later in the day we got a text message from Lawrence. He has arranged labola with Doreen's parents and they are now traditionally married. He has set a baptism date. We were excited to hear that because he is a really good young man.

We are to go to Muzarabani today to take up food and books etc., but are having great difficulties getting a truck so we are not sure if it is going to happen. We are all still working on it.

Must run and get back to work. Love to all, Sister Bullock

Pictures

Mom was finally able to get some help to figure out how to upload the pictures from the camera to the computer and get them emailed off. I've been a little slow getting them posted, but hopefully you'll enjoy them. There are some really great one's of the things they've been doing the last little while. They are under the following post, or you can click HERE to go to them.

Kim

Our Muzarabani trip this past week

Hi, I remember after I write things that I wanted to tell.

When we were in Muzarabani driving through the countryside we gave out several hygiene kits when we felt prompted and we also gave out a lot of sweets to the kids. As we did this people wanted to give us watermellon from their fields. They grow it in amongst their sorgum plants. We ended up with 9 watermellon. We have one in the fridge but haven't tried it. They aren't as nice as the ones at home as they have bigger seeds and don't seem as solid. Needless to say we gave some away to the gardeners and the elders.

The Sorgum plant looks similar to a corn stalk but the seed grows up from the top. The pick off the stalk of seeds and dry it and then put in on some mesh and shake it/rub or whatever to get the seeds off and they fall through. It is quite a small seed (smaller than wheat) and they grind it and cook it up like a porridge (kind of like they do with the maize). They had some sorgum crops up there but expect about 1/5 of what it should produce. They do not like sorgum near as much as maize (mealie meal) but they eat what they have.

On Thursday we went to the house/farm of the head master of Kadyamadare school. His name is Joel Musoro. He is a good man. He was herding his cows (all 3 or 4 of them) when we arrived. He said he needed to bring them in so they wouldn't eat someone else's field so we waited for a few minutes for him. He didn't know we were stopping by. They just harvested their ground nuts (peanuts) and he had several large bags that he said would last the year. He gave us some in a grocery sack. They are raw so we will have to roast them. His wife gave us a small jar of peanut butter that she had just made. I ask if she had a peanut butter machine but she does not. She grinds the nuts between to flat-type rocks and turns them to butter and adds a little salt. It is quite good but REALLY sticks to the roof of our mouths. It was very smooth - it would be interesting to watch her make it.

We found out that we are not getting General conference this weekend. We will see if on DVD in 2 or 3 weeks. The area presidency decided to do it that way for some reason. We went to Glendale this morning and met with Bigboy, Susan and their family AND Susan's sister was there also. So we now have another investigator on our list. She seems quite interested and they will all go to church in Bindura tomorrow and we will go there as well since there is not conference broadcast. We had a good discussion with them and showed them "The Restoration" DVD with our computer. It was good.

Lawrence has gone this weekend with his girl, Doreen, to work out the labola with her parents. They know that they cannot get baptized until that is done - once done, they are considered to be traditionally married and the church will allow them to be baptized. They cannot go to the temple though until there is a civil marriage. He told us that he didn't want to be living in 'sin' anymore and wanted to get this done. He took his whole paycheque ($150) for the month to do this - pay for their transport there and also to give the parents a 'token' towards labola. I wonder how many of us would be willing to do that. We have given the Elders some rice/bean mix to take to him this week when he gets back so they will have food for the month.
We better head home. We invited the other 2 couples over for Easter dinner tomorrow. I will make Merci's chicken recipe with some rice, green beans and ?? and watermellon for dessert. :)

Love to all, The Bullocks

Got the camera figured out!

18 March 2010 - Removing old rusted water tank at Kadyamadare School

18 March 2010 - There it goes!

18 March 2010 - Rope came off and it just sat there

18 March 2010 - And there it goes....

18 March 2010 - Tank is done and hooked up -- Bruce with his staff

18 March 2010 - Some of the ladies excited at the prospect ot having water in their taps!

24 Mar 2010 - She was excited to get a pair of glasses

25 Mar 2010 - I liked this sign

25 Mar 2010 - Repairing a borehole at Danangwe Secondary School

25 Mar 2010 - Water - hurray!!

25 Mar 2010 - Yum! Watermelon

25 Mar 2010 - Chewing on sugar cane

25 Mar 2010 - Pulling up the borehole pipe

26 Mar 2010 - She's doing laundry

26 Mar 2010 - Borehole pipes

26 Mar 2010 - Passerby

26 Mar 2010 - Kids waiting for water

26 Mar 2010 - Sweeping/cleaning area around borehole

26 Mar 2010 - And there's water!

26 Mar 2010 - Cleaning cement around borehole

26 Mar 2010 - School kids pumping water

26 Mar 2010 - Heading to the next borehole - the grass is so tall right now!

26 Mar 2010 - Good work - handle goes on in 3 weeks after cement sets nice and solid around the shaft

26 Mar 2010 - Great transport!

26 March 2010 - Ahh!! Good water!

26 Mar 2010 - Fun!

27 Mar 2010 - Nice!

1 Apr 2010 - Discussion about grinding mill at Kadyamadare with Makuto

Good Friday

Today starts the holiday weekend here and lots of people leave to go into the rurals to the homes (kumusha) where they grew up. We see buses packed full heading out of town. When I say 'packed full' - it really is - like sardines!!! :)

Monday we head to Victoria Falls for a couple's conference. The new office couple, The Bowens, arrived here so they get to start off with a bit of a holiday. They are really nice people. We have opted to drive (10 hrs.) and 4 couples will take the big mission van. We are looking forward to the trip and will also spend a day in Botswana at an animal park. There are suppose to be great animals to see there. We will take lots of pictures and with any luck I will get my camera figured out so that I can email some home.

We spent two days in Muzarabani this week driving around to where they hope the LDSC will do boreholes. It definitely is an area that needs them as the people mostly get their water from rivers and hand dug wells. When the rivers dry up they dig holes in the river bed and water seeps into them but the animals also drink from there too. Most people do not boil the water so some get sick and some die. This is an area where not a lot has been done. They have had little rain this year and there is no maize (corn) growing. It was planted but dried up. People are hungry there. We took Seka's mother 4 bags of mealie meal (milled corn) and she was really excited to get it. Seka's two young boys are staying with her for now and we wanted to make sure they were not going to go hungry. We also gave her some oil, sugar, salt and some of the Rice/Bean mix that Reeve brought in the container.

We did see a United Nations truck leaving the area and Pastor Mhike said that is a good sign that they are aware of the hunger up there and are checking it out. Reeve, CC and Lolly are putting together a plan to go there on Apr. 12th with us and distribute books and pens and hopefully some mealie meal to the children. They have sent Seka up to make arrangments and get children gathered - as many as he can get. They will arrange to ship the stuff up on a large truck so it will be there when we arrive. We will also load up our vehicles. It will be a great day or two. We will stay up there again.
Our accommodations that we stayed at were just barely okay. (1/2 star motel!!). We took a couple of quilts with us and laid one on the bed and put the other one over us and used the misquitoe net that was there. We chose not to sleep in their bedding - it might have been alright but.... The toilet (with no seat) was in a different room and there was a shower in another small room, which I opted not to use. :( When Elder Bullock went out to use the toilet he saw a fellow outside (security guard) toting a shotgun. He ask him about it and he said it was for thieves. It did actually make us feel better to know that he was there watching out for us and our truck. We were the only ones there and it was out in the middle of nowhere. The place used to be a college of some sort that is not being used right now. It was an African experience!

Bruce, our borehole contractor, is busy getting the electric boreholes at the clinics fixed, now that the electricity is working. We were there for a while yesterday afternoon. He is trying so hard to do a good job and make us proud (as he puts it). He knows we are looking at big water projects and of course would love to be considered for the work. We also went by Kadyamadare school where the grinding mill is. There have been some issues there with the electrical and so we were really excited to see it operating. The MP, Mr. Zhanda (that we like so much) had been there and he had sent his electrician to them and he paid for a replacement part and got things working. He is such a good man. They just can't thank us enough for what we have done for the school - and of course it isn't just us -- it is through the humanitarian donations that are made by all the wonderful members of the church. They will have a 'turn-over' (thank you) ceremony probably in early June. It will be a grand affair with singing, dancing, speeches, food, etc.

We have also received word that in June we have a Measles campaign in Zambia. We still don't know exactly what is expected of us but have heard that it is a fun experience to be part of. Specialists will come here and we will assist them and do what they tell us. :) We will drive up there and likely be there for several days.

We are looking forward to hearing General Conference this weekend. We will be able to see most of the sessions but probably not the Sunday afternoon one as it is broadcast here at 10 p.m. as we are 8 hours ahead of you. Last April was the first time that conference was broadcast in Zimbabwe. The outer branches will have church as usual as they won't get it there.

We miss you all and hope all is well. Elder & Sister Bullock