Zone Training

We had our first "Zone Training" yesterday.  Our Zone Leader, Elder Zurcher, lead and taught us.  He did a good job.

Elder Davis, Elder Hunt, Elder Johnston, Elder Hatch

Elder Naughton, Elder Hunt, Elder Leavitt, Elder Graham

Elder Zurcher, Elder/Sister Whitesides, Elder Gelinas

Baptism

We held a baptism of 9 yesterday.  The Missionaries continue to work hard and teach people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is wonderful to see people gain a testimony and be baptized.  There was a problem with paying the water bill, so the water meter was removed.  We hired a truck ($200) and had the baptismal font filled.  It would have disappointed many people if we would have had to cancel the baptism.

There were so many people at the baptism, some of the Elders had to peek in through the windows in the back.

Helping Hands

We all put on yellow vests today and did a "Helping Hands" project.  We were divided into 4 different groups.  We cleaned trash, swept garbage, used machetes to cut back grass and bucketed murky water, mud and sewage to open a storm drain.  Elder Whitesides was the driver for President Bala, so we drove from site to site and took pictures.  We tried to help as much as we could as we visited each site.  We had reporters from 2 different newspapers taking pictures of the event.   There was a great turnout - probably 120 members.  We even met a man that said he was an inactive member.  He promised to come to Church tomorrow.  Here are a few of the pictures from today.  

The people all piled into taxis to get to their destinations.

Wait, there is still room for 2 more!!!













                       Sure enough!!!

 

Elder Zurcher (above) and Elder Naughton (below) definitely had the worst assignment, but they did it with a smile.

This is the Bastos members.  The Ekounou members went back to their building.

President and Soeur Cook Visit for District Conference

We welcomed President and Sister Cook for District Conference.  Elder Bricknell, from the Area Presidency, was also scheduled to come. There was a fire in the Nairobi airport, which is where he was flying through.  He couldn't get another flight out of Johannesburg, so he didn't make it.  It put a lot of pressure on President and Sister Cook, but they did great.  Our schedule was so full, our lunch was an apple and peanuts in the car between meetings.  Here are some of the pictures from the weekend visit.

Sister Cook did the Auxiliary Training.  Elder Gelinas was her interpreter.  She had me speak for 10 minutes, so I had Elder Gelinas help me write it in French so I could read it.  I also taught them a Primary song.  Elder Whitesides told me later that all the men heard me singing.  President Bala said, "It was wonderful".  Yikes!

There were about 45 women.  We had only planned on about 30.  It was a great turnout.  The sisters loved Sister Cook.

The pictures below are pictures of the choir.  They practiced for 4 months.  They sounded so good.  I played the keyboard for them.  They love to sing - and they sing loud and with their whole heart.  They also had these new shirts made for the Conference.  Don't they look awesome!

I will explain why we are laughing.  The lights were out, so Elder Whitesides was shining the light from his phone on my music.  He kept wiggling it around, thinking he was so funny.  We didn't know someone was taking a picture.

Just some random pictures of the missionaries after Conference.
President Cook asked  Elder Whitesides and I to speak at the District Conference.  

Monday, we visited the new building site.

The building site is on the right with the fence around it.  We hope they start building by the end of the year.  The Church has 
owned the property since 2009.












Here we are in Africa!  Hard to believe.

We visited Mt. Febe' where President Holland dedicated the land of Cameroon.  President Bala was the one who found the site and was present at the dedication.

We went out to lunch at Buena Vista.  Yummy Capitainne fish, and I didn't have to cook!

That night, the Elders came over for a short training and then Family Home Evening.   






Here they are all promising to take their Doxy.  Some say they forget.

What a great visit we had with the Cooks.  They flew out the next morning at 7, so we had to get up at 4:30 to get them on the plane in time.  We can't believe their intense schedule.