This Sabbath has Not Been a Day of Rest!

Sundays are not the days of rest I thought they would be.  But we're glad to be of help to our branch.  We head to Church about 9:15 a.m.  LeRon plays the organ for Sacrament Meeting and I lead the singing.  Then we head to Primary to help the young sister who single-handedly has been running the Primary (which is for children ages 1-11).  LeRon plays the piano and I teach the children songs.  Singing time is fun!  It reminds me of when I was the Primary Music Director for many years back in the Grassy Lake Ward.  It is exhausting for me too as I do what I call "my song and dance" which is necessary to keep the kids' attention!  Then LeRon and I both teach Primary classes.

Then, in keeping with the ideas I presented in my previous post, "You ask . . . How Can I help?" LeRon and I teach a music conducting class.  The point of the class is to teach the people so they can take over the jobs LeRon and I are doing.  When the conducting class is over, we will teach a piano class.  Again, the point is to help the people help themselves.

Then we get into our Toyota truck and head the 20 or so minutes to the Rongai Ward where we teach another music conducting course.  We also help them with their Ward Choir but again with the idea that they will be able to help themselves.  There's a lot of very musically talented people there.

We get home about 4 p.m.  So it's a long day.  The drive is interesting.  We always see baboons and warthogs scampering around right next to the road and right next to the many pedestrians moseying about.  I even saw two warthogs scrounging in a pile of burning refuse.  They didn't seem to mind the flames and I wish I could have taken a picture.

Following are a few pictures for the week:

We drove back to Upper Hill (where our mission office formerly was) and it took almost 1 1/2 hours!  Traffic was pretty bad on a Thursday evening.  I've told you before about how Christian this country is.  Click on this picture of a matatu and you will see a picture of Jesus on the rear window.  It's actually a Simon Dewey picture.  (Or is it Greg Olson)?  Either way, it's a painting of the Savior done by an LDS artist.  So cool to see it here in Kenya.  LeRon says he especially likes the logo on one matatu:  "In God We Trust."  The humor is that you have to trust God every day when you drive on these roads.  Sister Msane says she wishes Kenyans would drive "like normal people!"  (She is from South Africa).

We share the roads with handcarts and other slow moving vehicles.  One time a woman was walking (no not walking -- she was sauntering) down the middle of the road.  No one honked.  People just slowed down and patiently drove around her!

These Kenyans are strong people.  Usually a handcart like this is loaded to the gills and is not on the side of the road!

This was taken out my kitchen window.  All of our neighbors are fairly well-off and almost all of them have hired help.  But no one has an automatic washer.  This girl (and not all hired help are girls) washes the laundry outside by hand in big tubs of water.  They wash and scrub each article of clothing and then they rinse it and hang it to dry, usually for several days.  Then they have to iron everything.  I'm grateful for my automatic washer and dryer, even though it's much smaller than the ones I have at home.

I was so happy to buy a mixer!!!  Can't wait to try it out.  The salesgirl didn't want to lift it down from the high shelf because she didn't think I would buy it if I knew the price.  It WAS expensive.  They don't have any floor models here.  But they open each package up and plug it in and turn it on to be sure it works.  They won't let you buy it till they see if it works.  So nice!  I can't wait to make cookies and bread!  I had a nice visit with the salesgirl.  I talked to her about the Church and about how we love Jesus Christ.  I gave her an Articles of Faith card which lists 13 principles that we hold dear.  So nice that most everyone will listen to us.  (Note from later on:  the mixer was very expensive and very wimpy.  I absolutely couldn't use it so I gave it to Sister Baddoo in our branch and she loved it.)

Here we are in the Rongai Ward.  These people are so faithful.  They come to Church at 10 a.m. for the 3-hour block of meetings and then they stay for choir practice and music conducting.  They are there for about 5 hours and no one complains.  And their choir practice is an hour or more long!!!  Wow!

The monkeys come almost every Sunday between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.  Maybe they want to listen to our Sabbath music!!  They are so cute!!  The sweet young woman guard (who helps to guard our Church compound) was so excited that we got to see the monkeys again today.  She's used to it but she knows I love to see them.  Usually the monkeys are gone before we are out of church.

I love their long tails.  The barbed wire on the top of the wall doesn't faze the monkeys.

Cute, eh?  No wonder Charles Darwin thought we descended from monkeys.  Monkeys are truly very human like.  But I'm glad we know we are sons and daughters of God!

I bought this cool shirt when we shopped at Nakamut on Saturday.  I had a good visit with the young girl who was selling them.  I explained that our Church was a restored Church -- restored to be what it was when Jesus Christ organized His Church on earth.  

I never understand how these pictures come into the blog.  Not at all the way I mean them to.  Isn't this girl a cutie?  This is at the Rongai Ward during our music conducting course.  She is 4 years old and was pretending to be a lion.  She growled at me almost continually and then giggled.  I told her I was a hyena and that lions are scared of hyenas (which I learned in a book about animals in Kenya).  So we growled at each other for a long time.

I took this picture from the Rongai Ward which meets on the 4th floor of a large building. Look at the size of the billboard in comparison with the other buildings.  It's huge.  Then look at the two men, one on each side, who are putting this billboard up.  Before our conducting class started, it was a huge billboard for fresh milk.  But by the end of class it had been changed to this.  I was scared for the two men!  Wish I could have watched the whole process.

Here I am after our long Sabbath day, still smiling but wishing I could take a nap but it's already 5 p.m. so no time for a nap.

The neighbors came over later Sunday evening and sold me two "stress balls" that they had made from balloons and jelly stuff.  I'm holding one in my hand.  They sold it to me for 30 bob which is about 3 cents.  Then they sold me a home-made bracelet for 10 bob, which is 1 cent.  They were thrilled.  They said I was their best customer!

Here's the bracelet that Faye and M* made for me.  It was a little big so they are going to make me another one for free.

Aren't these beautiful girls?  They have lovely smiles. D* (center girl) said that Faye's hair (second from left) is softer because she is only half African (Ugandan and England English).  The other girls are full African so their hair is wirier (is that a word?).  It's fun to talk with them about their hair and how they do it.  Fun to have so many nice people live so close to us.