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| Elder Dobard resting at Christmas dinner |
Christmas and New Years Came and went with no real excitement. We had all of our missionaries here for Christmas Eve and then for dinner after church. We had a gift exchange and I was given a nice looking hat to cover my bald head. Sister Jorgensen got some dangling ear rings. After dinner the missionaries all got to make their phone calls home. We had to wait until later for the California Elders to call because of the time difference. We are eleven hours ahead of Pacific standard time. Sister Jorgensen and I called her family on the 19th at three in the morning our time. On Saturday, Christmas Eve, the Elder wanted to go get a Monopoly game to play. They were going to walk over to the Nakumatt but came right back when it started to rain so we drove them. It poured. When we got to the Nakumatt cars were backed up out into the road waiting to get in. We had to drive around before we got to an empty parking spot. I looked like Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve there were so many last minute shoppers there.
We attended the branch Christmas dinner for Kisumu on the 21st of December and then the Christmas dinner at the Busia branch on the 22nd. Somehow rice, ugali, pilo and other stuff like that aren't what I think of as Christmas dinner. Sister Jorgensen baked a chicken and cooked potatoes for us.
We had a baptism on December 17 for several people from here and for the people from Nyabondo. Nyabondo is 65 kilometers out and it is a real challenge and sacrifice for the people to come in so we had the baptism in conjunction with our Seminary and Institute graduation. The graduation went well with the the skits that Sister Jorgensen had organized being acted out really well considering that there was no rehearsal time. We served a light lunch and then prepared for the baptism service for the Nyabondo people. We had 35 people to baptize altogether so we started with the local people who were not involved in Seminary or Institute first. Our initial plan was to baptize them, dry the clothes and then do the next ones in sets since we were way short of enough clothes even though we borrowed three sets from Busia branch. We had 29 people from Nyabondo to baptize and so we started with the first group. It quickly became obvious that drying the clothes between sets would not work because the dryer is too small and too slow. The people were willing to wear wet clothes so I just tossed them into the washing machine and hit spin for a few minutes and gave them to the next person.
Satan tried to make our baptism service fail by first having the water shut off on Friday. We were told that it would be off until Monday. With no water we could not fill the baptismal font. I checked the reserve tank and it was full so I got the hose and siphoned all of the water into the font. We may not have water for anything else but the font was full. The water came back on again. Saturday morning early the Saints from Nyabondo arrived in two matatus ready for the day. We got started doing the baptisms for Nyabondo and it started to rain one of those real hard cold downpours. Bryan who was doing the baptizing asked what to do and Elder Phillips told him to just keep on going so he did. Our font is outside in the back yard of our building. The Saints cheered and praised God saying that He was so happy for them that He was crying tears of joy over them and it was a real blessing. The rain stopped. Because of the distance and the cost of transport which is a huge problem for people here we had permission to confirm them on the same day instead of in Sacrament meeting the next day. While Bryan was doing the baptizing Elders Phillips and Dobard were doing the confirming. At the end of the baptizing one of the sisters who had been really sick that morning felt good enough to be baptized and two young men who had not gotten their interviews earlier were baptized by Elder Dobard. We all then convened in the chapel for a short testimony meeting before they all had to head home. It was so great to hear the strong testimonies and the joy of the Saints. We dismissed the meeting and then went out for some pictures before the matatus arrived to take them all home. They were supposed to be here at 5:00 pm. At 6:15 the first one finally showed up. At almost seven they finally got the second one rounded up. He claimed that he couldn't remember where to find them. I would bet that if he hadn't been paid already he would have found them quickly enough.
We will now go to Nyabondo more often as we help to get them organized and teach them their duties as members of the Church. We went there on Thursday and all six of the missionaries went up in a matatu. Normally we take either two missionaries and someone from the branch presidency or four missionaries in our truck. The road this time was a dry dusty track instead of the muddy rutted track that it was the last time. It is hard to imagine things have dried out that much in so short of a time.
Friday morning Elder Beecher arrived from Kitale to give Patriarchal Blessings to seven of our prospective missionaries. He and Sister Beecher were planning on staying over Friday night here with us but two didn't show and so they decided to go home Friday evening. They leave for home in three weeks and have a lot to get done first so his time is really tight right now. He has several more blessings to give in the next week and they have to pack. She said that they have sent several boxes of stuff home already. They have bought quite a few Kenya and Maasai things to remember their time here. I was going to have her help me get my Seminary and Institute stuff done since she is really good at it but they didn't have time. I still am really short of supplies for my classes.
We had two families from Kisumu go to the temple in South Africa. We tried to prepare them so that they would know hat to expect. They had a good time except for the food. It wasn't what they are used to and they really didn't enjoy it very much. Sister Jorgensen has given cheese to some of the members in her literacy class which they don't eat. She has had mixed reactions with most of them being negative. It is a lot about what you are used to eating.
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| filling the font |
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| graduation certificate |
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| Priesthood Restoration skit |
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| getting ready for graduation service |
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| graduation and baptism Saints |
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| almost done Elder Dobard with candidate |
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| the last one, Sister Liela |
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| all of the newly baptized except for the small children |
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| all of us with the Nyabondo Saints |
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| Christmas dinner at the Busia branch. Where's the turkey? |
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| making chapatas for Christmas Dinner at Busia |
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| part of President Odero's grandchildren and children, Busia |
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| cooking the broth for the Pilo. Christmas dinner Busia |
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| Sisters Sibanyoni and Ndahalele cooking our Christmas dinner |
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| Sister Jorgensen cooking Christmas dinner |
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| Elder Sanders at Christmas |
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