Finding Hope in Africa

(from Lani)

When I was asked to give a talk in church about "Finding Hope through the Atonement," I asked mom and dad if they could share a good Africa story of hope with me. They gave gave me one that fit perfectly in my talk. I thought I would post it here; hopefully, that is OK with mom. Thanks for your help mom.

Stories about Hope and Africa
August 20, 2010
(by Kriss Gates)

When we were called on our mission to serve as missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Republic of Congo in Africa, we read all the articles we could find on the church in Africa. We were amazed at the reports of how quickly the church was growing. One report said that there were 20,000 members in our mission area. 10,000 of them joined last year. Other reports were just as positive.

Soon after reading these reports, Ed and I were discussing what would make the gospel grow so quickly. In our ward in Irvine, we only have a few baptisms a year. I had recently been released from serving as the Relief Society President (women's organization) of our ward (congregation), and in my narrow mindedness and my Orange County, California mentality, “I wonder if the reason the Africans are joining the church in throngs is because the people are very poor and they are just joining so they can collect welfare.” Then, I wondered if it they were joining in groups because it was the “in-thing” to do. I kept trying to think of why else the gospel was growing so rampantly in Africa.

A couple of days later we had the opportunity to attend a homecoming for one of the elders who had just returned from serving in the city where we had been called to serve - Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo. This elder stood up and looked across the well groomed affluent congregation in Newport Beach, California. He started his talk by telling us that the bishop had asked him to speak on “Hope”. And then he shared a story with all of us about a night that he and his companion visited the home of a woman in Pointe Noire.

In a country that is ridden with poverty, alcoholism, wars, broken homes, abuse in the home and general despair, I discovered something wonderful! Let me give you just one example. One of the sisters that we had the opportunity to teach worked hard from early in the morning until late in the day. She had several children and she was the primary provider for the family. Wednesday nights were our regular night to teach her. When we arrived one evening and entered her very humble home, with a dirt floor, she was sitting on her “sofa” with her head in her hands. (Her sofa was really just some springs with a piece of fabric on it.) She looked up at us and said… “Oh, elders. I am so sorry. I am just too, too tired to have a lesson tonight. I am just not up to it.”

The elders said she looked exhausted so they said… “Can we just sing a Hymn to you, and we will be on our way?” She nodded and the 2 young men, who had been transformed in one short year from being high school socialites and athletes into stalwart men of God, started to sing in French all the verses of “Come, Come Ye Saints."

Perhaps their tune and accents were less than perfect, but their hearts were full of love and compassion for this sweet sister.

When they were done singing she lifted her head up out of her hands and smiled a big smile. “Thank You, Elders, I needed that. Now I am ready for the lesson.” These fine young men had brought the Gospel into this home and with it, the power that the Gospel brings of HOPE.

I sat in the chapel that day and felt my testimony grow by leaps and bounds as my spirit was humbled and my heart burst with happiness. I knew then why the African people were joining by the thousands. It isn’t a “social thing” or a “welfare thing”. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ in it’s purest form. The marvelous byproduct of believing in and loving Jesus Christ is HOPE!

Family Home Evening

In this country of despair the church offers support and education, but especially the knowledge that life is wonderful and well worth living as our families learn about Jesus Christ and how much he and our Father in Heaven love them.

In the 6 weeks since we arrived here in Pointe Noire, we have had the opportunity to see the happiness in these great people’s lives. We have sat in homes where the fathers shared their testimonies with their wives and children at Family Home Evenings. We have been with investigators as they were taught by the young elders and watched as they flipped through their well-read and very highlighted scriptures and glowed as they asked questions.

We have seen branches with over 150 children, teenagers, young married couples, and families fill up a small chapel… with only 2 cars in the parking lot. We realized that they had either walked to church (long distances) or used their precious funds for bus rides to get to church… and they were thrilled to be there.

We have seen HOPE glow in their faces as they welcomed us into their meetings.

The heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ is HOPE in everything that is now and all that is forever.

EDDIE, MY LOVE.....

I am continually reminded what a fun, great man my father found for me to marry. Big thanks Dad. These are a few mission moments in the life of Eddie Gates.

Ed Gates is "The Blur". It's fun trying to keep up with him.
He will be 65 next week and on Social Security. Does he look old? I don't think so... this is one of his favorite activities of the week at 5:30 a.m. every Thursday morning.
Here he is helping to decide if this new sofa passes "the comfortable" test, as he has spent days shopping with me.
These next 3 shots are sooooo Ed. Don't tell him something can't be done, or he will just take it as a challenge to do it! "Elder Gates, there is no way that we can transport this cabinet in your truck."
"Elder Gates... are you sure about this?"
"Elder Gates... Are you really sure about this???" Job accomplished!
Life is great... as long as we get our almost daily ice cream cones (about 40 cents).
Look what we found one morning on our early walk! We were so excited... and the locals just laughed and laughed that we thought this sweatshirt was soooo great! (Most of the clothes here have come from donations like the Deseret Industries or Goodwill.)
We bought permanent press dress shirts, but he still likes to "touch them up" because the Congolese always have perfectly ironed clothes. The crease over the shoulder is a big deal.
This is him trying to keep the mission organized...
And this is him meeting with the city water superintendent about drilling a new well to provide water for five neighborhoods.
We had a service project picking up litter in the city... and here he is picking up the litter that our "litter picker-uppers" left after our break and refreshments. But... they are learning.
And here he is trying to teach the Congolese children it is important not to litter.
He has become the main photographer and they all think he is hilarious because almost none of them have cameras or hardly ever get their photos taken.
This is a photo of him at the end of the day trying to do a few more excercise moves. His shoes are on so he can go outside and turn off the generator, because the power was out... again.
But I guess my favorite view of him today was when a camera wasn't appropriate. This morning I took a peak at him in his short sleeve white shirt and tie, standing alongside another elder, as they laid their hands on the head of another elder who was ill to give him a priesthood blessing. Eddie, my love... Thank you for being you.

Bargain shopping

I have spent days and shopping for the stuff for the new apartments. Thanks to staging the beach houses with Christel and Caren, I have had lots of experience. It is a different experience than shopping in the fancy shops of Newport and Laguna Beach... but I did learn from the best.



I have learned to bargain with the shopkeepers. I was very excited to find a clothes tree for Dad and I, and stackers for our bathroom and closets. In fact, they have worked out so well, and I had got them down in price so much, we bought each companionship a stack of 4 baskets, a clothes tree and a little office table that we are using as a table between their 2 beds for scriptures, alarm clock, etc. The Elders are thrilled with any little "luxury" and they like having a place for all their small things and books, other than in a big pile at the bottom of their closet or on the floor of their rooms. (They didn't have any drawers, etc.)

These photos are of the place that we bought our sofa set for the boys, and I am going to have them make us sofas once we know where we are going to be permanently. As you can see, my options for fabric are exciting, most are velour... and I would hate to choose bright purple if our new apartment is bright orange!

Fabric options for sofas

The shop, the carpenters and the treddle sewing machine that they make sofas on.

The sacrifices as a member of the church in Pointe-Noire

This is one family that all live in the same home.

After driving around looking for the new homes, we realized just how far most of our saints travel to get to church. Almost all take a bus or taxi and many have to switch buses in the middle and pay 2 fees. For them, it is a big expense, so we don’t do very many things during the week. Ed said he would never be judgmental of how late they are to church, especially the 8:00 meetings. I can’t imagine getting up and getting a family ready for church, driving on a bus for 30-40 minutes to get there before 8:00. These are very valiant people.

We went to visit some of the members’ homes. Most are very tiny and made out of wood or corrugated aluminum. Most don’t have doors, just a frayed piece of curtain hanging down. They have all been clean, however, and the people are thrilled to have us visit. The living rooms of 2 of the 3 we have been in are about 8’ x 8’, which is about the size of our upstairs bathroom in our house in Irvine, California.

Funeral

The funeral that we went to was very interesting. The man who died was in his 30s, and he was one of the handicapped people who can’t walk, because one of his shots as a baby went bad. He crawled through life using thongs on his hands and dragged his legs behind him. He joined the church in March, and the Branch President said they had petitioned to get him a wheelchair through the church, but it hadn’t yet arrived. They think he died of a ruptured hernia.

The service (in his yard) was supposed to start at 1:00 p.m. The first part started at 1:30 and it was the spiritual message on the Plan of Salvation given by 2 church members. Then at 2:00 the African drums started. I shut my eyes and realized what a rare opportunity we were having, and realized we could have been on National Geographic. However, when I opened my eyes, the drummers weren’t in grass skirts, but denim pants and t-shirts.

A group of about 10 neighborhood boys about 16 - 25 years old came in and picked up the coffin and carried it outside of the yard and down the street. They were shaking the coffin up and down.
They marched all around the neighborhood with it for about an hour. Then the women started dancing. It was such a mixture of old tradition and the new church. Then we went to the cemetery.

They drive in a cavalcade like we do, but it is like a big party with people hanging out the windows and shouting. When we got to the cemetery we saw rows and rows of grave mounds with metal crosses on them. Each cross had a name and a birth and death date. They were buried in straight rows, depending upon when they were buried. There were thousands buried in 2010. When we got to his hole, it was the next open grave. There was a full row of open graves, about one foot apart… I mean like 40-50 open graves. It was creepy the way that death is such a part of life for them, that they had pre-dug all those holes.

When they lowered the body in, a girl who was weeping hard, threw herself into the hole, sobbing hard. Then a member of the branch presidency stepped up and gave the prayer dedicating the grave. It got fairly quiet for a couple of minutes and then when the prayer was over, the hoopla began again. I am sure this is a day I will always remember.

Teaching Charline

Probably the highlight of the week was going to Charline’s home with the elders to teach her the last lesson before she would be baptized on Saturday. She is a darling 16 year-old girl. She was very friendly to me at our first activity. The next week on Sunday, I teased her about wearing pants and told her she should wear a skirt to church. Our interpreter, one of our elders said “Sister Gates, she is an investigator.” I had him tell her that she could be an example to the other girls in young women to wear a dress. (The Mission President’s wife told me that I need to encourage the women and girls to wear dresses.) Anyway, she took it very well and has worn a dress each time. She was baptized on Saturday Aug 7.

I wrote her a type-written letter, and had an elder translate it into French. Then I read it to her before she was baptized. We gave her a little CTR ring that we had brought with us and she was thrilled with it. We shall see what the future brings for her. When I see where she lives and what her situation is, I don’t know if she will have the strength to really be the church leader that she has the potential to be. She hadn’t been to Young Women’s previously. When I asked why, she said she couldn’t go because she wasn’t baptized yet. Hopefully, she will now get the blessings of attending Young Women.

Oh… how blessed we are to have born in America… and how blessed we are to be able to have had this experience and look at the world through “African eyes”, for the rest of our lives. Love to all of you! WE have to get busy… we only have 17 months left, and there is soooo much to do!

Our first baptisms!

Friday 7/17/10:
We had our first baptism service on 7/17/10 and baptized 3 new members. As I watched Elder Tingey baptize one of the Africans, with 2 other African Elders as witnesses, I was touched by the spirit of what we are really doing over here. It was wonderful. We have baptisms twice a month.

We had another baptism two weeks later, Aug 7 and we had 15 new baptisms of which two were 8 year old children. It was great. Ed was a witness and a cute girl that I helped to teach was baptized.

“Real estate agent” missionaries

July 20 (Ongoing Process for Now)

We are bursting out of the seams at our chapel. We need a new building. The mission president asked Ed and I to spearhead the search. We walked all the areas within the parameters. 99% of the buildings were awful! If a place was decent, and nobody was around to ask about the building, we would leave a note we printed up.
The only one that I found that was for rent was an old school building. I tried to convince people that my husband could make any "dump" wonderful. Ed was horrified I would even consider it.

After looking, for days and days, we had the branch presidents make an announcement during their Sacrament Meetings that we were looking for a chapel site within certain parameters. We were praying and looking for a miracle.

That week we got a call from one of the members who had a friend with an apartment house who is leaving for an extended time and said he would like to rent the entire building to one group, so he didn’t need to worry about it while he was gone. Dad & the Zone Leader went right over and called the Branch President to see how he felt about it. It was very exciting. We now are just waiting for the approval from temporal affairs from the area. Hopefully they will get someone here this week, so we won’t lose it.

We also had to find 2 new homes for the elders. President Headlee, the mission president, said that he wanted them to live closer to their sectors. Their sectors are in extremely humble surroundings, which make it somewhat difficult to find a house that is up to my standards. I insisted that we were going to find something, within the budget, nice enough that the elders wouldn’t dread going home too at night. President Headlee also wanted a generator for when the power goes off. Not only would a generator allow electricity to see, but it would also run the pump so they could have water.

There is no Craig’s List or want ads, but they do occasionally write homes for rent on a neighborhood blackboard.
We found one house on the second day of looking. But we spent several more days driving through the sectors and looking for the second one. Each morning we would pray. I kept singing the primary song combined with the scripture “I will go, I will do, the things the Lord commands… For we know the Lord giveth no commandments save he shall prepare a way for them.” We finally found a black board that had several homes listed on it. Most of them were like 50,000 CEFAS ($100 per month). I knew they would be dives. One of them said 200,000 CEFAS ($400 per month). Our budget was 300,000 to 400,000 Cefas.

We finally found a found a brand-new, 3-bedroom home with a big wall around it right in the middle of a very humble area, and the neighborhood dumps. This house didn’t have a generator, but when we went to see it, it was perfect. The owners agreed to put in a generator (an extra 150,000 CEFAS for the first 2 years) and to put screens all around the house, (to keep the mosquitoes out). It won’t be finished for a couple more weeks, but it should be great.

We have moved all the elders out of the apartment behind us and into their own home. The other four moved in with us, until their home is finished. It actually isn’t bad having them here. They bring a special spirit into our home. They faithfully sing songs before their study time, and in the evening when they get home to end their days. We hear them through their closed doors, and it touches us deeply.

A must-read from Elder Eric Palmer

Chuck here, providing a must-read tip. I recommend the blog of Elder Eric Palmer to get a taste of the perspective of the young missionaries serving with Mom and Dad. He has talked of Elder and Sister Gates a few times, but his email of July 28th was especially hilarious about my dad talking trash on the basketball court. It sounds like the Elders really like having Mom and Dad there.

Dad shooting over the Elders

Sister Gates helping the Elders clean their apartment

Photo of Elder and Sister Gates

(all photos courtesy of Elder Palmer's blog) 

I believe Elder Palmer is from Virginia, but I don't know where. Mom and Dad, let us know if his family lives near Richmond.