Our Current Brigade!

This is our group up until April 22nd... with our Mission President, Michael Headlee and his wife, Pam.
The third group are the elders that we have now, who have been here for only 6-17 weeks. We have learned that the work does go on… and the Lord did send us more Wonderful Guys! We are having a great time with this group.

Our present Elders include Elder Nash (From Kayesville)


& Elder Oulai (from Ivory Coast),
who were both transferred this past weekend to become District leaders in other countries. Our other elders in this group include... Elder Pister (Mr. Personality from Oregon),
Elder Hancock (a good athlete and almost as competitive as Ed)
Our Elder Thompson, with his permanant smile, from Kayesville, Utah

and now Elder Wilkins.

Our Zone leader is Elder Kapelli (DRC),
and our district leader is Elder Tamumbanda (DRC).
WE LOVE OUR ELDERS!

My last post...for now...

I am writing this today, April 18, 2011. I left the Congo exactly 70 days ago today. My life has changed from those 7 days spent. The day after I came home my husband could tell how wonderful it was and how much it changed me for the better and he started looking up on the church website how much it costs to serve a mission as a senior missionary couple. There are groups that I would like to address specifically: Friends and Families of Elders Currently Serving in DR Congo: Your sons are amazing. Thank you so much for what you did to help them be ready and worthy to serve in this amazing area. Don’t worry about them they are in good hands, both my parents and the Lords. Friends and Families of Elder and Sister Gates: Ed and Kriss are doing GREAT! They love each other, they love the work, they love the people, and they love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They miss you all terribly but know the work they are doing is imperative to these people. They love to hear from you. Email or simply just hit the comments button at the end of this or any blog post to send them a quick “hello”. Any member of the Church: Your service is greatly needed! Without you, there are villages of people that will go without having the knowledge of the true church of Jesus Christ. If you are a youth looking forward, prepare now to go when you are 19 (or 21 for girls). If you are past that age, start planning and preparing now to serve in your older years. Not only prepare finically, but spiritually too. Learn a language, every little bit helps. Knowledge is something we can take with us in the next life. Go and Do, NOW! If you cannot serve due to health reasons when you are older, there are many healthy couples that may not have the finical means to serve a mission. Help them. Talk to your Bishop to see if he knows of any needs in your ward or stake. Did you know the minimum age for serving as a senior missionary is 40?!?!? Wayne is 41! Of course you cannot have any dependent children living at home so he is off the hook. When I look back at my week I think of one thing that sums up the time I spent in the Congo. The first day I was there I couldn’t get over how much trash there was everywhere. (But think about this for a minute. These people don’t have a government whose priority is to set up a public trash service, they don’t even have addresses to send a trash man to pick up trash let alone send a bill. They don’t have cars trucks to load all their trash in the back and take it to the dump. So what do you do with it? You make a big pile and every few days, you burn it.) The last day at church a cute Brother who spoke English asked me how I liked Pointe Noire. I told him I loved it, it was wonderful and beautiful! He said, isn’t it dirty? I paused to think of my first day reaction and thought of the piles of trash and I smiled as I thought, no it isn’t dirty it is magnificent. I no longer saw piles of trash, I saw wonderful, pure people who smiled and loved meeting the “Moon Deli”. They aren’t worried about “Keeping up with the Jones”. They live in such humble homes that most of us can’t imagine, but yet, they were all clean and freshly dressed for Church. They may not own a book other than the Book of Mormon, but if you only have one book, that is the one to have. Mom, Dad, I love you. Thanks for letting me share this week with me. Thanks so much for raising me in the way of the Lord. Thanks for setting such a great example. I am ready to come back!

Day 7

I can’t believe my African adventure is over! Today is Sunday, Church. There are 2 branches that meet. One starts at 8 and the other at 11:30. The relief society teacher was a hoot! She was very animated although I only understood a few words. Two words I understood were Elder Gates, although I have no idea what she said about him. One thing that Dad is really working on here is being on time. I remember one Sunday growing up that we forgot it was Daylight Savings. We were 50 minutes early for church. Dad had us sit there and said something to the effect of at least we will be on time once this year. I still remember that. It ingrained a teaching into me of always being on time to church. They are slowly learning the concept of starting on time. One thing that Dad has taught them is to end on time. He said they used start late and end late. For example today the last ward was supposed to end at 2:30, we went until 2:47. Dad was going crazy when they sang all 3 verses of the closing song. It was kinda funny to see him. After he went to a member of the Branch Presidency to let them know what was supposed to happen. That happened with a couple of things today. As running water is rare to them, they all go a little strong on the water at church. Here is Dad filling up the water. I think he filled it 3 times and an Elder did it at least once. It started pouring rain during church. They have tin roofs so it was very loud. The sister that said the closing prayer was so soft and the rain so loud that not very many people heard the end so the Amen was a delayed reaction. Mom is in charge of the distribution orders. See her previous posts regarding more info on this. Today this man was so happy to get his triple combination. Mom said he ordered it over a year ago. Now that we know how the system works the turnaround is much shorter. It is so cool to see them teaching from the same books as I am used to. It testifies to me how important the manual is. It keeps us on track worldwide. I almost pulled a “Charise” and took a photo during sacrament meeting but I was able to grab these shots between meetings. As they are slowly learning how things work, they are getting the hang of primary. However, they now just drop off all their kids, even nursery age. They don’t have any nursery leaders. Mom brought this little one in during gospel doctrine. I think it is good that Charise isn’t here because she would be tempted to leave tonight with a few babies in tow. They are so cute! After 6 ½ hours of church, these cute Elders were smiling and greeting all the members and it just made my heart melt. I hope my son is such a great missionary. This is choir practice. After church and before I went to the airport, I played my first and only Train Game of the week. I can't remember who won...just kiddin...Dad won.

Traffic and #1 & #2

When we were going out to FHE it is about 20 minute drive, at least that is what it took on the way back. On the way there it took over 2 1/2 hours! It was CRAZY! We had 2 Elders and a branch missionary in the back seat. After about 2 hours one of the Elders said, "Elder Gates, Grase has to go #1 and #2." Dad said, "I am not waiting." Keep in mind we were in stop and go traffic for almost 2 hours. Mom and I both looked at Dad like are you serious? As you might know, it is very hard to tell when Dad is joking or “just serious” and I was born into the family! After a couple of beats Dad said OK, run to that gas station up there. The Brother got out and started WALKING! At the same time we started moving forward at a somewhat steady pace although it was still about 10 miles an hour. Dad blew a gasket as this was the first time in almost 2 hours that we were moving forward and Dad just let this brother out of the car and he was WALKING! Dad rolled down his window and said, “Grase, get back in here.” One thing to note: when Dad talks, EVERYONE listens. There was no way this poor brother was not going to come back. He also realized that he better hurry as Dad was still moving the car forward. He hustled and got in the car. Dad said, “Why were you just walking? Why didn’t you hustle?” This poor Brother, with his broken English said nothing. Dad looked in his rear view mirror and said, “How are ya?” The response was, “Bad”. Imagine the worst bodily function needing to be evacuated, you are in stop and go traffic with Elder Gates already telling you that he wont wait, then you can go, then to come back because you weren’t going fast enough, and keep in mind that you think Elder Gates is the coolest thing to hit Africa since the air conditioning in the church. Just typing the word, “Bad” doesn’t effectively describe how this cute Brother said, “Bad”. Dad saw his eyes when he said, “Bad” and knew (probably from his own experiences) this man needed to go the restroom. Dad pulled over and let this poor man RUN to the gas station. We stayed pulled over for over 15 minutes. Poor guy.

OUR LONG TERM TEAM !

A big wave got us! Only Elder Wagman got wet clothes...



Our “battalion” of elders stayed about the same from September to December. These guys were were here with us for several months. We became very attached to these sweethearts. 6 of them lived with us in our home for 6 or 12 weeks. After we prayed and preached and laughed and played together, for several months, we grew into being an awesome team. After making great memories, some were transferred to other countries in the mission. They were excited for their new adventures and this excitement was contagious. Some returned home to their families. We have learned to love being with these elders… and we have learned that we need to eventually let them out of our nest on to their next assignment.

Four of them ended their missions valiantly, and went home from here. This group included Elder Chirwa, (From Kenya... our zone leader and "almost perfect missionary")
Elder Lee,(who played excellent basketball and really gave Ed a run for his money. However,Ed won the last match... which Ed calls the championship match!)
Elder Lisowski (Our computer & video genius from Canada)>
& Elder Healey (from Sacramento, CA and our 2nd great zone leader.)


Two of the elders of this group came to us in the middle of their missions and have now been transferred to other countries. They are:
Elder Roldan (Our gourmet cook from San Jose)
& Elder NGandu (from District Republic of the Congo-Kinshasa. He started a fantastic ward choir here.)
We also had 4 boys who came to the Congo from the United States the same week that we did. They were our “greenies” and it was great fun to have them adjust to life in the Congo with us. These were Elder Lamm, (from Bear Lake, Idaho)
Elder Wagman,(from Georgia)

Elder Tingey (from Kayesville, Utah)

and Elder Buck (who was our fun roommate from Utah) who came out 6 weeks before us.
We wondered if we could ever be as close to other elders, when they said goodbye, and our hearts were heavy because we don’t know if we will ever see them again here on earth. However, we have learned that the work goes on… and the Lord did send us more Great Guys! But we will never forget any of these great boys that we saw grow into "Men".