Blessed for being Obedient on P-Day

Our Preach My Gospel book is wonderful. We were reading a section a few weeks ago that said that as missionaries, we will be blessed for being obedient. We might not always understand the reasons for all the missionary policies, but we will be blessed if we are obedient.

When our new Mission President came to town soon after that, he talked to us about the fact that the elders should do a couple of hours of proselyting on P-day. The missionary handbook states that on P-day (which is now on Mondays world wide), P-day ends at 6:00 and the missionaries go out proselyting. However, in our mission, the Elders aren't to take any appointments after 6:00, for security reasons. When it gets dark, there are not hardly any lights in the city. Therefore, to comply with the handbook, our Presdient wants the elders to take 2-3 hours every Monday to work, and then they can come to our house and play on Monday nights. P-days are already very busy... They usually start with early morning basketball (or Tennis).
It is the only time during the week they play sports. They do their studying. They have to do their laundry

and clean their houses. They do their shopping for their food for the week.
That is a major thing here, because there isn't one big supermarket that carries everything. Here we have to go to a couple of markets for drygoods, and then several places to buy produce, and a separate butcher shop, and another stop for eggs, housewares, etc This is the only day they communicate with home, so they used to go to the internet for 2 hours. However, the new president is encouraging them to cut it back to an hour.
As we looked at our Monday schedules, the elders sadly announced they would have to forego basketball to get it all done. Because I had just read the promise in Preach My Gospel, I reminded the boys that we have been promised that if we are obedient, we will be blessed. The first week everything, but basketball, got done. The next 2 weeks they said they wanted to try to hustle, and still get to play basketball... and try to get everything done. They did it! And then they came to our house to play.


We are so very proud of them! We have 2 baptism days a month. We usually have between 2 and 5 baptisms. Well...... this was our blessing for being obedient! Yesterday we had 13 baptisms and they are great strong new members.

We love our obedient Elders!!!

Ping Pong Fun!

We thought it would be fun to have a Ping Pong table for our elders to play on P-day. However, the best prices on "Indoor" tables was over $600 and it didn't look very sturdy. The good ones cost about $1200. Remember, everything has to be shipped in. We gave up on buying one, but not on playing Ping Pong with the elders. Ed bought a piece of plywood and Elder Hancock bought a couple of paddles and balls... and the fun began. Notice that the "net" (or broomstick) is first propped on big seashell clumps, Ed found on the beach. Then we tried books. And then our son Chuck and his wife Ashley sent us a real net... with clamps and 4 new paddles and some balls. We are now set! We held our first official tournament a week ago. Elder Gates is an outstanding Ping Pong player ... but Elder Thompson was nothing short of amazing... and he was the champion! Stay tuned for future ping pong action.

Kriss’s Congo Birthday

My birthday was on a Thursday which is P-Day for the elders, which means it is our fun night together. On Wednesday night, Ed took me out to a nice restaurant on the beach. We watched a fabulous sunset...

and then I ordered a great crab salad and, for my main course, Lobster Thermadore (only $20 American). The day of my birthday, we slept in until 7:00 a.m. and then did normal errands and regular work, but that night the elders cooked dinner to give me the night off. They cooked Lasagna and Ed made his fabulous brownies. We played train game and they gave me a gift of a small painted statue of an African mom with her baby on her back. (I think I am collecting them.) I got 2 special messages from Dad and heard from most of our kids and some friends, so it was a great day! Thanks to all who made it so fun.

Our first real "P-Day"

We have been told that there isn’t much to do around here, so you get to be creative and make your own fun. Our last P-Day was one of those days.

President Calle is one of our 2 branch presidents. He speaks a little English and is absolutely wonderful to try to help us with whatever he can. When we go to church, there are only 2 other cars in the parking lot besides our truck. President Calle’s nice SUV is one of the other 2 cars. On Thursday, July 15, we all loaded into our truck or President Calle’s car and headed for north to Diosso. Our city is land locked and there are few roads going in or out, but the one road going north that takes about 40 minutes to drive, and that’s what we did. We drove about 25 minutes and then stopped at a village "boutique" for snacks.

We stopped at a slave trail museum, but it was only open on weekends, so we didn’t get to go in. We will do that another day.

Then we went on to the “gorge” (Gorges de Diosso) which is a beautiful lookout point that has red rock formations. It was amazing, if you look around the Congo. You don’t see anything else that hints of red rocks.
After the gorge we went to the beach,

where the guys played football. Ed amazed everyone on the first play as he grabbed the ball out of the air and ran a great play.
However, on the 2nd play, he tripped on the uneven African ground and wiped out.
He played the entire time with those 19 & 20 year olds, and had a ball.

The highlight of the day was going to the one and only golf course.
We went over to the only person we could see to see if they had a score card for Morse Travers’s collection. They didn’t. We talked to the man, who seemed to be the only one on the course (working or playing). He said that it costs the equivalent of $40 American to play, plus $20 for the caddy and club rental. I had the interpreter ask if they have twilight rates, like in the United States. He said “No” this isn’t the United States. In my very broken French I explained that we were missionaries and didn’t have very much money. The guy smiled and said in French… “Would you like to play one or two holes for free?” He gave us 6 clubs and 8 balls and the 13 of us headed off to play golf. The elders had a ball. They all caddied or hit or just laughed and ran around like little kids. Several had never played before and thought it was great fun. Ed will now take over a description of the play.

This is my caddy and our zone leader, Elder Chirwa.

After my drive I am actually in the middle of the fairway. Many of you may not think this looks like a fairway, as there wasn't much grass. It made the Kahuku golf course, which we nicknamed the "Eternal Sandpit" look quite plush. It is tough to hit a 180 yard sand iron, so I tried it with a 3 iron.
Looking at this sand trap above, you can actually see the difference between the grass and the sand trap. However, there is really not much difference. If you look below you can see that the grass, or mowed weeds, are sparse. Great form on this golfer, though.
My approach shot was headed for what I thought would be the green. There was a flag there. Little did I know that there would be no grass at all on the green. It was made of hard packed, oiled down dirt. The green actually had little walls around it, because an approach shot would actually roll and not stop on the green. By the 2nd hole, we got the idea that you wanted to hit short of the green and let it roll into the pit.
It was amazing how flat the green/dirt was. It was a very hard surface.
Nice Put. I made it! This hole in the ground reminds me of how when I was a little boy we used to dig holes to shoot our marbles into. There was a metal part at the bottom of this hole that held up the flag.

Three of the first time golfers. Nice form though. This is our district leader Elder Kesler.


Now I can say "I played golf in the Republic of Congo!" I don't think I will go back and pay $60 to play it. Ken... if you come over and work the course, you could maybe get me on free.

15 DAY COUNTDOWN!

We are very excited... Congo here we come! We finished packing inside the house yesterday. We hope to finish the garage and laundry room tomorrow. Big Job but it feels great to get things organized. We are so on a roll. The DI has been here 3 times and is coming again on Wednesday. Our goal is to be ready to leave before we go to bed on Wednesday... and then go on a relaxing trip for a week.

These pictures are of our last weekend together. (I stole these great pictures from Chuck's blog-Thanks honey.) The top left is the kids washing their feet at their own foot party after the corn roast. The upper right is a funny picture that we found that I had made into a poster years ago. The lower left is a photo of the kids going through all their special memory boxes from High School... and the last is a fun shot of us at the corn roast. (Except our cute Ashley and Mike McBride and Hawk, who were greatly missed.)

Actually Char and Tiffany are teaching us to blog, so this is our trial. Stay tuned for the real updates.