Special People in our lives in Douala and Elder Holland in Kinshasa

 

We have met a lot of wonderful people here in Douala Cameroon.  We thought we would show a few and tell why they mean a lot to us.

These are our current Elders at our apartment for Thanksgiving dinner.  Elders Gelinas,Zurcher,Prince, Hoiland,Lafleur, Porter,Lavering, Andriamamonjy, Rambelosoam, and Eboue who is a branch missionary.  They can eat as much as our own family of almost 30.  We played games and watched the movie "Remember the Titans" about integration in the 60's in the US.  We shared our blessings and have become each other's families.  

We love the children of Cameroon.  They are so beautiful, loving and happy.  They have nothing compared to children in the US, but don't need things to be happy and have fun.  They run to us and hug us and are so excited that we will shake their hands.  Those in the gospel have a much brighter future ahead of them.

We have shown these people before, but we have really grown to love them.  Gregoire, Gabrielle and their son Messie are on the left by Elder Porter from St. George.  Sister Ange and her son Edon are on the right with Elder Prince.  Elder Prince returned home to Centerville on Nov. 29th.  These two families invite us to their home every two weeks to teach them how to have eternal families, thinking we are experts because we have been married for 36 years and raised 6 children.

  

Elder Holland came to Kinshasa DR Congo a month ago to dedicate a new country called The Central Africa Republic, right between our two countries, for the preaching of the gospel.  Pres. and Sister Jameson, our mission president and his wife,  are in Gabon interviewing for the first branch presidency this very day.  Our priesthood leaders all got to shake his hand.  They didn't invite us missionaries in the outlying areas to come to see him, because of Visas and cost but they did invite our branch presidents. 

 

Pres. Njampou on the left and Pres. Ngueti in the center reading, are our branch presidents.  They are amazing men and were so excited to go to Kinshasa to be with Elder Holland.  It is so amazing that members of the 12 Apostles are going into every corner of the world to be with the members.  The members are so honored that they would do that.

This is the Ebere family.  They came to our home to welcome us right after we got settled.  They came on a Sunday evening and stayed for 4 hours.  Sister Gailey asked Sister Ebere how she braided her girls hair, and she showed her by doing all 4 of them while we watched.  We had treats and the children jumped up and cleaned and washed everything without being asked.  We were impressed.

Romeo, Iren, Manuel, Diabel, Hope, Katie, and Flora Dim have adopted us.  They call almost every week to see if we need anything.  We have been to their home several times for grilled fish and plantanes.  They came to our house for shepard's pie.  Whenever we need anything, we call on them.  They have only been members 11 months, but are so strong.  Romeo is spending every day overseeing the remodeling of a new building that our BonaPriso branch will move into the 1st of January. 

Proselyting with the Elders

 

 

We often go to appointments with the Elders.  We usually park our truck at their apartment where is is safe and then walk to the appointments.  We walk down dirt roads, down little paths, across boards across ditches, and some times sink over our shoes in the mud.  We keep saying that it is all part of the experence.

Market Place

 

 

Picking up our new shelves at the market place

 

Lady selling beans

 

 

 

 

 

Missionary Temporal Service

Saturday morning we got up at 6:00 to do a service project for Sister Christiann.  She needed a lot cleared of weeds and garbage for an addition to the old family home.  Most of the work was done with machetties.  I used it for about 15 minutes and had enough.  The lot was about 75’x75’ and it took us 2 hours to get it cleared off.

A bridge we drive across on our way to BonaBeri the other branch we serve with.

Brother Gaeton is working the machettie.  I am hauling weeds.

The neighbor children came out to watch us work.


Sister Gailey working with the machettie.



A coconut tree in the lot we were clearing.  They are not ripe.



Elder’s Andriamamongi, Lavering, Brother Gastone, Elders LaFleur, Gaileys and Lurcher with Sister Christiann in the middle.


After our work, Sister Christiann took us to her house and fed us rice and stir fry after we washed our hands with alcohol and hand sanitizer.

Gregoire, Gabriel, and Ange and Their Children

After church for three weeks now, we have gone to this home to teach Gregoire and his wife Gabriel.  They have been members of the church for about 8 months.  They got married so they could get baptized.  They want us to come over and teach them how to have a strong marriage and how to raise their 6 year old son Mesi. Elder Prince and Elder Porter go with us and translate for us.  Tonight we talked about Eternal Marriage.    Their friend Ange has been meeting with us and the Elders and is getting baptized this Saturday.  She left her boyfriend that she has been living with for several years to join the church.  They are so gracious and always say how honored they are that we will come to their home.  We are the ones that are honored to be in their home where the spirit is so strong.  They have so little materially, but have such great faith.

 

Six People on a Mototaxi

                                             Who needs a van when you have a mototaxi.

Homeless lady

This is a lady that lives down the road from us. This is where she lives. As you can see from the picture, she stores her items in the trees nearby. We had to sneak a picture while she was sleeping. She always sleeps on this 6 inch curb. She loves when we bring her treats and reading material.

Statues at Edea

We saw these statues of carved men on a bridge we drove over. We thought they were interesting, and have been trying to find out what they represent, but with no luck. We have seen figures of them at the marches to buy.

Logging Truck

      There are logging trucks like this one all over town. Can you imagine the weight this truck is carrying?

Over Turned Truck

Whenever there is an accident around town, they pull out grass along the side of the road, to use as a marker for oncoming traffic.

Apartment Building

This is one of thousands of abandon apartment buildings that people live in. In all that we have seen, none have any windows or doors.

Truck full of bananas

                                               Is this a truck load of bananas or what?

Happenings from around town

You’ll see clothes hanging like this everywhere you go. It’s so amazing to me to see how clean they get them, especially their whites. All from washing out of buckets and tubs of water.

                                            I wouldn’t want to tangle with this big boy.

                            We had so much fun viewing the many different primates at this park.

                                      It was so fun to see the ocean again. It was beautiful there.

                                When the tide comes in it looks like you are walking on water.

                                     This is part of the Dim family. They are so good to us.

Our P-Day Trip To Limbe

The Elders had been asking us for weeks to take them to a resort town 11/2 hours away called Limbe.  One of them had been there several months ago and said how wonderful it was.  We set a date and met at the church at 7:00 a.m. to get on the road.  One of the investigators that we thought was going to help drive us didn’t show up.  The Elders went to his house and he said that he couldn’t go and we would just have to pile into our little truck.


We ended up renting this van to haul the Elders.
This family, the Dims, from from one of the branches has adopted us.  They were so excited to show us around Limbe and borrowed a car from a friend to go with us.  Half way there their car died and coasted to the side of the road.  We figured out that the timing belt had broken, so we pushed it a little more off the road and went on in our other 2 cars.  It turned out that when the mechanic got into it, the piston had hit the valve and broke the cam shaft in three pieces.  (That’s Mechanic talk)  It cost him a lot to get it fixed.  Romeo spent the whole day going back to tow it and missed out on Limbe that he was so excited to show us.

 
One of the first places we went was to a botanical garden.  This stream ran down the side of it.  It was very lush and beautiful with vines hanging down and a lot of beautiful trees.

From the Botanical Gardens we got our first look at the ocean.  It was beautiful.
We also visited a primate sanctuary where the bring in injured animals to rehabilitate them.  Once they are better, they release them back into the wild.



This mother has a little baby asleep on her chest.  You have to look closely to see the baby.
Here we are at the ocean.  We had heard tales of the black sand beach, but the day we were there it was high tide and the beach was covered.  There were thousands of round black rocks all along the shore line.  It sounded neat because as the waves came in and receded, you could hear the rocks rolling across each other. It is volcanic rocks that are now smooth.  That is where the black sand beaches come from.
These are the Dim family girls.  The mom, Iren and the daughters Diabel, Kati, and Flora.

These are our missionaries, Elders Prince, Porter, Rambelosom, Hoiland, and LaFleur.  Elder Lavering, Rambelosom, Schmid, and Porter are below.

These look like birds and they are about the size of a pigeon.  Look closer and see what they really are.