Goodbye to Pres. and Sister Jameson June 4, 2013

President and Sister Jameson came to Douala for their final visit on June 4th and 5th before their release on July 1st.  It was a very tender visit.  We had all grown to love them so much.  The Elders bought these Cameroon soccer shirts and had signed their names on them for the Jamesons to take home to remember them.

Sister Jameson had been having every missionary that had served with them, sign little squares of material during their entire mission.  She had sewn them into this quilt to take home with them.

The Elders got together and decided to all wear red ties as a sign of their love for the Jamesons.  Sister Jameson just happened to have on a red blouse.  It meant a lot to them.

These are our 8 missionaries who were serving in Douala at the time.  From the top, left to right:  Elders, Gelinas, Colindres, Morin, Graham, Garland, Andriamamonjy, Thibault, Zurcher, Us, and Pres. and Sister Jameson

For our last Zone Conference, Pres. and Sister Jameson took us all out for pizza after the conference.  It was fun to relax with them and hear more about them.  The Elders loved to ask them questions and they shared a lot of personal things about their lives and gave advice to the missionaries.


Sisters are not allowed to hug the Elders.  Sister Jameson made an exception since they were leaving and  this would be the last time she would see many of these young men in this life time.  Here she hugs Elder Colindres.

Pres. Jameson hugs Elder Thubault and Sister Jameson hugs Elder Garland.



President Jameson hugs Elder Zurcher for the last time.  Pres. and Sister Jameson had such a huge impact on the lives of the people here in Africa.  They served 11/2 years in Lumbumbashi as a couple and went home for a few months to prepare to come back as the mission president in Kinshasa for 2 more years. They sacrificed so much.   They were so dedicated, gave so much and were wonderful teachers.  We learned so much from them.  They appreciated what we did so much that we were honored to serve them and with them. We miss them a lot, and continue to stay in contact with them through email.  We have committed to visit them at their home in Arizona sometime after we get home.

Kribi with Romeo and Irene

Our good friends, Romeo and Irene Dim have been asking us to go to Kribi with them for a few months now.  We finally found a couple of days when we could break away and we left on Friday morning and returned home on Saturday evening.  They think that we have done a few things to help them and they insisted on paying for everything.  In reality, we should have been paying for them because whenever we get in a bind, we call them and they drop everything to come and help us.

We drove across this bridge where the river comes into the ocean.  We stopped at a little village where the fishermen bring in their fish to sell at a marked and restaurant that is right on the ocean.  Here they are unloading their boats and mending their nets.


This is their boats tied up to the market along the coast where their fish are displayed to sell.

This shows the fish laid  out for the people who live nearby, and the restaurant, to pick out what they want to eat or cook.  There are several types of fish, crabs, and shrimp.  They use nets and bring in whatever gets caught in their nets.

We picked out our fish and they take it to a little work area where the gut it, clean it, put spices in and on the outside of it and then put it on the little wood grill and cook it.  This area was about 6 feet away from our table and we watched the whole process.  Jan wished that she hadn’t watched before she was going to eat.

This is our friends, Romeo and Irene, with the finished product on the plate.  We had fish soup, three large fish that you pick off the bones, plantains and fries with pop to drink.



This is the Fedelie Hotel where we stayed.  It was across the street from the ocean.  We were guests of Romeo and Irene and it was a weekend so many of the hotels were booked.  Romeo took Jan in to look at the room to make sure it was ok.  It seemed clean and was much better than most Africans live in every day.  I hurried and told them it would be fine.


This is the bathroom in our hotel room.  We were grateful that the room had air conditioning.  We slept well after a long day driving and walking along the beach.  Romeo had us fill up the bucket first thing in case the water was off later in the day.


Kribi is the most beautiful place that we have seen in Africa.  The city was smaller and less crowded than Douala and the ocean was very beautiful.  We walked along the beach and walked in the water.  We always wear our missionary badges and wear our church clothes when we are doing anything except exercising.


This is Irene and Romeo.  They have been a member of the church about a year and a half.  We are helping to prepare them to go to the temple in Johannesburg in a few months.  We hope to be able to go with them and their 4 children.  That would be the highlight  of our mission.

There were these huge rocks in the ocean without a mountain any where in sight.  We all wondered how God was able to set them there.

Jan, Romeo, and Irene sitting on the beach under a huge tree whose roots are exposed from the ocean eroding the beach away around the tree.

This is a point on the beach where the president of Cameroon has a vacation home.  It has military guards guarding it around the clock.

While we were walking along the beach at 9:00 in the morning, there were many fishing boats that returned from fishing all night out on the ocean.  The boats are all hand made out of thick planks and weigh a ton.  They fish with nets and bring in what they catch to sell across the street.  They go out every night rain or shine.

They walk the boats up the beach by turning them end for end until they get up out of the tide and close to the road.

These are the fish that they caught after fishing all night.  There are two of them per boat to work the nets.

The last 20 feet of the beach, they turn the boats strait and everyone comes to help push them up the last part of the beach.  Jan and I jumped in to help and they clapped for us,when we got the boat up to the road.  With 20 people pushing it was still very hard work to move  the boats.  For all those who came from the village to help put the boats away they gave them a couple of small fish for their food for the day.  They would help several boats and go home with enough food for the family for the day.

This is a little church that we passed on the road.  It looked like it would only hold 10 people, but Romeo told us they would put chairs outside for the overflow crowd.

In Kribi, there are rivers that flow into the ocean.  We went to this spot where there are some waterfalls.  It was very beautiful.  There were shops where we bought some souvenirs.  Romeo bought us a hand carved pineapple with coasters inside.  We told him we would think of him and Irene whenever we have a Coke at home back in Utah.  They really want to come and see us in Utah.  We hope they can.  We told them if they can get the airfare we would take care of everything else and show them a lot of neat things like all the temples and conference center in SLC.

The Falls

A village across the river from Kribi.  People live like they have lived for hundreds of years.


Jan and I with our very very good friends Romeo and Irene.  Irene had just bought that hat to wear at Romeo’s brothers wedding in a couple of weeks.  I told her she was like the Britts with her new hat for the wedding.

These young men were bathing and washing their clothes by the falls.  We were glad to see that they still had on their under wear.  That’s not always the case.

We hiked up a little trail to get closer to the falls and we found this lady washing dishes and brushing her teeth in the water.  We weren’t sure if she would like us taking her picture, but she smiled when I said “Bonjour Madame”.

On road from the falls, as we were leaving, we passed this man and woman on a mototaxi with this huge fish strapped on the back.  We assume that they were taking it home to cook for their family. We worry a lot about food not being refridgerated he in Africa.  The milk, eggs, fish, and most everything else, are just left out in the open.  So far, we have only had minor stomach problems from the food.

This is a mud house that we passed on the way to the falls.  Many of the older homes are completely like the bottom half of this house.  It is made with poles, sticks and mud.   Notice the windows, or lack of.

A Traditional African Wedding

We were invited to attend a traditional African Wedding with Romeo and Irene, our best friends in Douala.  Romeo’s youngest brother was getting married and it was held at Romeo’s parents home.  We have been to their home before and they were so nice to us.  The day after the wedding they had Romeo bring us some cooked fish and plantains for dinner, to show their love to us.  That was after feeding us two meals at the wedding.

When we arrived the relatives and neighbors were busy cooking a huge amount of food in the alley by their home.  The feast would be sent home with the bride’s family as part of the bride price.  These are plantains that are large bananas which they boil or deep fry.  They are a little sweet with a consistency of potatoes when they are boiled.

Jan wanted to help cook, but they told her she would light her dress on fire.  They were very nice to us and let us take all the pictures we wanted.


We did get to help in the kitchen.  We made sandwiches with bread, butter and salami.



We think this is called minindo.  It is a dough that they make and roll in little rolls and then roll it in large leafs.  It is allowed to ferment for a couple of weeks and turns to the consistency of soft taffy and is rubbery.  It has little flavor but the Africans love it.  They sell it on the streets to cars that drive by.


It used to seem so strange to us to be the only white people in a room full of black people, mostly men.  Now we don’t see color anymore.  We just look at each other and say we are really in Africa at an African wedding.  Here they are getting ready for the ceremony.  They all shook our hands and welcomed us.  We all introduced ourselves later in the program.  It wasn’t a whole lot different than our wedding breakfasts in the US.

Romeo asked Sister Gailey to wear her African dress, that was made for her, by the relief society for an activity they had where they all dressed alike.  The ladies did let her stir this pot, but were keeping a pretty close eye on her.

Here Jan is grinding pepper on a rock with a round stone.  They really still use this method to grind spices.


Behind the main house was a traditional home that has been there for a long time.  I guess it is a guest house now, or where the husband sleeps when he doesn’t behave himself.

The bride’s family gives the groom a list of what they want him to bring, for them, to the wedding.  As you can see alcohol is huge on their list.  The jugs have a homemade brew in them.  Here, a representative of the family checks things off the list if they are acceptable.  They pile continued to grow for an hour as things were brought in to add to it.  The father of the bride, in the colorful shirt, is checking out the tobacco that they brought.


They have now added plantains and two 100 pound bags of rice and some bottled water will be added to the gift pile.


We went outside to check out the goat that was on the list.  They kept smacking it to get it to bleat.  It would’t and was too skinny, so they rejected the goat.  It was later accepted and will be taken home with the rest of the loot, to the bride’s home where they will kill the goat and cook it.  They will take the huge pots of food, prepared by the family of the groom, and all the alcohol with them and will invite the neighborhood over for an all night feast and celebration.


These are the plantains that have been pealed and are being washed prior to boiling them.


This is the groom and bride and the spokesman for the grooms family.  I guess he serves as a witness to the ceremony.  We didn’t think it was appropriate to take pictures during the wedding ceremony, so this is the best we have.  We will show the chief that performed the ceremony in a picture with Jan and me.


This is the tribal chief.  He was a huge man.  When we were introduced to him he sent someone out to buy us a coke as a gift for us.  He was gracious enough to let us take his picture with us.


This is our best friends in Douala, Romeo and Irene.  They joined the church about 11/2 years ago.  They have 4 children and always others staying with them.  They are such a source of strength to the branch and have taken such good care of us, since we arrived.  Their English has really improved and Romeo and I speak our own language.  1/2 English and 1/2 French.
Whenever we have a problem or need anything, we call on them.  They do the same with us.  We have been in their home many times and feel just like family.  I like Romeo’s short sleeved suit.

When we get missing our grandchildren too much we adopt some of the beautiful children here.