Random pictures of things we see every day.

We ordered some new couches from Oscar.  He is in the branch presidency in BonaPriso.  He made 4 couches for us and the Elders in about two weeks.   The dark one behind the two chairs is one of them.  He made them in the little shop behind us.  We are right on the side of a very busy highway that runs through Douala.  We had to dust them off when we brought them home.

This is a bird that was walking around one of the shops in Kinshasa.  We don’t usually see birds like this just walking around.

This is a fish market on the side of the river.  They go out and fish with nets, and then come in here and sell the fish fresh.  At least as fresh as they can be sitting out in the 90 degree heat all day.

We live in an apartment with a gate.  We pull up and honk and Isidore our guard, opens and closes the gate for us.  He sleeps on a piece of cardboard on the concrete when he is not working around the apartments.  He is being taught by the Elders.  He has paid 4 cows to his in laws and has to pay two more before he can get married and then baptized.

This is a typical neighborhood here in Douala.  The children play in the streets and at night everyone comes out and sits in the streets and visit.

This is a popular swimming hole near us.  The water looks much greener in the picture than it really is. Many of the young men swim without swimming suits and they love to stand on their heads in the water with their legs and other things out of the water when we drive by.

We buy bottled peanuts from these ladies.  We told them we would only buy if we could take their picture.  They blow the skins off the peanuts that they have roasted and pack them into water bottles.  We pay about $4 for a bottle of peanuts packed like the lady in the picture is packing them.  The really are delicious.  We’re not sure how sanitary, but we haven’t gotten sick from them yet.

There are hundreds of these vans on the roads.  They will put about 30 people in them and then pack their stuff on the top.  The springs are shot and some of them lean so bad we can’t see how they don’t fall over.

When you buy chickens, you get the head and feet inside.  We didn’t realize it until Sister Whitesides cooked one and started eating it and pulled out the head with the comb and the feet.


This is another picture of one of the bus vans.  There are 5 rows of seats with at least 6 people on each bench.  One or two more are added by standing on the back and the side by the sliding door.  It is the cheapest way to get around Douala.

They transport all kinds of things on push carts.  They will pull them  for miles.  You can see the guy is soaking with sweat.   We have even seen a car being pulled on one of them.  On the right is a mototaxi.  They haul up  to six people on a Honda 125 motorcycle and normal traffic laws do not apply to them.  They just drive around cars and through red lights.

This is a logging truck hauling logs to the sawmill. We pass a lot of them on the road to Yaounde, when we go to visit the Whitesides.  You can see they are as big around as the car that is passing.   Much of the lumber goes to China.

This picture is taken through our windshield.  We are driving down this street.  Busyness like this is not at all unusual where we drive.  My truck was repainted just before we got here and it has scrapes down both sides from driving through these areas.  My mirrors keep getting folded in from hitting things and people.  We just keep going.

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We may have posted this before, but this larger pictures shows just how much you can get on a push cart.

Couple’s Conference in Kinshasa

On Feb. 11 Pres. and Sister Jameson invited the three outlying couples to come to Kinshasa for a conference, to see the mission home and meet the other 3 couples in the office.  We flew to Pointe Noire, had an unexpected 3 hour layover waiting for more passengers to fill up the plane and then flew on to Brazzaville.  We stayed overnight at a really nice hotel and got on a small boat with about 10 people to cross this Congo River.  The city across the river is Kinshasa.  It has 12 million people, and now has 7 Stakes.  We were met at every stop by church leaders who made sure we got where we needed to go safely.

Elder Billings, on the left, has been called to start a pilot program for the church.  He was a teacher at Salt Lake Comm. College in construction.  He has been called to teach young men, returned missionaries, construction skills.  His wife teaches family history and researching family name to the members.  The students learn to make their own cinder blocks and how to construct buildings. Sister Gailey is trying her hand at cinderblock making.   They are actually building a building for the church here in these photos.  The church is trying to teach RM’s skills so they can earn a living and provide for their families.  There is one sister in their group.

This is one of the buildings they are building with handmade cinderblocks.  They can make up to 3oo in a day when they really get going.

Of course, I was most interested in checking out the plumbing.  Here they are pouring concrete that they mix by hand.

The next day Elder and Sister Moon took us on a field  trip to see what they are doing for humanitarian work in our mission.  We drove along a road for about 30 minutes out of Kinshasa to a water well project that the church did a few years ago.  As we drove we started waving to all the children along the way.  They started following and the adults had to part them for us to drive through.  When we stopped we started shaking their hands and they just mobbed us.  It was so humbling to see how they lived.  They were so anxious to touch us and have their picture taken with us.  I don’t think they really knew who we were, or that our church had provided them with clean drinking water.

Sister Gailey was hesitant to touch them at first, but they soon were crawling all over her and she was loving it.  They are so beautiful and loving.

We parked the cars and walked a little way down a path to where the well was.  There is a large tank built up on concrete legs that a well 120 feed in the ground pumps water up to.  It then comes down a pipe and underground and up to these spigots.  There were many women filling jugs with clean water and carrying it off to their homes on their heads.  We were told that water borne illness in the area has dropped by 40 % since the well was provided.  Before they were drinking out of ditches that were filled with garbage.

In the same area, the church has build some restrooms for  the people to use.  The name of the church is on the building.

As we loaded up and drove away, the children ran after us.  We left, never to be the same.

In Kinshasa, they created 2 new stakes this past year, bringing the total to 7.  There are now as many here as there are in Johannesburg, where the church has been for a lot longer.  This is a chapel on the main road to the airport.  It has been named the Nauvoo temple by the American missionaries.  It has parking under on the first floor and the chapel is on the 2nd floor.

This is the three outlying couples, who with us, live hours away from the mission home,  The Wheatleys, on the left, who are from Clinton, Utah, live in the Central African Republic in Pointe Noire, and The Whitesides, on the right, are from Layton and live in Yaounde in Cameroon about 4 hours drive from us in Douala.  We have 5 different countries in our mission.  Right now we have 8 missionaries living in Douala and they are from 5 different countries.

The Mbengue Family

We have been teaching Victor and Laure Mbengue and their six children temple preparation classes to help prepare them to go to the temple.  The father,Victor speaks English and translates for us.  They have three children of their own and have taken in and adopted 3 more.  They will all be sealed in the Johannesburg temple then end of March if everything goes well with the temple scheduling.  The temple patron assistance fund set up by the church which members contribute to helps with the finances for families to go for the first time to be sealed.  Without the assistance of church members in other parts of the world, most people would not ever be able to afford to be sealed as eternal families

This is the street we drive down to get to their home.

This is some of the children looking over the railing of their home which is on the 2nd floor.

These are neighbor children who come out to see us white people when we get out of our truck

This is a mother hen and her chicks on the street in front of their home.

 

Victor and Laure invited us and our 4 missionaries over for dinner.  They had 3 other people staying with them also, so they had to feed 15 of us.  It was probably their food budget for the month and Sister Mbengue had to have spend the whole day cooking.  Laundry is also a full time job for her.  They wash their clothes by hand in a bucket and hang them out to dry.

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.