WHEN A GENERAL AUTHORITY COMES

This is our first graduating class of the 5-week Self-Employment class.  Pictured with their certificates include 5 branch Presidents, the District RS president, District Primary President, and some other District leaders.  They all presented their written business plan in front of everyone.  It was a great class!  The church will lift everyone!

Zone conference waiting for Elder Cook and Pres J to arrive at the church - singing; "called to serve"

Nice looking Hard working Elders

Elder shaking hands with Sis Cook

Breakfast

Oh, make a hard left head turn here

We fed them breakfast, and a sack lunch after the meeting

Ok there are always two ways to do things.  (I learned this from my friend in the Inner City Project).  Some things you do the "Priesthood" way and some things you do the "Relief Society" way.  These sack lunches were for the Cooks and Jackson's so they had to be done the RS way.  Here I am with Sis Harris ad Sis Rix

Notice the little fork rolled up in the cute napkin

the lid covered with African material

Patiently waiting for the General Authority

So if they actually do use this site for a church, we could just look out the window and see what's cooking for dinner...

I was really tempted to look through the "pink" dress specials that day

Fashion made easy.  This shop owner went through the bale of humanitarian goods and was able to pull some cute outfits together

A busy day of retail sales.  This is more of the view out the window of the proposed church building

This is a relatively quiet street of retail

They love cameras.... beats all the long hours of playing in the dirt.  The babies are always so curious when they see strangers, and they usually can't speak English yet, so it's hard to talk to them.  And they are really shy!

Ok the trailer has got to be heavier than the stuff on it.  Africans are amazingly strong.

Pres J sent us to help look for a building to be used for a church in Iganga.   This is the best we found.....The boda-boda parking lot in front is interesting however.

The back looks promising

The workshop connecting the building looks especially promising

What do you think?

This little boy has a sack he uses to collect the treasures he finds in garbage piles

President Moses with his mother.  He is our District President.  He has 3 children named; Hinckley, Smith, and Emma.   His wife was Muslim, but converted when they got married.  Last year they were sealed in the JoBerg temple.  He is an outstanding leader

Pres K with his cute wife.  They got married 4 days after he got home from his mission about 6 years ago.  He does a great job as Branch President and he is also our personal electrician, a vocation he learned with the help of the PEF fund of the church

I am really hoping this isn't where they harvest mosquito's to promote more malaria, but maybe...     It is really beautiful.  This is at a resort where a lot of white people stay when they come to run the river rapids.

The sugar cane grows this tall all over the country.  They will harvest it, burn the fields, then plant again, getting three crops a year.  There isn't any crop rotation that we can see, things just keep growing.  They also have tea fields that grow all over the countryside.  

It gives a whole new meaning to the word "Stowaway"  or "hitchhiker".  There is ALWAYS room for one more

The most surprising and unexpected beauty here are these random idyllic scenes - The trees just don't always seem real because of the perfect way they grow unencumbered by arborists  - and then look how this man just picked that very spot to sit in the shade and rest.  Sorry all my shots are just out the car window.

I said; "Sit Monkey"  (just like my granddaughter taught me to say to a monkey).  So here is his best pose.

They just have short attention spans

Maybe letting me know he was tired of the posing all day just for the camera.  These Monkeys were playing on the fence just outside a school

I know it is too hard to see these monkeys.  They are long-red-tailed monkeys and they are scrambling so fast I can never get their picture.  (Yes Mylee, I told them to pose!  They're a little more naughty than the white monkeys)  Behind the trees is the Nile River

All roads lead to Lake Victoria

This is one of the better roads we have been on.  (P-day explains the Levis - but nothing explains why we color coordinated our clothing that day)

The Lake borders several countries.  This pier is not in use anymore

There is a lot of fishing in the lake.  We often order the Talapia which is caught here when we go to restaurants

LIFE BY THE WHITE NILE

Oh the chickens here think the dumpsters are their feed.  And then we buy the eggs......mother nature is amazing

Another shot at the edge of the Nile.  Elder Harris and Elder Ballstaedt with the boat man.  The full time Jinja Elders/Sisters enjoying the sights.  We were hoping to see the monkeys, but they weren't out that day.

Sister from Njeru branch with the traditional baby sarong.  These women sure have strong backs.

After church in Njeru.  The little girl in the blue dress started screaming and ran to her mother when she saw us with our white skin.  It scarred her to death.

Showing us her notes from church

This baby really hated us.  She had never seen white people.

I see these trees all over and I don't know what they are called, but they are distinctive because they always have two trunks.  Or maybe it is two trees connected at the roots.  Sister Harris took a picture of this tree to give her husband for their 44th anniversary as an allegory about their marriage.  How sweet!

This woman was on her way to go plant the corn.  Her two daughters were with her.

It's the rainy season and time to go plant the corn

This is one of the most horrible things we have seen here.  We drove through the dump as a shortcut to another city.  How shocked we were to see how many people search through the garbage for food and usable items.  There is nothing eatable that the birds and chickens and dumpster divers haven't already picked through, but people fill bags with things they take home.

The desperate plight of the poor and starving people

Right after the truck dumped the dumpster.  I can't even imagine how many worms and bugs are swarming in this trash

On a brighter note, we were visiting some venues looking for a place to have District Conference when we came upon these beautiful dancers at a hotel overlooking Lake Victoria.  It was really quite beautiful

This is the branch clerk of the Jinja branch Emma.  He payed his school fees by working as the tree surgeon around the Jinja chapel.  He will be a missionary in a year or so.  We adore him, he speaks beautiful English, and takes really good care of the building.

Early this morning just as the sun was coming up I caught Alex mowing the grass.  He said his "push mower" wasn't working....of course he has never seen a push-mower, he was joking with me....

Cephas and Barbara just got engaged.  

Little kids are always taking care of the younger siblings

What strong necks.  I always wonder if these women get back problems ever.....We even saw a girl with  a load on her head who was still able to tip her head as she drank from her pop bottle and her load did not even fall off...

little kids are always carrying loads

amazing

These beautiful bushes will bloom with gorgeous pink flowers.  They grow around the perimeter of the grounds at our compound and at the church

but if you look closely, you will see why you don't want to play around this.  If someone crawled over the wall at our compound, this is where they would land

Mothers get their work done and the kids get plenty of sleep

I remember now what these are called!  They are called Rolex, yep just like an expensive watch.  I think they meant it to mean rolled up eggs....

These birds are huge, they fly in the air and look like small dinosaurs from the Jurassic era.  I think they clean up any garbage that the chickens don't polish off first.

Oh here are my grand kids, (well most of them) sending me a message.  They are so cute!!!

Here is the boat we hired to take us to the Source of the Nile.  Apparently the Nile is the only, or maybe one of the few rivers that flow from south to north.  Lake Victoria feeds the Nile, or so they say it feeds about 70% of the water, and an underground spring feeds the other 30% of the Nile water.  That is the story they told us, but I didn't ask for certification so that's all I know.

Here we are where the spring water comes up to feed the Nile

View from the boat

As usual I missed the picture, but in the far left side of the screen you can see the edge of a huge lizard tail.  The tail is the size of the tree trunk that is lying on the ground near the lizard.

more views from the river

This is some kind of marker to mark the place where the spring originates

These little structures are some kind of black magic witch doctor stuff to keep the bad spirits away

This is James.  He is our new project this past week.  He is making a plan for his life and reporting back to us.  He is a returned missionary and in the District YM presidency - great kid and he's looking for a wife if you know anyone?...