Babies in Buckets

Here we are at the Club Foot Clinic again, one of our favorite places to visit. This little guy has been casted multiple times, and each time he returns to the clinic, his mom sticks him in the bucket of cold water to soften the cast so it can be removed. No cast saws here!! After the cast is soft enough, the mom takes a huge serrated-edged knife and cuts off the cast. This process takes 30-60 minutes. IF there was electricity and IF there was an electric cast saw, all this would be done in minutes. But the moms expect to do this, and they patiently work with those casts with a smile on their faces. Such dedicated moms!

A beautiful little princess and her beautiful mama, waiting for her turn at the clinic. This was her first visit.

This little cutie is lying on is stomach on his mom's lap while she is hard at work doing the bucket thing. He was having a ball just talking and laughing, while all the time .......

exposing his little hiney to the whole world!!

This is the clinic cook making foo-foo. This is the most popular food in the Congo- the staple - It is made from the roots of the cassava plant. The roots are peeled, chopped up, soaked, pressed,
spread out in the hot sun and dried, then ground into flour. The flour is what foo-foo is made of. They boil the flour with some corn flour in water, then stir stir stir. The consistency is of very thick cream of wheat. It is eaten with some sort of gravy and fish. Eating utensils are not usually used, so the foo-foo is rolled into a ball with the fingers and dipped into the gravy. We plan on trying some real soon. It doesn't have much nutrition, but it fills the belly.

Yesterday (Saturday) we went to the second Youth conference, this time a two-stake affair with only 600 YM & YW attending. We all learned a lot from our previous one, so this one went much more smoothly. We were dreading it because it was held in a much smaller building and we heard there would be 1000 attending. Thank goodness it wasn't quite so big. Elder B spent much of his time in the kitchen with the ladies yukking it up and making sandwiches. They sang Church hymns to him in French while working. When it was time to clean up, he tried to do some cleaning, but they wouldn't let him. At the end of the conference, there was to be a little dance (sort of talent show), but it got a little rude (again, like last week.) During one of the numbers (terrible rap song) the electricity suddenly went out. So the kids went home. It turned out that the electricity didn't really go out....Elder B just decided it was over and went out and pulled the power switch. Perfect way to end the day! He felt a little guilty about it later, but everyone else thanked him over and over.

We will end this with a bit of good news from Lafayette Super Market. Not only are Ali and Prem promising chocolate chips, they are saying that they will begin ordering PEPPER JACK cheese!!! I will give them a few weeks before requesting corn tortillas and green chili enchilada sauce.

Life is good.
From these Mundelis we bid you Botakala malambu! (Lingala for good bye)

First Youth Conference in the DRC!!

For the first time in the history of the church in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a youth conference was held. It was a tri-stake event. It was the idea of Elder and Sister Hatch, our awesome office couple, who have been involved in the youth forever, first at home (New Mexico) and now here in Kinshasa. They knew that if they did all the planning and all the work, it wouldn't teach the local members anything at all, so the whole event was delegated to the local Stake and Ward leaders. And it worked!! There were close to 800 youth in attendance!! (The picture above is only about 80% present.) We were hoping for 300. Yikes!!! And they kept coming and coming, up until lunch-time. Finally those at the registration tables said, "Just go find a class and enjoy! Don't worry about registering!" The classes taught were on Temple Marriage (taught by a darling couple just returned from the temple), Missionary Preparation taught by our own interpreter Fils, Singing taught by Joseph, an outstanding musical guy and return missionary, Duty to God for the YM, Personal Progress for the YW, and Outdoor Games taught by two US guys who are temporarily working here in Kinshasa. Classes rotated every 45 minutes.
In spite of some logistical problems, it was a huge success and we hope it gets in the Church News. But even if it doesn't, the purpose was accomplished: To get the youth together to have a spiritually uplifting day, and to have lots of fun at the same time. For the adults, a sampling of what they themselves can do for their youth.


For closing exercises we tried to get everyone inside, but didn't quite make it. This is the chapel and cultural hall. You may notice that not only are there YM and YW-aged attenders, but also Primary age (their older siblings couldn't come unless they brought the younger ones) and some young single adults who just couldn't stay away. We think we also attracted the neighborhood youth, but figured why not? What better place for them to be on a Saturday?

Three young men who were begging to have their picture taken. We had just broken for mid-morning snack -- peanuts and a 'biscuit'.

The whole event was just what President Gingery used to say about his missionaries in Jamaica: herding cats! Imagine herding 800 youth at one small building.

So much was learned! (by the leaders even more than the youth). For example, what a 'dance' means to Congolese youth. Not where everyone gets on the dance floor and dances. Oh no...It was more like a talent show. Small groups got on stage and put on a dance exhibition. Unfortunately, they are in love with rap, and the exhibitions (very suggestive) had to be ended almost before they began. Now we know what a 'dance' is. Another 2-stake conference is being held next Saturday, and there will be a few changes - especially in the dance category. That is how we learn!

Above is one of our club foot babies who will begin treatment to straighten her feet.

We revisited the Club Foot clinic this week to follow our little baby girl. Last week you saw her before she began treatment. Here she is in all her glory -- and all her casts. After we left, her casts came off, she was assessed, and re-casted to turn her feet gradually. You will begin to see a difference this next week when we return for our 3rd visit.

That's all for this week. We may be taking our third trip to Luputa next week to check out the water system there and offer support to the water committee. Our recently written projects are getting approved and we will start signing contracts now and get busy with the work. It has been a great (complicated, frustrating, scary, worrisome) experience, and we look forward to the future in serving the Lord this way in the Decmocratic Republic of Congo.

Our love to you all.

Our First Handing-over Ceremony

African dancers at the St. Joseph Hospital handing-over ceremony. Drummers were drumming, singers were singing, and we were enjoying!

Sister Bingham getting into the act.

Yesterday we attended our very first handing over ceremony (closing ceremony). These are put on when the project construction is completed and it is time for the Church to 'bow out' and hand the project over to the community. It's the way we tell the community that the Church no longer has any responsiblity for whatever we funded -- in this case a drilled well at a local hospital -- and that now the community (or hospital) will be fully responsible for the repair and maintenance of it. It is also a celebration that the project is finally completed and can be used. We had dreaded these events because we were worried that we wouldn't know how to plan and carry these out. Sounded like a lot of detail work. But as it happened, our very wonderful Site Monitor for this project, Francois, came to us and told us he would do it all -- and all we had to do was pay for the event and attend it. We still had some reservations about how it would play out. To our delight and astonishment, it couldn't have been done any better. When we arrived, the chairs, tents, food, sound system, PR people, entertainment, speakers and attendees were already there, and it BEGAN ON TIME!!! The picture you see is of one of the African dancers. They put on quite a show!! They danced before the ceremony began, and then again during refreshments. It was absolutely astounding -- what you see on PBS but WE WERE RIGHT THERE!!! We took some videos of the dancers and the drummers, but it won't upload on the blog. So sorry about that -- you would have heard as well as seen the whole thing. At the end of the ceremony, we were all led over to a covered (tablecloth) water faucet, surrounded by a tape (torn strip of tablecloth) which they ceremoniously cut, handed a piece of the tape to the Catholic Priest (it is a Catholic hospital - St. Joseph's) and then gave out glass goblets to all the important people, including us, to take the first drinks from the faucet. The engineer even spoke, the priest blessed the water tower and pump, the hospital director spoke. And we just got to sit back and enjoy. All the other senior missionary couples attended, and so did the Jamesons, our new Mission President and wife. They all loved it. The great thing about it is the Church got some great PR, in fact our name is painted on the tower. We also learned that the site monitors always plan the ceremonies. Yes!! We have made up a certificate of achievement for Francois -- he deserves it.

Below is a three-week old baby's club feet. In a short two months this baby's feet will be normal. We will put up pictures on the blog as her feet are gradually straightened in the casts.

To the right, you will see a baby's leg being casted. This is a little clinic where we have written a project to provide the plaster of paris bands and some cotton for casting children with club feet.
We learned that the incidence of club foot is 4-5 out of every 1000 births. The baby's foot (feet) can be straightened easily by just casting the foot every week for about 2 months. That is only true if the child is under 2 years of age. Older than that requires surgery. So this clinic is treating about 15 babies each month. Too often if the baby isn't casted, the cost of the surgery is too much to have it done, and then these beautiful babies grow up to crawl around Kinshasa begging for money to survive. A very worthwhile project, we think. We submitted it last Friday, and we think we have a good chance of it being approved because the medical personnel here at this clinic are training nurses, doctors, and physiotherapist on how to assess and cast these patients so they can then go to other clinics and do the same. Self-reliance is the best!! By the way, this little clinic was being held outside in the back yard of the clinic because there was no electricity or water that day and it was too dark inside to work. We all sat under a nice shade tree and were entertained by these beautiful babies, mothers, and clinic people.

Just an interesting sight as we travel the roads of Kinshasa. Much of what is hauled around the city is not done by truck, but by pouse-pouse. They are carts with handles on both ends for pushing and pulling. Single axel with car tires. They haul everything, including whole cars, as you can see. Nothing stops the pousair! (operator of the pouse pouse.)

Our first clean water project that WE wrote up and submitted was approved, and so we have just learned how to write contracts with the contractor and site monitor. Everything we do here is a learning experience, and being old and forgetful, it is all difficult, sometimes seemingly imossible. So we have to stop and ask ourselves, "What did we accomplish today?" Then we can say, "We learned how to do contracts." or "We went all day without getting stopped by the police." or "No fender-benders today." or "We got through another day without being able to speak French." That way we can put things in perspective and feel like we are making headway. But no matter what, we are having daily adventures that we would never have experienced any other way. (Friday night we went dancing again and took a young man visiting from the US who taught the Young Single Adults how to ballroom dance. ) We have been reminded over and over how blessed we are to be here, and totally humbled by these amazing Congolese who are happy to be alive but have so very little. They are teaching us!

A closing thought from Elder Neal A. Maxwell regarding our testimony of Christ: "It matters very little what people think of us, but it matters very much what we think of Him. It mattters very little, too, who others say we are; what matters is who we say Jesus is."

Take time to tell your family who Jesus is.

We love you!!

Children, Wheelchairs and Cotton-eyed Joe

Welcome to our week! I will begin with this disclaimer: This blog will be the death of me yet. On the page that I arrange the pix and type the text, it looks beautiful, all is lined up and makes complete sense. But the preview changes the location of the text and pictures. I simply CANNOT, WILLNOT do it all over. You will have to figure out which pictures goes with which description. I apologize, but what you see is what you get. Maybe someone out there can give me some advice???? And it took about 2 hours to download the video. We really really hope you can get it to play. Good luck!!

On our last trip to the orphanage, a special children's program was being held. When we arrived, the children were all sitting up on a raised area under an awning, waiting for the program to begin. We were told to be there at 10 am, and we were early. The program began at 11:30. During this whole time the children sat calmly and obediently, no fussing or complaining. While some rock/salsa music was being played, two little boys in the front row stood up and danced in place. (Two pictures below). Where they learned their moves is a mystery to us, since they've been in this orphanage for most of their lives, and they certainly don't have tv or videos. I think it's inborn. And Dad got to hold our little guy who was sick last visit and is doing great now. What a cutie! For the program, the children sang a sad song about being abandoned by their parents, but the Lord would never abandon them. Then they presented some skits about their circumstances that brought them to the orphanage. Very eye-opening. Our little guy has a sad story == he is the tash baby. His mother was told by her pastor right after his birth that the baby was possessed by an evil spirit and had to be thrown away. She broke his arm, tied up his ankles, and the pastor began to drown him. Luckily he was rescued and the man was put in prison. He swears when he gets out of prison that he will kill the woman who turned him in, who is the owner of the orphanage.

Unbelievable!

At a visit to a Health and Hygiene training in Nuna. Whenever we construct a water syster the community is required to have this training to teach them how to take care of the clean water and how to stay healthy. We always find beautiful children to photograph wherever we go. It was a very well-organized event, with the village chief walking around the village using a megaphone to announce the training. The presenters were gifted teachers. It was such a treat to see this

training take place.

Some of the children outside the Health and Hygiene training in Nuna. They are so very curious about us Mondeles coming to their village! They love to shake our hands. They love to beg for money or food. They love to imitate our words. We just have a very fun time with them, wherever we find them.

We have been purchasing some local 3-wheeled tricycle type wheelchairs with some left-over funds from an old wheelchair project. This has been such fun, because we can just give them away wherever we choose. This picture is of Bibi, a member who hasn't had a wheelchair for years and can't get to church anymore. Today we attended her ward, and there she was in her new wheelchair!! We met the young man, Koki, when we were shopping in a fabric store. He came into the store on the back of his friend. Koki contracted polio as a baby, and has never walked. His friend carries him everywhere. He came into the store begging for money for food. Of course we were approached by the two of them, (whiteys = $$$) so Elder B. pulled them to one side and talked to them, using an interpreter, and found out that Koki, age 34, had never had a wheelchair. Elder B asked him, "Would you like to have a wheelchair?" Koki said yes, but didn't act like he believed that would be possible. Elder B told him to be waiting on the corner at 1:00 that day and he would bring Koki the chair. Koki said ok. And Koki was there on the back of his friend, waiting, when Elder B arrived. Now he was beginning to believe. He asked about the Church, and was familiar with it. His friend said, "Now I will have nothing to do. Can you get me a job?" So we helped Koki, but put his friend out of a job. Can't win 'em all.

And finally, our Congolese Young Adults doing the Cotton-eyed Joe, taught and led by our wonderful Office Couple, Elder and Sister Hatch from New Mexico!! The Hatches have given so much to this mission. They are totally into the YM and YW of the Church. Elder Hatch tried to get the Boy Scout program started here in Kinshasa, but the Church said the Congo wasn't quite ready for BSA. He was sad. But he has introduced the Duty to God program to the nearby stakes, trains YM leaders, teaches in the Aaronic Priesthood class, is organizing a Stake YMYW Conference next month, and plays basketball with the YM every Saturday. Sis. Hatch teaches in YW, teaches English classes to 90 young adults every Wednesday evening with her husband, and is teaching the Personal Progress program to the nearby stakes. Then on Friday nights they drag the Binghams and the Staggs to these dances to teach the young single adults how to dance some good ol' American moves. These activities are totally voluntarily -- no one asked them to do them in the beginning. Talk about giving your all!! They are our heroes!

(Please excuse the immodest clothing on the video.) These kids have learned the cha-cha and the Virginia Reel, too. They call that last one "The Pioneer Dance" because Elder Hatch told them the pioneers used to dance this one on the plains as they trekked to the Salt Lake Valley. Next: the bunny hop!

Operation Smile and an Orphanage

Another highlight of our mission took place this week. One of our new projects was to donate funds to feed the patients at this Operation Smile mission for cleft palate repairs. The hospitals here do not provide food for their patients, and because many of the patients had to come from long distances, getting food was a major difficulty. We were thrilled that this project was approved, and more thrilled when we attended the event. We were taken through the entire process, from screening patients to post-op. We were very impressed with the caliber of volunteers (Doctors, anesthesiologists, nurses, etc. from all over the world) who came together to make this work. They LOVE thier work and it shows! We will share some videos about it when we return.

We were allowed to go into the operating room where two patients were being operated on. It was amazing to see the difference in the patient going into surgery and going out of surgery. We feel we were witnessing miracles. We followed these two children into recovery and post-op.

The picture of the man with the raised arms was a father who had just seen his daughter for the first time after surgery. I was there. He took one look at her face (she was a double-cleft, extremely deformed) and first held his hands to his heart, then lifted them to praise God for the miracle he was seeing. You could not keep from crying.

We learned that the reason we haven't seen children with cleft palates around Kinshasa is that their parents hide them. Some feel that these children are 'devil' children and should not be seen. We only saw mothers and fathers who love their little ones and want a normal life for them.

Don't mourn over these children. They now look wonderful!

On an outing to look at a potential project for capturing some springs, we had to walk through this river. The people with us are the contractor, the president and vice-president of the organization that brought the project to us, plus various and assorted other villagers who are always interested in seeing the moondellis. Even though the water looks very dirty, it really felt wonderful and we wanted to go for a swim!

We visited an orphanage recently. That's where Elder B is, holding a sick baby. He's a natural at such things. Several of these children are being adopted by US couples. Some of the children are here at the orphanage because their parents can't afford to care for them. Others do not have parents. One is referred to as the "trash baby" because he was left in the trash. The Hatches, our wonderful office couple, found this place and have asked the rest of the couples to help them build a fence across the front of the property to keep the children's balls and toys from rolling down the hill into the road. Elder B can't wait to get to work and actually get his hands dirty!!

We are so blessed to be doing this work. It is hard, sometimes things are out of control because there are so many different aspects of the work we have to be involved in at the same time, but we love the work and can't imagine doing anything else. There are frustrations, but we are learning how to stay calm. For example, we have one of the Operation Smile nurses staying overnight with us tonight. She just came out to say her bed just broke while she was saying her prayers and the light stopped working at the same time. She is from SL City and this is her 18th Operation Smile mission!! I told her I knew she could handle it. She agreed that as long as she could have running water and a flush toilet, she was A-ok. At least those things are still working.

There are many more pictures we would love to share, but this will have to suffice for now.

We love you and appreciate your prayers.

Odds n' Ends

We are going to do a bit of catching up.

We began the month with a 2-day neo-natal resusitation training by a wonderful Doctor named Arthur Ngoy. He has a passion for NRT and volunteers his free time, along with his Doctor wife, to train nurses and doctors from various clinics around this area. We (LDS Humanitarian Services) provide the registration, all the kits, dolls, booklets, snacks, lunches, and pens, clipboards, etc. At the end of each day we print out a special certificate for each participant. Certificates are very important here. In the picture to the right, Dr. Ngoy is the man in the blue shirt in the foreground demonstrating the procedure. I wish I had the figures to share with you of how many newborns who weren't breathing have survived because of this simple procedure, taught to Dr. Ngoy by US doctors at a training several years ago. It is a perfect project because it is self-pertpetuating. The trainers go back to their clinics and train others, who then train even more individuals. We loved the experience!

Far right is just an awesome tree in a botanical garden.

This is going to be an official sewing project for the 6 stakes in Kinshasa. We provide 20 sewing machines and some notions and fabric for each stake. A volunteer teaches the women to sew so they can have a marketable skill. This is for both LDS and non-LDS student.s Note that the machines are hand-crank and tredle. No electricity.

Below is a Christmas Day parade! Some church here observes the holiday on May 25 each year and goes all out with the green dresses and whistles and bells.

Above is a typical Kinshasa river. We have seen people do laundry and collect drinking water from such places. See why our Clean Water Projects are our favorites?

Here are two men carrying a load of foam mattresses on their backs. A common sight. These people work very hard doing what has to be done without a murmur!

When we first passed by this man below, he was sound asleep with his arm out, begging for money. When we came back, he had awakened.

Below is a little bit of the insect life in Kinshasa. Luckily we did not find Mr. Big Beetle in our apartment, but outside one of our Church buildings. Thought the grandsons would enjoy this!

Below:

Some of my favorite guys: Elder B, with Brother Bekele (remember his story?), Dede standing behind him interpreting for us, and the engineer for Bro. Bekele's water project, Alain. We were discussing how to implement their project and actually increase it from 6 wells to 9 plus a rainwater catchment system at a local school and 10 new latrines. (toilets). It will be a great project and we are about ready to submit it. Wish us luck! We reward ourselves with chocolate when a project is approved. Sure could use some chocolate soon!

Brother Bekele and his adorable wife. He always brings her with him when we have a meeting. She is the mom of 6 children and looks like she's about 20. We communicate with smiles. Isn't hers a great one?

Here are the existing latrines at a school of 650 students. Only 4, and they are not toilets, they are primitive holes in the ground. And no water at the school. We are proposing to build 8 or 10 more latrines and provide water by adding a gutter along the lower edge of a roof and collect rainwater into tanks, to be used for handwashing. Also included in the project will be some Health and Hygiene training.

One other project we have already had approved is to provide funds to the Operation Smile organization so the patients at the hospital here where they receive their cleft palate or lip surgery can have meals. (The hospitals here do not provide food for their patients). Operation Smile came to us because another organization had been giving them the money for these meals in the past, but cancelled out this year at the last minute. We thought this would never be approved because it is a "give away", which does not fit the criteria for Humanitarian Services. But the Area wanted us to do it, so the criteria gets bybassed and we get to give $5000 for those meals.

Another project we are working madly on right now is the Wheelchair Initiative. We find a partner (in this case the Minister of Health) who agrees to our US people coming in and doing a 4-day training on teaching the selected PTs here on how to assess the needs of a poor person with a spinal cord injury and then write a prescription for the correct wheelchair. There are also US wheelchair technicians who will train the Congolese technicians on how to adjust and fit those chairs to the recipient. Then he/she is given the wheelchair. About 300 special wheelchairs are being shipped in from China or Vietnam. Unfortunately, our little wheelchair business here can't build the type of chairs we need. Elder B and I will be in charge of the logistics for the training, as well as writing up the project.

So you can see we have lots of projects in various stages of completion, and finally feel we almost know what we are doing, thanks to a lot of wonderful people who have trained us and are constantly answering our phone calls and e-mails.

And finally, another look at a major highway in Kinshasa, and the cheap way to get from one place to another. As Elder Richardson, our Area Welfare Specialist, said when he was visiting here with us last week from Johannesburg to train us, "Kinshasa has 14 million people, and at any given time there are 7 million people crossing the street in front of you." True true. Sorry there are no goats on top of this one, but that is not uncommon.

We love it here!!! Have a wonderful week............

Lovely Luputa and the Long Trek Home

Our return to Luputa this week was another wonderful experience -- and this time we were on our own, although we brought our very good interpreter, Dede, with us. We couldn't have done it without him!! The Luputa Water Project is up and running, with just a few glitches, but it is progressing quite well. The construction is completed and now it's time for the water committee to learn how to become a water company. The picture on the right shows Elder B, with Dede interpreting, being recorded for a local radio station while explaining to some villagers at this particular water station how to keep the water coming for years and years to come. Namely, to commit to paying the small water fee (about 5 cents US for 2 large bidons of water each day) in order to maintain and repair any breaks as they happen. He is reminding the villagers how important the health of their children is by having clean uncontaminated water to drink. Dede was right there translating into French or Tschluba (?) or Swahili(?) or Lingala. He is amazing! Later in the week we attended a meeting called by the water committee with the local pastors. The purpose of this meeting was to give correct information and ask the pastors to talk to their congregations about the importance of maintaining the system. Elder B was asked to speak. He did a great job praising the people for all the hard work they had done to dig the 19 miles of trenches and lay the huge pipe -- all by hand -- and he pled with them not to let this "miracle" fail. Once again the radio stations were present to record the event.

Sorry about this unposed picture, but we wanted to show you again how beautiful the surroundings are. And by the way, no one told these people that the Moondelees/Moontokas/Moozooloos were coming. (Whiteys to you). The people, especially the children, just appear. I watched at one water station when we arrived. No one there. Five minutes later there were 65.

Someone told us before coming to the Congo that we would be treated like rock stars. Now we understand. We are truly the big news of the day! Every day!

This picture of our scorpion friend is for our grandsons. We also found one in the bathrub, but since there is no running water and the bathtub is not used, we didn't care that the little guy was living there. We are told that these scorpions are not poisonous. Be sure to double-click on him so you see his lovely tail!

These little piggies are on their way to market. They are very hot and uncomfortable, and they would feel even worse (if possible) if they knew what their future held. I call this picture "The Poor Piggies and the Broken Bike". The man is fixing his flat tire, so he put the green palm branches over the piggies to keep them cooler. I'm afraid the pigs were beyond caring at this point. Bicycles are the main mode of transporting EVERYTHING to and from Luputa. The bikes are pushed much more than ridden. The loads they carry are enormous. And they push them for miles and miles

On our way to Luputa from Mbuji Maya we had the good fortune to be able to cross the bridge with only a small bribe to the engineer who laid down some planks over the gaping hole for us while the huge overloaded trucks had to wait.

We were just a little over-confident about our return to Mbuji Maya/airport/Kinshasa. When we approached the bridge after driving an hour from Luputa, we could see that there was NO way we would be able to cross, unless we were riding bikes. So we had to turn around and drive back one hour to Luputa and take the back road. Total driving time that day -- 10 hours on roads you can't believe. It should have been 5 hours. Dad's back was pretty banged up from the rough riding.

Here are some examples of the surprises we would find around the corner!!

Yes, we got through, but only by taking detours out in the bush. And sometimes we got to take detours of the detours.

We were asked to return in 3 months to access the water project again, and by then another couple may be assigned to the closer mission, so we would just be "training" them. We will miss our lovely Luputa and the friends we have made there.

We will end our blog by sharing some African wisdom. Africa is never in a hurry. One saying is "Going slowly does not prevent arriving." Example from the book Into Africa: A South African relates how he once gave a lift to an old farmer who said he was going to visit his daughter. "How far away does she live?" the driver asked. "Three days' travel," answered the farmer. "When did you leave home?" "When I left," answered the old man. "And when will you get there?" "When I get there." "Does your daughter know you are coming?" "No." "And what will she say when she sees you?" "Oh, you are here."

We experience this every day when traveling to our project sites. Elder B will ask, "How far is it?" "Not far." "How long will it take?" "Not long."

Another favorite saying: Delay does not spoil things. It makes them better.

We love this place!

And we love you!

Happy Mothers' Day!!