Paulo's Experiment - Salt and Vinegar

Paulo is still into science. Every now and then he or Andre will ask me if they can use my vinegar and baking soda and other various ingredients in the kitchen. After we finished Roald Dahl's George's Marvelous Medicine together, they made a number of concoctions. 

For one of them, Paulo put some salt on a plate on top of a paper, and then saturated the whole thing with vinegar. He asked me not to clean it up for a few days. In three days we started to notice that as the vinegar was evaporating, the salt began forming bigger crystals. 

Then Paulo had a cool idea to try to take a photo with the iphone through his little microscope of the little crystals. So these are the salt crystals up close.

Great experiment, Paulo!

He has since repeated the experiment, but this time with sugar. These are the results:

Reyna's Temper

Reyna's been doing this funny thing lately where she puts her hands up with fingers out, she makes a funny "gigil" face and shakes her entire body. She does it when she's mad and at other times, too. We were trying so hard to catch it on tape, and then I had the brilliant idea of taking her toy away. Watch her closely and you'll see it. Poor thing.

Kenyan Wedding

Hunter attended the wedding of a coworker. I thought you might think it's interesting to see. Now Hunter is jealous that his best man wasn't part of The Temptations(See Video Below).

Equinox

March 20th was the Spring Equinox. That means that the day and night are almost exactly equal, and the earth's axis tilts neither toward nor away from the sun, so for people living on the equator, like us, our shadows are directly below us. See?

Swimming Gala

What a fun weekend. The boys have been preparing for weeks now for their annual swimming gala (they pronounce it "galler" like pupils from a truly British run school). I bought some swim suits for the boys that are more suitable for racing than their humungous flame-decorated bermudas. We made them wait until race day to put them on. They looked like superheroes.

Hunter had been drilling the boys for two weeks on their starts, getting off the wall as quickly as possible once the whistle blows. There's still some room for improvement, but they worked hard, did their best, and had fun. I think the kids could really get into competition swimming as a sport. Especially Paulo. Andre needs some more instruction, but I was impressed with his ability to compete against children a year older than him.

Anyway, the highlights were that Paulo got second in freestyle and Andre got third in kickboard. They also had an adult race for the parents. I laughed out loud when I read that on the invitation. The boys begged Hunter to race though, and he was the only parent to race. He raced the swim coach and other male swim instructors…and won!! It was a close race and he didn't breathe the whole length of the pool when he realized he had some real competition.

One other funny note--they had a parents' race for the women as well. The MC was trying to call me out from the crowd but I had the baby, and I didn't bring swim clothes, so I said no. But you know what? Slowly but surely, four moms gathered next to the pool to participate, and they were fully clothed! I said, "Are you serious? They're going to race in their clothes?" And they did! They jumped into the water fully clothed. It was hilarious! Good thing I didn't come in my swim suit--I would have felt really dumb.

Anyway, it was a very fun and yet another very new experience to chalk up to our time in Kenya.

BADDA DAN MOST!

Remember the days when we used to play around with a video recorder making silly videos? That's what me and the boys did last night. The song is a popular song that often plays during our matatu rides here in Mombasa. We have no idea what the lyrics say.

Fort Jesus

The kids had a midterm break a few weekends ago. I took them to Fort Jesus to explore. Fort Jesus was built on Mombasa Island by the Portugese in 1591. It sits at the east port of Mombasa where the open Indian ocean begins to flow around Mombasa Island. 

It was fun and interesting, but I realize now that Hunter was right--I snapped way too many pictures. Enjoy.

Within the fort, there's a museum displaying all kinds of artifacts that divers have retrieved from shipwrecks. This chest was my favorite.

This skeleton is a replica of the actual one that is buried below it. The boys thought that was cool.

Biscuit Baby

Reyna just LOVES biscuits. I've done some taste testing and sampling because there are multiple brands and flavors. My favorite is Manji Butterscotch biscuits made with real Kenyan butter. They taste like Danish butter cookies. Reyna likes them all.

Swahili Donuts - 2nd Attempt

I added more cinnamon to this recipe. They were pretty good. If I can get the right temperature of oil, they'll be perfect. I love that the kids like to help me bake.

Andre's Haircut

Andre took the scissors to his head again.

We decided it was finally time for a buzz. Now look my big, handsome boys. Andre wanted me to mention that before his haircut he looked 6, and now he looks 7 and a half!

Back On the Mission

The full-time missionaries in Mombasa have been met with many challenges the last few months. Restrictions on visas has caused our branch to go from two companionships down to one and then to none. On top of that, new curfew restrictions have been set which require the elders to be home by 6pm. So, using the missionaries from another area to teach in our area means it must happen during the daytime hours–the same time everyone they should be teaching is at work. 

Nevertheless “the work of God will go forth bodily, nobly and independent,” because we as members of a branch, left with no missionaries, have been approved to teach investigators. Tonight, Yolanda and I did just that. 

A few months ago we decided to follow the council given in General Conference to pray about referring someone to be taught by the missionaries before December. We held a companionship study in the mornings and prayed about individuals we had recently met. During this experience we were prompted to think of Dickson, a security guard at our children’s elementary school. Yolanda invited him to church and he attended but getting taught by the missionaries was difficult for him because of the full–time missionary situation.

A period of time passed by where little progress was being made with Dickson but we had felt satisfied with the fact that we reached our goal of making a referral. After a recommitment to our focus on doing member-missionary work, we strived to have the missionaries continue to teach Dickson but continued to see little progress because of the curfew and visa constraints. 

In our last visit the elders invited us to continue to teach Dickson on our own. Now, this is something I have literally dreamed about. For years I have had a reoccurring dream in which I get called back on a mission today in a different area to help missionaries strive to see similar success to the experiences I had in  Philippines. Every time I wake up from these dreams, I’m happy to be still lying next to my wife but disappointed that it is not real. However, this opportunity with Dickson was not a dream.

Yolanda and I prepared since last Friday by having our companionship study and planning our lesson. Yolanda had been reading in Alma about the Faith/Seed metaphor and explained how we could use it to build his testimony from the seed of faith he has already started with. We also engaged in a fast today to be sure we had the Spirit with us. 

As we taught I worked my way through a first discussion the way I had done on my mission a thousand times before. It wasn’t all that smooth but it did what it needed to do, which is to bring in the Spirit, commit him to follow by action and testify of truth. 

The miracle is, as it always is, that Dickson accepted a commitment to be baptized. He said he had already knew the Book of Mormon is true and that he wanted to be baptized. In fact, he had had a dream about a gate that he could not pass through with a picture of Christ hanging on it. He woke from the dream feeling sad that he could not see what was on the other side of the gate. I quickly shared 2 Nephi 31:17–18 and testified that dream was a real prompting from God.

Yolanda shared her part of the discussion on Faith, taught him how to pray for an answer and gave him a reading assignment of 3 Nephi 11. 

Dickson was so happy and excited for his baptism commitment and Yoli and I are thrilled to be able to teach our friend the truth. For years I have felt that I cheated God out have having an awesome missionary in Yoli because I married her. But after this lesson I feel happy to have provided to her the experience of full-time missionary work in at least a small dose. 

We are so exited to continue to be missionaries in this area and hope to see continued guidance in our lives because of it. For both Yoli and I, it’s literally a dream come true.