First Ponytail!

Pleasant Surprise

Paulo was getting over being sick yesterday, so I kept him home from school. After breakfast, he asked if he could "play Scratch" on the computer (Have I mentioned this yet? It's a kids' computer programming application. Hunter introduced the kids to it, and they've been writing their own code and creating their own games. I'll have to share some later).

Anyway, I said, "After breakfast, there are certain things we need to do first. First I need you to clear your plate, and then go to your room, tie up your net, make your bed and get dressed." He said, "Yes, Mom."

When I checked on him a while later, this is what I found:

He had completely tidied their room!!! I said, "What, are you getting baptized soon or somethin'?" He smiled.

What a good boy!

Brother Richard's House

After church, we were kindly invited to the home of Brother Richard, Sister Elizabeth, and their baby Collins. Brother Richard was so kind to arrange everything, including picking us up in a tuk tuk.

This is their home.

The door on the right behind Sister Elizabeth is actually their home. The one behind me is the door to the outside. The walkway we're standing in is a shared area that leads to several homes like Brother Richard's. 

This is quite typical of a Swahili home. The walls, Hunter told me, are built with a wood lattice structure, and then the holes are filled with mud and coral/rocks. Most people, I think, just live with the mud walls bare like this on the inside, but Brother Richard had carefully lined the inside walls with the same fabric that bags of rice are made from.

The home was one room with a shower curtain dividing the little sitting area from the sleeping area. This is also typical. The sitting area consisted of five plastic lawn chairs and a small wooden coffee table. The room was very neat with clean swept tarmac floors and just a few Liahona magazine pictures or free calendars hanging on the wall. There was one light mounted on the wall to provide light at night time. On the other side of the curtain, the sleeping area was just enough space to fit a double bed. And that's it. The only other possessions I saw were a "library" which was a stack of Liahona magazines piled on top of a few strings like a hammock near the ceiling, and some containers of water.

Here I am feeling grateful for lights.

They generously served us several packages of biscuits (pronounced bisk-weets'), bananas and three 1-liter bottles of fanta!

We visited with them only for about an hour. I was very pleased with how the boys behaved. They entertained everyone with the "black magic" game, which they call "green monkey" here. Our hosts were stumped for a good long time until we finally revealed the secret of the trick to them.

Afterward, while we waited for the tuk tuk to come get us again, we strolled outside to see Brother Richard's little vegetable stand business and bought some potatoes from him.

Then we strolled down the "block" to let the kids play with the other children on the huge water pipes and sand.

I was going to trim this video but I thought you'd like the silly guy at the end.

It was a wonderful evening.

General Conference

Just so you know, this is a religious post.

We finally got to watch General Conference. After a month, the branch receives the CDs and we watch it together on a Saturday and Sunday at the church.

The primary planned an activity for the children on the same Saturday so we got to watch without distraction. We took a short break in between sessions to eat a meal so kindly prepared by the sisters. I am repeatedly impressed with how willing these members are to serve.

You know when people say "my heart is full"? By the end of the first session, I realized that my throat felt "all choked up" and my "heart felt full." Every word of President Uchtdorf's talk rang true to me. His talk was just saturated with truth.

I had been talking with a lady who is a Seventh Day Adventist last week about similarities and differences between our religions. I began to feel discouraged slightly thinking how inadequate/incompetent I am in explaining the gospel in a secular way. I don't know how to testify of the truth that I know when people are not searching.

I mean, when I teach a lesson or bear my testimony in sacrament meeting, I feel like I'm given the right words to explain appropriately and accurately what I feel/know. But when people don't really care to know the truth, there's no power behind my words. It's a little frustrating.

I thought, how BOLD it is for us to claim we are the only church that has the complete truth restored by Christ in the SAME way as it was established when he was alive on the earth with the SAME priesthood authority. I mean, it sounds CRAZY! The lady I was talking to agreed. And it IS a bold claim! But as I listened to President Uchtdorf's talk, I felt the Holy Spirit strongly confirm again to me that IT'S TRUE!!

Hunter used to ask people on his mission when they were feeling the Spirit for the first time bear witness of the what he was teaching, "Do you think that if what I was teaching you were not true that Heavenly Father would allow you to feel this good feeling?" Each time, they would say "No." The fact is, (which fact can't be observed by the physical senses) if none of this were true, I would not have felt the Spirit testifying of the truth in EVERY general conference and EVERY testimony meeting and EVERY baptism. If a person is earnestly searching for the truth, they WILL find it here in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

Crazy Kids

Look what I found the other day: