Our weeks are flying by! It has been another busy one. Everyday we leave early and get home late. We had a lot of great experiences this week out in the village visiting and also teaching lessons.
On Wednesday we had Michael Ochilla (who was baptized in December) and his family over for dinner. They live in a village called Kabwangasi. Michael is married to Daphne and they have six children. Daphne and all of the children go to the Seventh Day Adventist Church which makes Michael the only member in his family. They are a good family who love the Lord. Rachel is the oldest at 23 years and is a nurse in her village. She said she is interested in learning more about the Gospel so that is a teaching opportunity for us! Jovia is their second daughter and she is in school so she did not come. Samuel is 14, Ruth is 8, Miriam is 5 and John is 2. We also had two young cousins from the family join us plus Benard Wandera (on the left is our Branch Mission Leader). I made chicken breasts with fried potatoes and mixed vegetables. We had ice cream for dessert:)
Michael with his wife Daphne
This week we began teaching Mirembe a little English. We had no idea what we were doing but we went forward and did our best. You would think that since we KNOW English we should be able to TEACH English. It's not quite that simple anyway.....Bernard was there to help in the translating:)
One night we went to teach Jonathon and Rachel. We were scheduled to meet with them at 6:30 and Elder Phelps had told Jonathon that we would just be there for a short lesson and to NOT prepare food for us. We stopped at Arabica Cafe before our appointment and ordered some take out to be picked up after our appt. Well, as it goes.... they DID prepare dinner and I could tell that after we told them that we were not going to stay that it hurt their feelings. I gave Elder Phelps that look and whispered, "We really should stay." So we did. I had been looking forward all day to having some pizza from Arabica but......we saved it for leftovers for the next night:)
It was an enjoyable evening with them. Poor Rachel has been sick for weeks now. She got up twice during our lesson to go vomit:( Elder Phelps said the unthinkable right to her.... "Do you think it's the nine month flu?" I gave him an elbow to the ribs and said, "You're not supposed to ask that!" She just laughed and said, "I don't know. It's too early to tell." We did not get home until 9:00! Those late appointments are hard because there is really no down time before bedtime.
We saw this on the road and had a good laugh!
Someone forgot the spell check!
Our exciting news this week was our first Mbale Branch wedding. Ben Tushabe married his girlfriend Alima (Harry) on Saturday. We had to travel to Jinja because our Mbale building is not registered with the government to be a place of marriage. The Mission is working on getting our building approved. It will be a blessing when it is finally approved. Many more people would have loved to go but could not afford the transport to Jinja.
We definitely ran on African time. We were there to pick up the bride and her maids right at 7:30 as planned but they weren't ready. By 9:30 (yes, two hours later) we picked them up and started our 2 1/2 hour journey to Jinja. The wedding started at 1:00 and was really nice. President Etiang did a nice job of conducting and gave some really nice counsel from "The Proclamation" to the bride and groom.
Sarah, Jimeema, Harry, and Francis
Pretty Bridesmaids.....Sarah and Francis
The bride and groom with the matron and best man.
Exchanging rings after the ceremony.
President Isaac Etiang enjoying lunch.
Lunch was delicious with rice, matoke, peanut sauce, beef, potatoes, greens, peas and chapatis.
The wedding party
Namable, Ellie, Ben, Harry, Jimeema, Sarah, and Francis
This was interesting....before the cake cutting the bride and groom changed into traditional African clothing. I loved Ben's mother's gomezi. It was so beautiful on her.
An end to another great week in the mission field!!
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