Hello Family and Friends:
A very busy week at work. Sometimes 12 hour days just aren’t long enough. On Tuesday a meeting was scheduled from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm to go over the SAP project. That’s not too long but at 8:00 it was still going when dinner is usually served. The decision was made not to break for dinner but just finish the meeting and get it over with. So the meeting that was scheduled to be over at 5:00 pm, ended at 11:15 pm. Give me a break. If it’s going to be an all nighter at least let me know so I can plan, I wouldn’t mind it so bad. But going over 6 hours is ridiculous.
There were a number of meetings to review the capital requests that will be presented to the board of directors. The first meeting will be held this week with the final one, the official one, next week. It should go well. When the plant was built, it cost at least 100 million dollars; then there was a “remediation project” where additional money was spent. The remediation project was completed in 2009. That project was in the 10 million dollar range. The remediation project improved many of the design problems with the plant but quality and productivity still don’t meet design expectations. The amount of money being requested this time in the 5 million dollar range. So after all the other money that’s been spent, if the plant can be turned around and made profitable with an additional 5 million, the board will approve. Kind of like a last ditch effort, production costs exceed selling price, so the situation has to change or the plant will be shut down.
I still don’t know if the employees understand how tenuous the situation is. They ask for a 25% wage increase and received a 9% increase and continue to request more employees be added to census. It’s almost like a nanny state where they expect the company to provide everything regardless of the business situation. Speaking of adding employees, there will be census reduction in the manufacturing area of about 80 employees over the next few months. Even after that reduction, there will be more over the next year or so.
The drive to Nairobi is always exciting. The drivers there are nuts. They drive on the shoulders, median, sidewalks and it doesn’t matter which direction they travel. They go either way in either lane. There are no traffic police so it’s anything goes. Speed bumps are all that slow people down. I get a sick sense of satisfaction when I see a crazy van in the ditch, serves them right. Today there was one on its side in a ditch and another ran into a rock wall. I just hope the passengers are ok.
Today in church, there was a young woman that spoke that had only been a member for about three months. Most of the people have a good understanding of the bible so when they join it isn’t too difficult for them to add the Book of Mormon to their scriptural data base. I’m amazed at the understanding of some of the members here. When one young man speaks, I listen intently. I have difficulty putting into words many concepts and thoughts, but he is a master at explaining gospel principals. It is obvious he has spent a great deal of time searching the scriptures. He spoke in church today so it was an interesting meeting.
Yesterday for excitement we climbed up a hill just outside the plant area to where there are a number of native huts. We were climbing to prepare for Kilimanjaro. There was a couple from India that went with us. They have a 5 year old son and another lady was with us from India (Suman). Suman works for the consulting firm working on developing the plan to be presented to the board. When we arrived at the village the whole community came out to see who was visiting. Little children came out to wee the strange looking people and to shake our hands or to look at us and run crying to their mothers. I couldn’t figure out what toddlers in Africa did for diapers in the back country. I figured it out yesterday – they don’t wear them. Most toddlers wear a shirt and that’s it. Maybe they get potty trained quicker than the kids in the US. Krista, Cherry, you might want to try that; the no diaper approach.
Debi took a lot of pictures so if you want to see them check out her Facebook page. I can’t put all of them in a letter but she is good at putting our Africa pictures on her FB page. So those of you who aren’t on FB now is the time to get on. Most of your kids are, maybe they won’t laugh at you if you don’t tell them you are signing up. When we were taking the pictures many of them wanted to have copies so we will climb back up there next week and give them the copies. It only takes about 1 minute to gain an appreciation for the blessings of growing up in the US. These people don’t have electricity or running water. Just think of all the things you would throw out of the house if you didn’t have electricity or running water
.
So much rambling, count your blessings and be grateful for what you have. I would say 99% of those in the US that claim they live in poverty have it better than those people we visited yesterday. But guess what, they’re happy. It isn’t what you have that brings happiness.
Love you all
Paul/dad
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Sun 9/19/2010 2:00 PM
Dear Family and Friends:
Well another week gone. They go by pretty fast, starts with Monday, then Tuesday, you know the order by the time Friday rolls around we are ready for another weekend. On Saturday we went to Nairobi and had dinner with the branch president and his wife. It was really good to have food different than what we have been eating here for the past month. Mom, I know what you mean now about getting tired of the same stuff day after day. There is a variety, but it feels like there is little change.
While we were in Nairobi I bought a bike so I can ride it to work and Debi can have the car to do whatever she wants to do. Debi also bought a bathroom scale; bad move. Since she has been here we have been walking each evening, but I’ve been eating more regularly and not exercising as much. Plus to top it all off, sometimes Debi puts more on her plate that I can eat. She tries the food put out for the Indian guests to see what it tastes like, and if she doesn’t like it guess where it ends up. That’s right, on my plate. So, a few things are going to have to change. Will let you know how that goes.
While in Nairobi we also met with the lady who is making arrangements for our climb of Kilimanjaro. So things are coming together for that adventure. We will also try to fit in a safari to Masai Mara following the climb. Speaking about the climb, I saw a tee shirt that had a saying on it, I’ll paraphrase it: It said “I was thinking maybe I play too much, so I’ve decided to quit thinking”. I thought it had a deep meaning.
Because we had completed our shopping yesterday, we toured Nairobi National Park today after church. There were two people at the plant that wanted to do the tour so we joined up. We can add to the list of animals we’ve seen; lion, cape buffalo, rhino, crocodile. We had hoped to see a hippo but they were not where they were supposed to be. The animals are not caged so it is recommended you stay in your car. The lion ran by the car and was within 5 feet of us. Pretty fun adventure. The park is huge, don’t know exactly how big but we were driving for four hours and saw maybe half of the park. There is a sign where you enter that says “Nairobi National Park, Wolrds Largest Wildlife Park”. They had misspelled the word “World”.
The plant is making slow improvement but it still has a long way to go. The consultants will be back this week to help map out the time table and spending schedule for the planned projects. Once that is complete, it will be presented to the Board of Directors to get their buy in. It will be an interesting process. Fortunately the leader of the project is a woman (Suman) and Debi has become friends with her. They have been communicating on Face Book while Suman has been away. Debi may become an honorary member of the turn-around team. Suman got here masters in Michigan so was Americanized while there. Suman and her husband just moved to India and she hates it. So it will be interesting how long she stays in India. She is a very bright woman.
Looks like the paper work for the new branch was turned in. We should have a church closer to Magadi by the first of the year. Won’t miss driving to Nairobi every Sunday. The drivers are absolutely crazy. The roads are two land (one each way) and tonight coming home there were four cars across with pedestrians on both sides of the road. I don’t see how thousands of people don’t get killed each weekend.
After I’ve written each letter I think of things I should have said but can’t remember what I forgot from last week so I’ll say good bye.
Miss all of you. It was good talking to Jesse and wishing him happy birthday. Sorry you didn’t rate a call Robert, maybe next year. But at least I remembered to email; which is more that I do for most family members.
Love you
Paul/dad
Well another week gone. They go by pretty fast, starts with Monday, then Tuesday, you know the order by the time Friday rolls around we are ready for another weekend. On Saturday we went to Nairobi and had dinner with the branch president and his wife. It was really good to have food different than what we have been eating here for the past month. Mom, I know what you mean now about getting tired of the same stuff day after day. There is a variety, but it feels like there is little change.
While we were in Nairobi I bought a bike so I can ride it to work and Debi can have the car to do whatever she wants to do. Debi also bought a bathroom scale; bad move. Since she has been here we have been walking each evening, but I’ve been eating more regularly and not exercising as much. Plus to top it all off, sometimes Debi puts more on her plate that I can eat. She tries the food put out for the Indian guests to see what it tastes like, and if she doesn’t like it guess where it ends up. That’s right, on my plate. So, a few things are going to have to change. Will let you know how that goes.
While in Nairobi we also met with the lady who is making arrangements for our climb of Kilimanjaro. So things are coming together for that adventure. We will also try to fit in a safari to Masai Mara following the climb. Speaking about the climb, I saw a tee shirt that had a saying on it, I’ll paraphrase it: It said “I was thinking maybe I play too much, so I’ve decided to quit thinking”. I thought it had a deep meaning.
Because we had completed our shopping yesterday, we toured Nairobi National Park today after church. There were two people at the plant that wanted to do the tour so we joined up. We can add to the list of animals we’ve seen; lion, cape buffalo, rhino, crocodile. We had hoped to see a hippo but they were not where they were supposed to be. The animals are not caged so it is recommended you stay in your car. The lion ran by the car and was within 5 feet of us. Pretty fun adventure. The park is huge, don’t know exactly how big but we were driving for four hours and saw maybe half of the park. There is a sign where you enter that says “Nairobi National Park, Wolrds Largest Wildlife Park”. They had misspelled the word “World”.
The plant is making slow improvement but it still has a long way to go. The consultants will be back this week to help map out the time table and spending schedule for the planned projects. Once that is complete, it will be presented to the Board of Directors to get their buy in. It will be an interesting process. Fortunately the leader of the project is a woman (Suman) and Debi has become friends with her. They have been communicating on Face Book while Suman has been away. Debi may become an honorary member of the turn-around team. Suman got here masters in Michigan so was Americanized while there. Suman and her husband just moved to India and she hates it. So it will be interesting how long she stays in India. She is a very bright woman.
Looks like the paper work for the new branch was turned in. We should have a church closer to Magadi by the first of the year. Won’t miss driving to Nairobi every Sunday. The drivers are absolutely crazy. The roads are two land (one each way) and tonight coming home there were four cars across with pedestrians on both sides of the road. I don’t see how thousands of people don’t get killed each weekend.
After I’ve written each letter I think of things I should have said but can’t remember what I forgot from last week so I’ll say good bye.
Miss all of you. It was good talking to Jesse and wishing him happy birthday. Sorry you didn’t rate a call Robert, maybe next year. But at least I remembered to email; which is more that I do for most family members.
Love you
Paul/dad
Monday, September 13, 2010
Sun 9/12/2010 12:58 PM
“Greetings to you friends and piece”:
For those of you that remember your Three Dog Night music, that was an introduction to one of their songs. So I thought I’d say it. I’ll try singing it when we all get together.
An interesting week all around. Started with meetings with a fellow that is helping implement a program called Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM). The program is patterned after the Malcolm Baldridge award. It is being brought in an attempt to make Tata a world class operation by making sure management is the best it can be. Over all it is a good program and will make the company better. The process was challenging however. The first meeting was suppose to last two hours and it lasted four. The fellow is from India (Harshdeep is his name) and was very hard to understand. After four hours I had a splitting headache. Harshdeep is a member of the Sikhism religion from India. They are the ones that wear the turbines and don’t shave. Do a Google on the religion, there are similarities with the LDS faith. Anyway after about 10 hours of listening to him this week I need a break.
After the TBEM to start off the week, we transitioned into the board meeting. It started out as an audit of the operations because the board audit committee meet first to find out all the things that are screwed up in all the systems; finance, purchasing, sales, HR, etc, etc. Anyway there are a number of things not being done correctly in manufacturing so when it got to be my turn one of the board members said “isn’t this what we are going to talk about this afternoon”. He was correct so my part was skipped. I could have given the guy a hug. The things that are screwed up are well know and we have been working on them for months. So it’s not like they had to send an auditor to tell us what is wrong. We told the auditor most of the things he found. My favorite one was when he pointed out that the belt scales that weigh in-process material don’t work. He hadn’t planned on saying that there have been numerous attempts to fix the scales but no one in Magadi has the ability to fix them. The technology is above the ability of the Kenyan electrical department to fix. Oh well, I got a pass on my part of the audit. The next day was the entire Board meeting, it also went well. The consultants that have been here had already convinced the Board to spend some mote money and let us fix some of the problems. So my presentation to the Board has few comments. Just get the plant fixed (simple if you day it fast). Looks like we will get some money to make modifications to the plant and try to get production up. It will be a real challenge and the Board will monitor the process very closely. So it better work. It will take about two years to get all the changes implemented so I may be here for the duration of the project. May need to do a little negotiating on the terms and conditions in my agreement along the way.
In addition to all the above, the chemicals that were ordered from the US finally arrived. It took a week to get them through Kenyan customs and to the plant. The folks that came from the US to help with the start-up almost wasted their week. They arrived last Sunday and the chemicals didn’t arrive until Friday and they left today. So they didn’t get to do much. Their being here showed support for the plant and went a long way to winning support for them as a supplier. So that was two more guys to deal with during the week. Then on Friday, the SAP boys came in and wanted me to approve their basic plan for their Enterprise Resource Planning outline (ERP). I was sure happy to see them. I hadn’t done anything all week and was wondering if I would be able to do anything.
And to top off the week, I got an invitation to visit the local Masque and celebrate the end of Ramadan. How many of you have done that? Debi and I went to the celebration. It was an interesting experience. The men are on one side of the Masque and the women on the other side. They bring in a platter of food; rice, potatoes, meat, vegetables, etc and everyone sits on the floor and eats off the same tray with their fingers. (Oops, Robert/Nancy, I was going to have you skip the part of eating with my fingers when you read this to mom. She isn’t too fond of people eating with their fingers. I remember getting in trouble for doing that. My bad). They were excited that we came. I guess they invited many people from Magadi Soda to help celebrate, but Debi and I were the only two that came. So chalk up another experience to the African Adventure.
Found out in church today that the request to form another branch was submitted. The church was packed today. I’ve never seen so many people there. Some say it depends on when pay day is. If people can afford the bus ride they come. Hence the efforts to move the branch closer to where they live. Hope it happens soon.
The children love Debi. She said that one of the little girls continued to run her fingers through her hair during primary. There are beautiful people here. The kids are so sweet and well behaved. Maybe we will get our wish for well behaved children; we missed out on with our own.
Well, I’m out of gas for writing more. Hope all is well with all of you. Sure enjoy hearing from you, so keep the emails coming.
Live ya
Paul/dad
PS: Margaret, we are getting close to having our schedule arranged for after the first of the year, will forward it to you when we are a little closer.
PSS: Uncle Ken and Aunt Sally, let me know if you get this. Hope I got your email correct.
For those of you that remember your Three Dog Night music, that was an introduction to one of their songs. So I thought I’d say it. I’ll try singing it when we all get together.
An interesting week all around. Started with meetings with a fellow that is helping implement a program called Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM). The program is patterned after the Malcolm Baldridge award. It is being brought in an attempt to make Tata a world class operation by making sure management is the best it can be. Over all it is a good program and will make the company better. The process was challenging however. The first meeting was suppose to last two hours and it lasted four. The fellow is from India (Harshdeep is his name) and was very hard to understand. After four hours I had a splitting headache. Harshdeep is a member of the Sikhism religion from India. They are the ones that wear the turbines and don’t shave. Do a Google on the religion, there are similarities with the LDS faith. Anyway after about 10 hours of listening to him this week I need a break.
After the TBEM to start off the week, we transitioned into the board meeting. It started out as an audit of the operations because the board audit committee meet first to find out all the things that are screwed up in all the systems; finance, purchasing, sales, HR, etc, etc. Anyway there are a number of things not being done correctly in manufacturing so when it got to be my turn one of the board members said “isn’t this what we are going to talk about this afternoon”. He was correct so my part was skipped. I could have given the guy a hug. The things that are screwed up are well know and we have been working on them for months. So it’s not like they had to send an auditor to tell us what is wrong. We told the auditor most of the things he found. My favorite one was when he pointed out that the belt scales that weigh in-process material don’t work. He hadn’t planned on saying that there have been numerous attempts to fix the scales but no one in Magadi has the ability to fix them. The technology is above the ability of the Kenyan electrical department to fix. Oh well, I got a pass on my part of the audit. The next day was the entire Board meeting, it also went well. The consultants that have been here had already convinced the Board to spend some mote money and let us fix some of the problems. So my presentation to the Board has few comments. Just get the plant fixed (simple if you day it fast). Looks like we will get some money to make modifications to the plant and try to get production up. It will be a real challenge and the Board will monitor the process very closely. So it better work. It will take about two years to get all the changes implemented so I may be here for the duration of the project. May need to do a little negotiating on the terms and conditions in my agreement along the way.
In addition to all the above, the chemicals that were ordered from the US finally arrived. It took a week to get them through Kenyan customs and to the plant. The folks that came from the US to help with the start-up almost wasted their week. They arrived last Sunday and the chemicals didn’t arrive until Friday and they left today. So they didn’t get to do much. Their being here showed support for the plant and went a long way to winning support for them as a supplier. So that was two more guys to deal with during the week. Then on Friday, the SAP boys came in and wanted me to approve their basic plan for their Enterprise Resource Planning outline (ERP). I was sure happy to see them. I hadn’t done anything all week and was wondering if I would be able to do anything.
And to top off the week, I got an invitation to visit the local Masque and celebrate the end of Ramadan. How many of you have done that? Debi and I went to the celebration. It was an interesting experience. The men are on one side of the Masque and the women on the other side. They bring in a platter of food; rice, potatoes, meat, vegetables, etc and everyone sits on the floor and eats off the same tray with their fingers. (Oops, Robert/Nancy, I was going to have you skip the part of eating with my fingers when you read this to mom. She isn’t too fond of people eating with their fingers. I remember getting in trouble for doing that. My bad). They were excited that we came. I guess they invited many people from Magadi Soda to help celebrate, but Debi and I were the only two that came. So chalk up another experience to the African Adventure.
Found out in church today that the request to form another branch was submitted. The church was packed today. I’ve never seen so many people there. Some say it depends on when pay day is. If people can afford the bus ride they come. Hence the efforts to move the branch closer to where they live. Hope it happens soon.
The children love Debi. She said that one of the little girls continued to run her fingers through her hair during primary. There are beautiful people here. The kids are so sweet and well behaved. Maybe we will get our wish for well behaved children; we missed out on with our own.
Well, I’m out of gas for writing more. Hope all is well with all of you. Sure enjoy hearing from you, so keep the emails coming.
Live ya
Paul/dad
PS: Margaret, we are getting close to having our schedule arranged for after the first of the year, will forward it to you when we are a little closer.
PSS: Uncle Ken and Aunt Sally, let me know if you get this. Hope I got your email correct.
Sun 9/5/2010 1:16 PM
Hello Family and Friends:
Here we go again, another week shot. Very busy week for work. Sometimes 55 to 60 hour weeks are just not enough time to get everything done. There were all sorts of guests at the plant this week, so that along with all the other changes going on made for a long week.
I made the suggestions for layoffs this week. So it looks like about 50 people will be going. Most of them will not be laid off immediately but will work to the end of their contract and then their contract will not be renewed. They know it is coming but most are in a state of denial. Even the salaried people don’t understand how bad the company is doing and are lackadaisical about making the necessary changes to stem the bleeding. It is like a nanny state. Everyone expects cradle to grave services and they don’t understand the money has to come from somewhere. If the company doesn’t make money, all benefits go away for everyone.
So anyway, next week is the Board of Directors meeting. So that will be exciting. There was a group of high powered consultants here last week looking at what would be necessary to turn the operation around. We went through a number of areas that need to be improved that would help production and improve the bottom line. We were able to convince them we knew what we were talking about and they presented the recommendations to the board in advance of the meeting. So it looks like we will be getting some more capital to improve the plant and help get us back on track. There is so little cash, we can’t buy parts to fix equipment when it breaks down. Not a good way to run an operation.
So anyway, so much for work. You are probably more interested in what Debi is doing. She is living the life of leisure. Cook, maid, housekeeper, gardener, husband at her beck and call. What more could a woman want? Today we went on a cheap safari. It started off good, we saw: zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, impala and Thompson gazelles, ostrich, guinea hens, élans, Masai on motorcycles, a lot of native villages, and an area that has all kinds of fruit growing. Africa is quite the place. You should all come for a visit. We saw elephant poop too, but no elephant. But at least now we know they are here!!!!! We were in a game reserve called Shampole. It is a high priced place that Bill Gates has been to. A lot of granola crunchers/tree hugger types. Anyway, I’ve driven there two times. I haven’t ever been asked to pay a fee to get in or out. This time they would not let us out until we came up with some money. They wanted 800 schillings for the three of us (driver, Debi and me) and 200 Ksh for the car. I didn’t have that much. When we said we didn’t have that much they were going to call the police and have us put in jail. One of the biggest problems I have in Kenya is the dishonesty of some of the people. The sheet they showed us trying to justify the charge didn’t have 800 shillings per person anywhere on it. It said 200 per person. The longer we stayed there the madder I was getting. I finally tool all the money I had out of my money clip and handed it to the driver and told them that was all they were getting. It may have been about 1,400 shillings. They finally asked the driver for 100 shillings. What a bunch. What a joke. The 1,500 shillings is about $18. Any way, it will be recorded as an experience.
So still an exciting drive to Nairobi for church. I never thought it could happen, but Debi can sleep on that road. It has pot holes and you have to stop frequently for goats and cows. But doesn’t bother Debi, she is out as soon as we are out of town. It looks like Debi and another teacher will be in charge to the primary program this year. The Primary president was not here again today so Debi and the other teacher started preparing the program. It will be presented next month.
They talked about splitting the branch again today. Looks like they will submit the paper work in the next week or two. It is so difficult for people to get to church here because of transportation cost that every attempt is make to get the meetings close to the members. We will be about a half hour closer to the church when the change is made. If they let us go to the closest branch. A comment was made a few weeks ago that they may ask us to continue going to the current branch. I continue to be impressed with the members here. Those that are faithful and come regularly have testimonies as strong as anywhere we have lived, and their understanding of the gospel matches their testimonies.
Time to go to bed and get this email to press. For those of you who want more Africa stuff, Debi has a blog, I think it is intoafricaadventure@wordpress.com If you can’t get there talk to someone who is friends with her on face book and they can give you the link.
Hope this makes sense. I started it yesterday and finished it today. If it doesn’t make sense, read it fast.
Love you
Paul/dad
Here we go again, another week shot. Very busy week for work. Sometimes 55 to 60 hour weeks are just not enough time to get everything done. There were all sorts of guests at the plant this week, so that along with all the other changes going on made for a long week.
I made the suggestions for layoffs this week. So it looks like about 50 people will be going. Most of them will not be laid off immediately but will work to the end of their contract and then their contract will not be renewed. They know it is coming but most are in a state of denial. Even the salaried people don’t understand how bad the company is doing and are lackadaisical about making the necessary changes to stem the bleeding. It is like a nanny state. Everyone expects cradle to grave services and they don’t understand the money has to come from somewhere. If the company doesn’t make money, all benefits go away for everyone.
So anyway, next week is the Board of Directors meeting. So that will be exciting. There was a group of high powered consultants here last week looking at what would be necessary to turn the operation around. We went through a number of areas that need to be improved that would help production and improve the bottom line. We were able to convince them we knew what we were talking about and they presented the recommendations to the board in advance of the meeting. So it looks like we will be getting some more capital to improve the plant and help get us back on track. There is so little cash, we can’t buy parts to fix equipment when it breaks down. Not a good way to run an operation.
So anyway, so much for work. You are probably more interested in what Debi is doing. She is living the life of leisure. Cook, maid, housekeeper, gardener, husband at her beck and call. What more could a woman want? Today we went on a cheap safari. It started off good, we saw: zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, impala and Thompson gazelles, ostrich, guinea hens, élans, Masai on motorcycles, a lot of native villages, and an area that has all kinds of fruit growing. Africa is quite the place. You should all come for a visit. We saw elephant poop too, but no elephant. But at least now we know they are here!!!!! We were in a game reserve called Shampole. It is a high priced place that Bill Gates has been to. A lot of granola crunchers/tree hugger types. Anyway, I’ve driven there two times. I haven’t ever been asked to pay a fee to get in or out. This time they would not let us out until we came up with some money. They wanted 800 schillings for the three of us (driver, Debi and me) and 200 Ksh for the car. I didn’t have that much. When we said we didn’t have that much they were going to call the police and have us put in jail. One of the biggest problems I have in Kenya is the dishonesty of some of the people. The sheet they showed us trying to justify the charge didn’t have 800 shillings per person anywhere on it. It said 200 per person. The longer we stayed there the madder I was getting. I finally tool all the money I had out of my money clip and handed it to the driver and told them that was all they were getting. It may have been about 1,400 shillings. They finally asked the driver for 100 shillings. What a bunch. What a joke. The 1,500 shillings is about $18. Any way, it will be recorded as an experience.
So still an exciting drive to Nairobi for church. I never thought it could happen, but Debi can sleep on that road. It has pot holes and you have to stop frequently for goats and cows. But doesn’t bother Debi, she is out as soon as we are out of town. It looks like Debi and another teacher will be in charge to the primary program this year. The Primary president was not here again today so Debi and the other teacher started preparing the program. It will be presented next month.
They talked about splitting the branch again today. Looks like they will submit the paper work in the next week or two. It is so difficult for people to get to church here because of transportation cost that every attempt is make to get the meetings close to the members. We will be about a half hour closer to the church when the change is made. If they let us go to the closest branch. A comment was made a few weeks ago that they may ask us to continue going to the current branch. I continue to be impressed with the members here. Those that are faithful and come regularly have testimonies as strong as anywhere we have lived, and their understanding of the gospel matches their testimonies.
Time to go to bed and get this email to press. For those of you who want more Africa stuff, Debi has a blog, I think it is intoafricaadventure@wordpress.com If you can’t get there talk to someone who is friends with her on face book and they can give you the link.
Hope this makes sense. I started it yesterday and finished it today. If it doesn’t make sense, read it fast.
Love you
Paul/dad
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