Hello Family:

This is late because Sunday’s are very busy these days. Went to church, then to lunch and then to a tourist trap. At the tourist trap they have huts from all the tribes in Kenya. There are 42 different tribes so there is a wide variety of hut construction. We made sure we visited the huts from Obama's fathers' tribe. Margaret, we will have to go there while you are here. They also have a show where they present tribal dances from the country.

In church, there were three testimonies that were very interesting. The first was from a woman, who with her husband had just returned from the US. While there, they had an adult son sealed to then and the fellow from here baptized his grandson. It doesn’t come across that well in a letter but to hear her talk about it was quite inspiring. The fellow that was involved is the first counselor in the branch presidency and works in the public affairs department of the Kenyan government. They have been members for a while but apparently their son did not join the church at the same time they did. The next lady talked about translating the conference talks from English into Swahili. What an experience. She works in the Education department for the Kenyan government. She said it is difficult doing the work but very rewarding. She had a jump on what was going to be said in conference. The other fellow spoke about how his parents had disowned him when he joined the church. His parents are Muslim. His parents own/operate a fuel station and his dad saw missionaries come into the stations so he asked them for copies of the scriptures. After looking at all the scriptures, he called his son and said your church does not worship the devil so you should do what you feel is right.

The church is so new in Kenya, this is what it must have been like 150 years ago when our families were joining the church and moving away from their homelands. Anyway, an interesting day. We did not have conference because our Sunday started before conference did. We will watch conference in a few weeks when the CD’s arrive. We get to watch it without the advertisements.

Work continues to be crazy. A lot going on. The Board told us to move forward with the planned changes in the operations. So we are out looking for some money (anyone want to loan us some, 10 million should cover it)? Still making changes in the organization, interviewed half a dozen candidates for Maintenance Manager and will interview two more tomorrow. My favorite is a fellow that is Masai (farm/ranch boy), went to public school, worked his way through school, and isn’t afraid of work. I may be biased; there were other guys that had better degrees but wouldn’t know what hard work looked like. Of the two that had the best education both are lazy, one is not motivated at all and the other fellow can’t manage anything. So the decision may be easy for me. Just hope the others on the interview committee have the same opinion as me.

We went up to the Masai village on the hill again on Saturday to take the pictures we took last week. They were glad to see us (and the pictures). The children grabbed the pictures whether they were in them or not. They just liked seeing pictures of their village and friends. The woman that I helped carry the log up the hill did a dance to welcome us when she saw us. I’ve said it before, but 99.9% of us citizens live in better conditions than the people in these villages. But the kids run around and are happy and playful. Just an example of money not buying happiness. We took some cookies to give to the kids so we were a hit for that also.

I may have spoken too soon on how well behaved the children are here. Debi said the kids have no control in Primary. They run in and out of class and no one cares. She is trying to get the Primary Presentation ready and it is a challenge. So, girls, I may owe you an apology. You may not be the most irreverent kids in the world (but you might be).

Not much else to say other than have a good week.

Love
Paul/dad