Hello Family and Friends:
Another week gone; they go so fast.
The most exciting thing that happened this week happened today on the way to church. We were about five minutes from church and the truck broke down at a busy intersection. There we were three mzungus (white people) (Debi, me, and another guy I have over here working) and one driver from Kenya. Good thing we had a driver with us. The truck (a Toyota 7 passenger vehicle), overheated and stalled. We pushed it off to the side of the road and then walked to a gas station and got some water. We drew quite a crowd. All kinds of guys were trying to help us. By the time we were done I’d given out 700 ($10) shillings for all the help. One guy jumped down into the ditch and filled our bucket to put in the engine about 4 times. We got a bucket at the service station and just filled it out of the ditch by where we stalled. We finally got going and arrived at church just in time for sacrament meeting. So much for my meeting that started one hour earlier.
One other item of note; Debi may be the new Branch food specialist. The Relief Society President wanted to talk to her before we left today to help plan for a Branch open house in November. After last week’s primary “feed” everyone will be looking for suggestions from Debi. The brownies were a big hit and everyone lived what she planned and prepared. She suggested cheese and crackers as one of the treats. No one here has ever heard of cheese and crackers. Anyone have any other suggestions for easy snacks for an open house?
Work continues to get a little bit better (pole, pole). That is Swahili for little by little. Both vowels are pronounced with the long sound, and said fast. I’ll teach you all some Swahili in future letters. I sill don’t have English down yet so I’m not sure I should venture out into another language. One of the problems here is that each tribe has their own language so even in Magadi many people speak Maasai, Swahili and English. Sometimes I have trouble figuring out which language they are speaking. Whenever I try to speak one of their languages they give me a big smile, they like it when foreigners try and learn their language. They get a kick out of trying to teach me because I can’t hear so good and most of the time they wind up writing the word down so I can figure out what they are trying to say.
Ok family, (our kids, you know who you are). We have our plans for Christmas. Debi returns to the US on December 5th (SLC). I return to SLC on December 18th. We will be in St George over Christmas. The days between my return and Christmas aren’t firmed up yet. We will leave St George after Christmas and head to Krista’s. Then we will fly from LA to Seattle on December 30th to visit Mya and her family. We will leave Seattle on January 3rd headed back to Kenya. Margaret will be returning with us. That will be a good time. We will try to make sure she has a memorable trip. Debi and Margaret will return to the US at the end of February just before Krista is due (oh, does everyone know Krista is due in March, my bad). I will return the end of April for the baby blessing and then to go to Cody’s graduation on May 7th. That’s as far out as we have planned. But I guess that is quite a ways.
Should be a busy week; many of the projects we are working on to improve profitability are moving ahead. Now all that needs to happen is to get the purchasing people to order the equipment and the finance people to make arrangements for the financing. If I say it fast it sounds easy. I just have to get all the other groups off their butts and moving. Sometimes that’s hard.
This letter is late because the internet is down. In fact the phone system is out. That’s what happens when you are in the middle of Africa.
Love you all
Paul/dad
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