Hello Family and Friends:
Another week shot.
Was a very challenging week. There were many problems with the plant. Power distribution in Kenya is very poor. Whenever the wind blows or there are electrical storms, there are power outages. Whenever there is a power bump, the entire plant goes down. When it goes down, it takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 8 hours to start back up. What a nightmare. I shutter whenever I see lightning or a rain storm headed toward Magadi. There was a new power line being constructed in Nairobi and the contractor had a pole being erected fall into the line coming to Magadi. So even when there is good weather there are still accidents that curtail power at the plant. So this is one of those weeks I wonder if the call will come “Paul time to go home”.
Church was interesting this week. After the branch split, attendance in the Langata branch is almost back to the level prior to the split. I guess the Stake President called it right that the church grows by dividing. Almost have all the organizations filled. Called the RS president this Sunday; she is apprehensive to say the least. She was the young women’s president in the previous branch. So now it is just a matter of having all the Presidents call counselors and teachers. Hopefully we will be there by the end of April.
The RS president works in the Kenya Educations system (for Margaret’s benefit, its Evelyn, you met her). She said she is in the process of translating the upcoming conference talks into Swahili. She just finished Elder Holland’s talk and is now working on Elder Cook’s talk. She said it was a tremendous experience. It was like you were walking in their shoes and were given special inspiration as to how to translate. She gave an example in English and said there is no to convey that concept in Swahili. That is where she said inspiration comes in; the Lord helps you know what to say so the meaning is not lost. Anyway she said it took five hours to translate the talk but it was a tremendous experience. There are 132 teams that work on translating conference talks. If one of the translators has question they have a contact in SLC they go to for clarification. Presidents Monson’s talk will not be translated until next Friday. So the translator has a day and a half to get his talk prepared. It is an interesting process.
Going to be a short letter this week.
Love you all.
Paul/dad
Couple of other items just to make sure we don’t surprise anyone. Mya we would like to take you and the boyz (both big and little boyz) out to dinner and visit on the night of May 9th. Our next trip to the US is scheduled for August (Mya, if possible we would like to spend a few days with you and your boys then). We will get back on August 13th or so and stay in the US for about two weeks; haven’t firmed up that schedule. In October we will go to India for a week or so and then return to the US in December for Christmas.
Hope that doesn’t surprise anyone.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Sun 3/20/2011 10:47 PM
Hello Family and Friends:
All week I try to think of things I can write about and then when Sunday night rolls around, I can’t remember a thing I thought I wanted to write about.
The fellow from Green River arrived Saturday night and came to Magadi today, so I no longer the only Mzumgu at the plant now. Hope he knows what he is in for. He should be able to add a lot to the financial area of the plant. It is another are that needs help.
Rainy season started again!!!! and new bugs coming to visit. Went to the Nairobi on Thursday and the roads were flooded going up but had cleared off a little by the time we came back. Then going to Stake meetings on Saturday and Sunday there was rain but no flooding. Last year when I was coming home in April the roads were really bad and I almost didn’t make it to the airport.
So, I’ll end the suspense, I’m not the new Stake President. L. Whitney Clayton one of the Presidency of the Seventy and Paul Koelliker of the first Quorum of the Seventy conducted the interviews. I was the first one after the existing Stake Presidency. I came from the greatest distance and was there first. Africans give whole new meaning to “Mormon Standard Time”. They were a little surprised to see a mzumgu walk in and when I told them I was only going to be here another few months, the interview ended pretty fast. They told me to be sure the counselors in the branch presidency know how to conduct branch business and help them understand what is done well in the US. And to learn what the Kenyans do well and take that back to the US. Elder Clayton asked if this was the first time I had worked overseas. When I said yes, he made the comment that this is about as remote as it gets. (I hear they will be looking for a new Stake President in Green River soon.)
Stake conferences here are very uplifting. There were a number of things said today that maybe I should have heard years ago. Maybe they were discussed but I wasn’t listening. Elder Koelliker talked about when he was called by President Hinckley. He, and the other 11 men called that day, were in a room with President Hinckley. They were told they looked like an ordinary bunch of men. President Hinckley told them he could go out and get 100 other men that would be just as good as they were. He told them they were no better; but they had been called by the Lord. They were no better than anyone else, they were just called. President Hinckley told them they were ordinary men that had been called to extraordinary things. He went on to say there were many men that could have been the new Stake President but that the Lord wanted Bother Obdevo.
President Ondevo’s wife was asked to bear her testimony. She got up, and as she was standing there the new President got up and stood by her. She read what she said from a program she had written on. When the new President started to speak, he said that was the first time she had talked in a church meeting. She is extremely shy and not well educated.
There was also a portion of a talk that had a theme fathers are leaders in the home, not bosses. In many cultures in Africa the women do all the work at home and many times they work outside the home too. So emphasis is placed on making sure men view themselves as equals in the marriage relationship and not the “boss”.
One last thing said by the departing Stake President, in 1998 when he got home from his mission there were 12 units of the church in Kenya, now there are 36. Elder Koelliker said in the last few weeks there have been three new Stakes created in East Africa and two more are planned shortly. He said that Africa is growing very fast. One other indication of that is there are 32 missionaries serving from the Nairobi stake. Anyway conference was great.
And, about work; there are still struggles but it’ll turn around. A new year starts in April and we have money targeted for those areas of greatest problems. It should improve greatly by mid-year (I hope).
Hope you all have a good week. Write occasionally.
Love
Paul/dad
All week I try to think of things I can write about and then when Sunday night rolls around, I can’t remember a thing I thought I wanted to write about.
The fellow from Green River arrived Saturday night and came to Magadi today, so I no longer the only Mzumgu at the plant now. Hope he knows what he is in for. He should be able to add a lot to the financial area of the plant. It is another are that needs help.
Rainy season started again!!!! and new bugs coming to visit. Went to the Nairobi on Thursday and the roads were flooded going up but had cleared off a little by the time we came back. Then going to Stake meetings on Saturday and Sunday there was rain but no flooding. Last year when I was coming home in April the roads were really bad and I almost didn’t make it to the airport.
So, I’ll end the suspense, I’m not the new Stake President. L. Whitney Clayton one of the Presidency of the Seventy and Paul Koelliker of the first Quorum of the Seventy conducted the interviews. I was the first one after the existing Stake Presidency. I came from the greatest distance and was there first. Africans give whole new meaning to “Mormon Standard Time”. They were a little surprised to see a mzumgu walk in and when I told them I was only going to be here another few months, the interview ended pretty fast. They told me to be sure the counselors in the branch presidency know how to conduct branch business and help them understand what is done well in the US. And to learn what the Kenyans do well and take that back to the US. Elder Clayton asked if this was the first time I had worked overseas. When I said yes, he made the comment that this is about as remote as it gets. (I hear they will be looking for a new Stake President in Green River soon.)
Stake conferences here are very uplifting. There were a number of things said today that maybe I should have heard years ago. Maybe they were discussed but I wasn’t listening. Elder Koelliker talked about when he was called by President Hinckley. He, and the other 11 men called that day, were in a room with President Hinckley. They were told they looked like an ordinary bunch of men. President Hinckley told them he could go out and get 100 other men that would be just as good as they were. He told them they were no better; but they had been called by the Lord. They were no better than anyone else, they were just called. President Hinckley told them they were ordinary men that had been called to extraordinary things. He went on to say there were many men that could have been the new Stake President but that the Lord wanted Bother Obdevo.
President Ondevo’s wife was asked to bear her testimony. She got up, and as she was standing there the new President got up and stood by her. She read what she said from a program she had written on. When the new President started to speak, he said that was the first time she had talked in a church meeting. She is extremely shy and not well educated.
There was also a portion of a talk that had a theme fathers are leaders in the home, not bosses. In many cultures in Africa the women do all the work at home and many times they work outside the home too. So emphasis is placed on making sure men view themselves as equals in the marriage relationship and not the “boss”.
One last thing said by the departing Stake President, in 1998 when he got home from his mission there were 12 units of the church in Kenya, now there are 36. Elder Koelliker said in the last few weeks there have been three new Stakes created in East Africa and two more are planned shortly. He said that Africa is growing very fast. One other indication of that is there are 32 missionaries serving from the Nairobi stake. Anyway conference was great.
And, about work; there are still struggles but it’ll turn around. A new year starts in April and we have money targeted for those areas of greatest problems. It should improve greatly by mid-year (I hope).
Hope you all have a good week. Write occasionally.
Love
Paul/dad
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Sun 3/13/2011 1:29 PM
Dear Family and friends:
Another week down the tubes. Weeks are all running together and beginning to all look alike. It is getting more difficult to come up with “newsy” things to talk about. But I’ll try.
Mom may be able to remember my letters home from my mission, as the end drew closer, I started filling out form letters. All I had to do was put checks in boxes, didn’t have to say anything. So I’ll start looking for form letters for ex-patriot sons (not sure I can get John to use them, but I'll try).
I’ll break this email down into bullet points like doing a presentation and see if that makes it easier to write
• I forgot to tell one story from last week. In the Board meeting there was a presentation going on by a Finance guy and he was talking about consumption improvements for fuel and electricity. He looked at me and asked “Paul will these improvements be sustained”. About a minute before that time, Debi had sent a message saying “she’s here” along with a picture. So I was looking at my phone waiting for the picture to come up and was not paying attention at all. Fortunately the group knew that Debi was in the US and I was expecting a granddaughter so I was forgiven for being “absent” when I told them what I was doing. Anyway I’ll always remember what I was doing when I found out my granddaughter was born.
• I had some interesting experiences this week in dealing with people that wanted jobs. I can’t “give” people jobs, I only recommend the number of people I need to operate the plant and then the HR people supply the men I need. Well most people don’t know that. I have men come and talk to me all the time asking for jobs. This week I had a man come in whose contract was expiring. We needed a translator because he didn’t speak English. But it came out that he had two wives and 11 children. Needless to say he needed a job. To give all community people an opportunity, people are only hired for 9 months and then they leave and give others a chance to work. So this man wanted me to bypass the system and give him a job. Another fellow came in and presented me with all his educational paper work and letters of reference and asked for a job. He told me he was married and had a family. I had to give him the same story that I don’t hire, the HR group hire men, when I told him that he began to cry. The people here need work so bad but the economy can’t support all the needs of the workers. It is far worse than in the US. It gets heart breaking at times. Some of the people that have jobs don’t deserve them and some of those that need them and deserve them can’t get them.
• On the way to church today I saw kids out on a stock pond dipping water out of the pot holes so they could recover what little water was left. It was reminder to me how blessed we are to just turn a faucet to get water. Life is so simple here, they don’t have to decide what dress to wear or which pair of shoes to wear, they only have one of each.
• Today was the first week with the two branches separated. There weren’t many people in attendance. But having the church move closer to those members in Rangai will be a huge blessing for those members what won’t have to spend much money to get to church. It will be an interesting process to organize the branch with so few members. Not all organizations will be fully staffed and all will be required to have more than one calling. But it will be exciting.
• There was a young man that came in and talked to me today and said he wanted to start preparing to serve a mission. Those experiences make it all worthwhile. The youth here between 18 and 27 are incredible. They have a good understanding of the gospel and strong testimonies. Of course those older than that are strong too. But there aren’t too many in that age group in the branch. 75% of the members are under 30. I’m the oldest guy in the branch.
So much for babbling, I’ll shut if off.
Love you all
Paul/Dad
Another week down the tubes. Weeks are all running together and beginning to all look alike. It is getting more difficult to come up with “newsy” things to talk about. But I’ll try.
Mom may be able to remember my letters home from my mission, as the end drew closer, I started filling out form letters. All I had to do was put checks in boxes, didn’t have to say anything. So I’ll start looking for form letters for ex-patriot sons (not sure I can get John to use them, but I'll try).
I’ll break this email down into bullet points like doing a presentation and see if that makes it easier to write
• I forgot to tell one story from last week. In the Board meeting there was a presentation going on by a Finance guy and he was talking about consumption improvements for fuel and electricity. He looked at me and asked “Paul will these improvements be sustained”. About a minute before that time, Debi had sent a message saying “she’s here” along with a picture. So I was looking at my phone waiting for the picture to come up and was not paying attention at all. Fortunately the group knew that Debi was in the US and I was expecting a granddaughter so I was forgiven for being “absent” when I told them what I was doing. Anyway I’ll always remember what I was doing when I found out my granddaughter was born.
• I had some interesting experiences this week in dealing with people that wanted jobs. I can’t “give” people jobs, I only recommend the number of people I need to operate the plant and then the HR people supply the men I need. Well most people don’t know that. I have men come and talk to me all the time asking for jobs. This week I had a man come in whose contract was expiring. We needed a translator because he didn’t speak English. But it came out that he had two wives and 11 children. Needless to say he needed a job. To give all community people an opportunity, people are only hired for 9 months and then they leave and give others a chance to work. So this man wanted me to bypass the system and give him a job. Another fellow came in and presented me with all his educational paper work and letters of reference and asked for a job. He told me he was married and had a family. I had to give him the same story that I don’t hire, the HR group hire men, when I told him that he began to cry. The people here need work so bad but the economy can’t support all the needs of the workers. It is far worse than in the US. It gets heart breaking at times. Some of the people that have jobs don’t deserve them and some of those that need them and deserve them can’t get them.
• On the way to church today I saw kids out on a stock pond dipping water out of the pot holes so they could recover what little water was left. It was reminder to me how blessed we are to just turn a faucet to get water. Life is so simple here, they don’t have to decide what dress to wear or which pair of shoes to wear, they only have one of each.
• Today was the first week with the two branches separated. There weren’t many people in attendance. But having the church move closer to those members in Rangai will be a huge blessing for those members what won’t have to spend much money to get to church. It will be an interesting process to organize the branch with so few members. Not all organizations will be fully staffed and all will be required to have more than one calling. But it will be exciting.
• There was a young man that came in and talked to me today and said he wanted to start preparing to serve a mission. Those experiences make it all worthwhile. The youth here between 18 and 27 are incredible. They have a good understanding of the gospel and strong testimonies. Of course those older than that are strong too. But there aren’t too many in that age group in the branch. 75% of the members are under 30. I’m the oldest guy in the branch.
So much for babbling, I’ll shut if off.
Love you all
Paul/Dad
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sun 3/6/2011 12:13 PM
Hello Family and Friends:
So the big news of the week is I’m a grandpa, again. This time it's a GIRL. She was born on Tuesday (I think) it was late at night. Her name is Elliett Taylor Ashley Fullerton (not sure any of the spelling is right other than Fullerton). Shortly after she was born she was taken to the ICU because of an infection. We held a family fast on Thursday for her. When they tested her again the infection was gone. One more little miracle in life and prayers are answered. Elliett will be blessed in May when I return. She will come home from the hospital on the 9th after she is done with the antibiotics (the Dr wanted to complete the regimen even thought the tests were negative).
Well I survived the Board Meeting. Actually it went very well, the Board is very pleased with how the plant is operating. With increased production, the plant is also making money and there is a good chance earnings this year will meet the budget set last year. The prospect of meeting the earnings budget just a few months ago was totally out of the question. So things have turned around very nicely. Hopefully we can keep the wheels on the plant until the end of March when the year officially ends. Then we will be given a new year to work with. There are outages planned early in the year to make repairs so both plants operate more smoothly and hopefully the stress level will go down even more. But with a plant that will turn 100 years old this year there are plenty of opportunities for problems.
Rusty the new finance guy returned to the US on Friday. His work visa was approved so he will return on the 21 and start working in Magadi for two years. I’m over half done with my assignment and not sure I would want to be looking at two years. Two years is a long time!! It has gone pretty fast and I’ve had a lot of good experiences. But the work trials have been plentiful. I’m sure Rusty will experience the same thing. There are many opportunities to fix finance. The purchasing and the stores areas are in need of a lot of help and I hope Rusty can fix those areas.
Church today was interesting. They organized the other branch so next week Langata will be really small. When the Stake president was talking about the change he told of a ward they split that had about 90 people attending. Shortly after splitting, both wards were back at 90 attending. He made the comment that the church grows by division, interesting way of looking at it. It will be a challenge but I’m not in this alone. Stake conference is coming up in two weeks and the visiting Area Seventy wants to visit will all Bishops and Branch Presidents so I guess I’ll have an interesting interview. They are going to reorganize the Stake so I know what they are looking for but that person won’t be in the room when I’m being interviewed.
Not much else to say other than the wildlife is still all over Africa. Saw four twigas on the way to church today. For those of you that don’t know Swahili, a Twiga has a very long neck and brown spots. I looked twice Mom, once for me and once for you.
Love you all
Paul/dad
So the big news of the week is I’m a grandpa, again. This time it's a GIRL. She was born on Tuesday (I think) it was late at night. Her name is Elliett Taylor Ashley Fullerton (not sure any of the spelling is right other than Fullerton). Shortly after she was born she was taken to the ICU because of an infection. We held a family fast on Thursday for her. When they tested her again the infection was gone. One more little miracle in life and prayers are answered. Elliett will be blessed in May when I return. She will come home from the hospital on the 9th after she is done with the antibiotics (the Dr wanted to complete the regimen even thought the tests were negative).
Well I survived the Board Meeting. Actually it went very well, the Board is very pleased with how the plant is operating. With increased production, the plant is also making money and there is a good chance earnings this year will meet the budget set last year. The prospect of meeting the earnings budget just a few months ago was totally out of the question. So things have turned around very nicely. Hopefully we can keep the wheels on the plant until the end of March when the year officially ends. Then we will be given a new year to work with. There are outages planned early in the year to make repairs so both plants operate more smoothly and hopefully the stress level will go down even more. But with a plant that will turn 100 years old this year there are plenty of opportunities for problems.
Rusty the new finance guy returned to the US on Friday. His work visa was approved so he will return on the 21 and start working in Magadi for two years. I’m over half done with my assignment and not sure I would want to be looking at two years. Two years is a long time!! It has gone pretty fast and I’ve had a lot of good experiences. But the work trials have been plentiful. I’m sure Rusty will experience the same thing. There are many opportunities to fix finance. The purchasing and the stores areas are in need of a lot of help and I hope Rusty can fix those areas.
Church today was interesting. They organized the other branch so next week Langata will be really small. When the Stake president was talking about the change he told of a ward they split that had about 90 people attending. Shortly after splitting, both wards were back at 90 attending. He made the comment that the church grows by division, interesting way of looking at it. It will be a challenge but I’m not in this alone. Stake conference is coming up in two weeks and the visiting Area Seventy wants to visit will all Bishops and Branch Presidents so I guess I’ll have an interesting interview. They are going to reorganize the Stake so I know what they are looking for but that person won’t be in the room when I’m being interviewed.
Not much else to say other than the wildlife is still all over Africa. Saw four twigas on the way to church today. For those of you that don’t know Swahili, a Twiga has a very long neck and brown spots. I looked twice Mom, once for me and once for you.
Love you all
Paul/dad
Friday, March 4, 2011
Sun 2/27/2011 12:09 PM
Dear Family and Friends:
Well a few things happening but nothing too exciting. Rusty Bayles has been here for the week. He is coming over to be the head finance guy. He is really excited to be coming. He has been at Green River for 17 years and is ready for a change. Magadi soda has applied for a work visa for him, so when it is granted he will return for about two years. His family will be staying in green River. He has a son that is a senior this next year and a son that will be in the 7th grade. So it would be difficult for them to come here. They will come over for visits and he will go back for big events. It shouldn’t be bad for him while we are here together. But when I go home, it will be lonely.
Earlier in the week, the Stake Presidency was reviewing youth programs and was considering how to get the scouting program kicked off in Kenya. There are no organized troops here in the church and I’m not sure there are any troops in the country. The Duty to God program is used here to help the young men in religious training but as far as activities there is no program other than ad-hock activities. Well the answer came today in church. I invited Rusty up to introduce himself in Sacrament meeting. As he was bearing his testimony, he talked about going to the national scout jamboree. After Sacrament meeting the first counselor in the stake presidency came up to me and he told me they found their guy to get scouting going in Kenya. Rusty was a scout master for years in the 4th ward in Green River and has been involved with scouting for years. President Kelsey, you can’t warn Rusty, I haven’t told him this. I figured I’d let the Stake talk to him.
So this week a guy came in to see me. He has no job; he just sits around all day. He is a guy that I have been climbing with before so he is a pretty good kid but jus that no ambition. So anyway, here is how the story goes. He came in and started telling me about his health problems. He has been in a hospital because of back problems. They haven’t been able to do much good so he decided to try some tribal medicine. To do that he told me he needed to go to his village where his goats (notice plural) are kept. He was going to butcher the goat and eat certain parts to help his condition. Then he asked me for money so he could pay for his ride to the village, he needed about $15 US to get there. I knew that’s about how much a goat costs so I asked him why he just didn’t buy a goat here and do his treatment in Magadi. He told me he wanted to use one of his own goats. I thought this would be a good opportunity to teach him some self reliance. So I suggested he bring back one of his goats and sell it so he could take care of his own expenses and not have to ask others to support him. That is when he told me he only had one goat. It is just too easy to ask others to support you and not try to figure it out for yourself. So anyway, I told him that I wouldn’t give him any money. He had the resources to handle it on his own and that is what he should do. Hope I am not being too mean. As you can probably tell, I’m getting tired of being asked for money at every turn.
So anyway, work could be going better but there is progress being made in the plant. The Board of Directors are here this week and a few of them will be here tomorrow. So it is dog and pony show time. Hope they don’t run me off. Doubt they will but you never know.
Krista is ready to have her baby, Debi is there now helping. We are excited to have a baby girl in the family. I don’t know if they have come up with a name yet, my suggestion of Paula Taylora Fullerton didn’t go very far. Can’t understand why, I liked the name.
Can’t think of much else to say.
Love you all
Paul/dad
Well a few things happening but nothing too exciting. Rusty Bayles has been here for the week. He is coming over to be the head finance guy. He is really excited to be coming. He has been at Green River for 17 years and is ready for a change. Magadi soda has applied for a work visa for him, so when it is granted he will return for about two years. His family will be staying in green River. He has a son that is a senior this next year and a son that will be in the 7th grade. So it would be difficult for them to come here. They will come over for visits and he will go back for big events. It shouldn’t be bad for him while we are here together. But when I go home, it will be lonely.
Earlier in the week, the Stake Presidency was reviewing youth programs and was considering how to get the scouting program kicked off in Kenya. There are no organized troops here in the church and I’m not sure there are any troops in the country. The Duty to God program is used here to help the young men in religious training but as far as activities there is no program other than ad-hock activities. Well the answer came today in church. I invited Rusty up to introduce himself in Sacrament meeting. As he was bearing his testimony, he talked about going to the national scout jamboree. After Sacrament meeting the first counselor in the stake presidency came up to me and he told me they found their guy to get scouting going in Kenya. Rusty was a scout master for years in the 4th ward in Green River and has been involved with scouting for years. President Kelsey, you can’t warn Rusty, I haven’t told him this. I figured I’d let the Stake talk to him.
So this week a guy came in to see me. He has no job; he just sits around all day. He is a guy that I have been climbing with before so he is a pretty good kid but jus that no ambition. So anyway, here is how the story goes. He came in and started telling me about his health problems. He has been in a hospital because of back problems. They haven’t been able to do much good so he decided to try some tribal medicine. To do that he told me he needed to go to his village where his goats (notice plural) are kept. He was going to butcher the goat and eat certain parts to help his condition. Then he asked me for money so he could pay for his ride to the village, he needed about $15 US to get there. I knew that’s about how much a goat costs so I asked him why he just didn’t buy a goat here and do his treatment in Magadi. He told me he wanted to use one of his own goats. I thought this would be a good opportunity to teach him some self reliance. So I suggested he bring back one of his goats and sell it so he could take care of his own expenses and not have to ask others to support him. That is when he told me he only had one goat. It is just too easy to ask others to support you and not try to figure it out for yourself. So anyway, I told him that I wouldn’t give him any money. He had the resources to handle it on his own and that is what he should do. Hope I am not being too mean. As you can probably tell, I’m getting tired of being asked for money at every turn.
So anyway, work could be going better but there is progress being made in the plant. The Board of Directors are here this week and a few of them will be here tomorrow. So it is dog and pony show time. Hope they don’t run me off. Doubt they will but you never know.
Krista is ready to have her baby, Debi is there now helping. We are excited to have a baby girl in the family. I don’t know if they have come up with a name yet, my suggestion of Paula Taylora Fullerton didn’t go very far. Can’t understand why, I liked the name.
Can’t think of much else to say.
Love you all
Paul/dad
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