Mon 3/28/2011 2:28 AM

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.