3 August 2009 – Monday

Our planned P-day trip to the game park with the elders was washed out by the continuous rain that fell until about 11:00. We decided we would just stay around the house and then go to lunch and a movie.

This was also changed when we got a call from the Barts inviting us to go to lunch with them and the elders. We of course were happy to do this and so the Piers, the Barts and 10 elders arrived at Spurs. Sister B is still hurting – she did not get to sleep until 4:00 a.m. this morning. She tried hard to look happy to be there but it was very difficult. I am amazed at her strength. I am afraid I would just crawl into bed and not come out until I was feeling pretty good.

It is amazing how much the elders can eat and drink! A couple of them ate double rib-burgers – that is almost a pound of boneless ribs on a bun with fries. I have no idea where some of the smaller elders put it all. While the food was great, it was the conversations with the elders that made the almost 2 hours we spent at lunch fly by. I sat across from elders Richey and Muthoka – they had been companions and now are serving in the same zone. It is interesting to hear both their spiritual experiences and their war stories. Elder Muthoka is the most robbed and mugged elder in the mission and yet it has not in any way reduced his desire to serve. The one thing he is mad about – he says he is working on his anger management skills – is when they took his carefully marked scriptures.

I told him that maybe in 20 years there will be an article in the Liahona telling about someone who found this set of scriptures in the trash and after reading them joined the church. Then his family joined and over the course of 20 years over 100 people had joined the church because of those scriptures found in the trash.

After lunch we looked at what was on at the movies and did not see anything worth going to. Instead we came home and spent the day relaxing, working on the puzzle, reading the Liahona, etc. Next week even if it is pouring rain we are going to go somewhere and see some part of Africa.