13 November 2009 – Friday
I went to bed late because I was not really tired and so woke an hour later than usual. Even the sun shining through the windows did not bother me.
My reading for the morning was again from Church magazines. The story about the Cosme family of Paraguay and how their baptism almost 50 years ago affected their extended family of now 60 shows that missionaries seldom see the true affect of their efforts in helping others accept the restored Church. The same issue included an article about the annual temple trip of the youth in Aberdeen Scotland, how it affects their lives and how they prepare for it all year. The final article I read was about the 70s and how their organization has changed over the years – line upon line – until they now minister and administer around the world. I remember how excited Elder S. Dilworth Young was when the First Quorum of the 70 was reconstituted in 1976 – he said he had prayed that he would be alive to see it happen. Elder Hartman Rector Jr. was also a member of that new Quorum and was the one who ordained me a bishop.
It is interesting that since at the time I was called only a General Authority could ordain bishops so I had been serving for a couple of months without being ordained. Soon after I was ordained the policy was changed and Stake Presidents could ordain bishops.
As we planned for the day we found that somehow we had left the boards for our BofM Bingo at Port Durnford. Since we thought we needed it for Youth at Enselini we made a quick run out to get it. Of course when we got there we could not find it. Hopefully someone found it and is storing it for us. We wondered if Friday the 13th was to blame.
After that things went well until we arrived at Enselini and did not find President Vilane waiting for his English lesson. When we called we found that he was not feeling well and had gone to the clinic. We went over to see his wife and found out that he had not slept well and had gone for some pain medicine.
We tried to visit sister Seoka, the Relief Society President, but since the houses did not have any numbers on them we were not sure which was it. Later we found out that we could have knocked on almost any door in that block and found an LDS family. Someday we will learn the town and the members.
With still time on our hands we decided to do a little exploring so we followed the main road out of town until it became a dirt road. We continued along the road until we got to the top of a hill where we could look out across the rolling hills. We were surprised to see every green hill supporting two or three homesteads. It is a very beautiful area once you are outside the city.
The Mickelsens had called earlier to say they were coming for the weekend and when they found out there was Youth at Enselini they decided to come and try to meet with two of their PEF loan applicants. We were sure glad they did because they were a big help when it came time to play games.
As usual about half of the youth arrived nearly on time and by the time we got to the games close to 20 were there. We had decided to take pictures of each of the youth and have them give us their names and addresses so we could find them in the future. I am thinking that we should create a page for each of the youth and have them tell us about themselves, their birthdays, telephone numbers, etc. We could then make it into part of an area book for future missionaries.
Elders Otieno and Tsegula came and also helped out. Since no one had prepared spiritual lesson I spoke for a while but I think I was too preachy. I am going to have to correct that in the future or they will not listen to me. They need stories that build them up, not lectures and preaching. They need lots of love and attention like any young people. I am just not all that good at this but Mary is sensitive to their needs.
We played three different games with the youth rotating from one game to another. They seemed to have lots of fun and I think played all afternoon. We asked Sister Mickelsen to run the bingo game while Mary and I over saw two BofM Match games. After the games we had treats – they are called pillows and are made of soft dough with cream centers. The youth – and the elders – really like them.
After we had semi-cleaned up, we left the Mickelsens talking to their two applicants and hurried home for a few minutes to take care of a couple of things. We then went down to the Arterial to wait for the Mickelsens to come by so we could go to dinner at the harbor. As we were almost to where we agreed to meet them, Mary discovered she had left the phone back at the boarding. Since we did not have time to go back and get it we just had to sit and hope that they found us. When they pulled up along side us Mary was very happy.
When we got to restaurant row at the harbor we were surprised to find that everyone was booked up. It seems that just like in the US everyone goes out to eat on Friday night. We must have looked very disappointed because one of the restaurants brought in an extra table to accommodate us. That is what I call an excellent manager.
We were early enough that we did not have an over long wait for the delicious food to arrive. It was also quiet enough to talk to each other. But then the crowd arrived and the volume of noise increased greatly. There were two or three large parties including one right behind us where 15 or more women were celebrating one of their birthdays. They came in strange costumes and my picture of them does not do the actual scene justice.
The swordfish was very good. The fillets were thin but large where we are use to thick smaller ones at home. So while they were not as juicy, they were still tender and tasty. All in all it was a very nice meal and even with 14% VAT and a generous tip the whole meal was about $25.
When we got home I almost immediately started on editing the pictures I took today. This ended up taking over an hour to finish but we can now get them printed and ready for the Youth by next Friday.