Christmas Zone Conference

All the missionaries from Zambia came to Lusaka for a Christmas zone conference and Christmas party.  We were so busy with office work and getting the food for dinner that we missed most of the zone conference.  The part we heard was very good.  Then we ate pizza and Hungry Lion chicken and had salads and drinks and cookies and cakes for dessert.  The food was most excellent.

Then we had a white elephant gift exchange.  Some of the gifts were pretty creative.  Everyone had a great time, I think!

A huge pair of old shorts with lots of coins in the pockets!

A watermelon!  We had it for breakfast the next morning!      A funny monkey hat!
      
  About a dozen left over missionary ties!             Several chetenges!  This was a popular gift. Elder
                                                                                and Sister Bodily and Pres. and Sister Erickson!
       

Some of our wonderful Great Zambia Lusaka missionaries! It rained really hard most of the day, so the umbrella probably came in handy

.Bread in the shape of crocodiles!

After the conference was over, we were assigned to take the Matero Elders back to their flat.  We tried two different roads before we were able to get through the traffic.  We were told that there had been so much rain that the roads were flooded and people were unable to get through.  We went first down Katina Mulilo which was blocked with traffic so we turned around and went on Kasangula Road.  It too was blocked so we turned around yet again and went down Great East.  There is a roundabout which put us onto Great North and there had been an accident there where a car had jumped the curb and crashed in the middle of the roundabout.  We made it through, but by the time we got Elder Shabalala and Elder Abisai home and we got home, it was 11:30!  What a day!

Dancing

We were asked to teach the Heel and Toe Polka to the members at the ward Christmas party. We were happy to do that.  One day we were at the church to go visiting with the Bishop and some of the youth were there planning the party.  They wanted to learn the dance before the party so they could help teach it.  So we decided to dance in the parking lot at the church.  They picked it up pretty quickly and seemed to have a good time.
   
We did not have the music with us, so I just hummed the melody and soon everyone was helping to hum the music so we could dance.  It was a fun spontaneous activity.
   
Unfortunately, the day of the party it was raining so hard that we couldn't dance outside.  And there were so many people at the church that we couldn't dance inside either!  And we had no power so it was very dark in the building. We did take the inverter so we had power for the music, but that dance will just have to wait for another party to be taught!

 

Members

We have some really awesome members in our ward.  We visit them on the first Sunday of the month with Bishop Chifunda.  He likes to go on that day as they won't have to feel like they need to feed us. They are always very welcoming.  The first picture is                                  . The second picture is Bishop Chifunda with Sister Zulu and her non-member, Catholic husband and two of her grandchildren.  Our Primary teacher, Baptiste, is also her grandson and I'm not sure why he didn't get into the picture.
   
This is an awesome family called Kampelya.                This is Sarah, baby Esther and Alice.  They sons are Rocky, Andrew and Joseph.  Rocky                 are investigators. They all moved away
and Andrew are RMs and Joseph is preparing               without being baptized.  Hopefully, they will
to serve.  This is with their mom who is a                      contact the church wherever the moved to.
stalwart member in the Lusaka Ward.

This is the Dick Zimba family who were all baptized the same day (except the wife) They are

Sister Zimba, Elder Chibirango, Brother Zimba, Phidas, Precious, Joseph (in front), Dixon, Elder Sagers and Francis Mckonde, who baptized them.   They are a great family.  Now we just need to get the wife to come to church and join us. 

     Brother Mckonda and his wife.                                   Brother and Sister Tashala from the Stake.
   
Rosemary (a sister waiting for her mission call)         Andrew Kampelya "ponderizing" the scriptures!
and Dorothy, on the day Dorothy got baptized.
        
This is Robert.  He's the only scouter we have met.   Below are Elder Shabalala, Baptiste and                                                                                                   Elder Zimene.
   

First Christmas in Zambia

We feel it such a blessing to be serving the Lord as we celebrate His birth.  We wanted to have a little western feeling for Christmas so we bought a little artificial tree and some decorations and put lights on it for our flat.  We had purchased this African nativity earlier in the mission and were excited to have a under our Christmas tree.
       
It's hard being away from the family at Christmas, so we decided to bring them a little closer to us.  I made these Danish hearts and put a picture of each of the nine grandchildren on them and then strung them on garland in our living room.  It makes me so happy to see their beautiful faces looking at me
   

   
Christmas is Zambia is spent with family and lots of food--similar to home.  But they don't do much in terms of gifts.  The stores are very commercial with all the Santas and Christmas trees, but we didn't see another Christmas tree in any of the homes.  We didn't even have one at the church.  This is a Christian country and the grocery stores play religious Christmas music.  Perhaps they know more about how to celebrate Christmas appropriately than we think we do!  Anyway, it was a great Christmas and we only missed our family about every day!  But, still, we are happy to be here!

Mothers' Without Borders

A woman names Kathy Headlee Minor started an orphanage in Lusaka about 10 years ago.  Sister Salmon had visited it many times before coming on her mission, so she was very familiar with the organization.  It's called Mothers Without Borders.  They were going out to visit and take some Christmas treats and invited us to go with them.  It was an amazing experience.  There are about 30 children who live there, but only 17 were there that day as it was school break and the rest had gone to visit other family members. On the wall of the dining hall was this poster.  The words are in English followed by another language.  The organization takes children from about 2 to 17 and many of the workers are members of the church.  We have had many of the children there be baptized.  It's awesome to see how they work and play together.
   

These are the ones who were there that day. 

They enjoyed the Rice Krispie Treats and banana bread we took them.  The one with the crazy hair is Silvia.  She is an employee there.
       

We sang Christmas carols and danced the Hockey Pockey. 

Some of the beautiful faces that greeted us that day. 

          

Boys will be boys no matter where they live--US or Zambia!

They have a beautiful vegetable garden where they grow much of what they eat. 

 

This is the kitchen where they cook the food for all the children and staff.  This worker is prepareing pumpkin leaves in the large pan and had rice and a meat dish in the other pans.  They cook on charcoal and it's so hot here anyway, that I think cooking like that would be very hard, hot and tiring!

VIsiting Kristin and the Magunje Family

We were asked by Elder Sagers and Elder Ssengooba to visit several of their investigators the week they were in Malawi. It was a wonderful experience.  We first visited Vincent and Kristin and their children, Blessing and Lucky.  Her friend, Emma and her two children were also there.  Vincent was late getting home from work, so we didn't meet him. But we had a great time with the children.   It was Christmas time and I had nativity color pages from Primary for them to color.  They loved it. Their house is still being built, but they live in it with very little furniture--just a few stools and mats to sit on and a charcoal stove to cook on.  Pretty simple, yet they are very happy.

They were very happy to show off their artwork and to have their picture taken. 

On another occasion we visited the Magunje Family.  Their daughter, Cherish, is just adorable.  They live in a very small flat.  Notice that Sister Magunje is stirring her Nshima while sitting on the arm of the couch with her kitchen right behind her.  I think there was another room too, but this was just about not big enough for all four missionaries plus the family!  Such a wonderful family.  We hope they are baptized soon. 

         
This is a picture taken in their neighborhood as we were leaving.  It was very interesting.  It started to rain right after we got to the home and the rain on the tin roof was so loud that we didn't think we would be able to give a lesson.  However, just as we were beginning with prayer, the rain stopped and we were able to proceed.  This was the house where Elder Ssengooba said the Groesbecks would be teaching about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  At first, I thought he was kidding and that we were there just for testimony, but he was serious.  So we taught that discussion and I guess it went OK.  Sister Magunje is such a woman of faith and compassion.  She took some of the Nshima she made to one of her neighbors who was sick and had little to eat. It was a beautiful sunset!