Two baptisms this week: one yesterday, Bikat, and one
today, Solange. (She had to work
yesterday.) And both were in our new
baptismal font, designed and welded together by local craftsmen who obviously
didn’t calculate what the pressure of the water would do to the sides of a
rectangular vessel. They will be
returning to fix it.
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| Elder Tucker, Valerie, Bikat, Elder Mbikayi |
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| Elder Mbuyi, Solange, Elder Sperry |
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| New Baptismal Font (a bit bent) |
Today (Sunday) was our first Sunday with 3 branches
meeting in the Douala building. I
attended 3 Sacrament Meetings and 3 Sunday Schools. Attendance at the New Bell Branch was 67,
Village Branch 19, and Douala Branch 41.
We really need to work on reactivation in the Village Branch. But everyone is excited. It will really help if we can rent a building
in Village so more people can afford the transportation costs. That is on the agenda.
On July 6th (P-Day) we celebrated American Independence
day and Democratic Republic of the Congo Independence Day by inviting the
missionaries over for hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, carrot sticks, and
apple pie. The Americans sang The Star Spangled Banner and the Congolese sang their national hymn. Then we played games and
watched “How Rare a Possession the Book of Mormon.”
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| Elders Sperry & Mbikayi |
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| The last lines of DR Congo Anthem (can you tell?) |
Sister Coleman came down with the flu or something
similar. There are a lot of tropical
illnesses that resemble the flu, but this one didn’t seem to be a good match for
anything exotic and she tested negative for malaria. So, she just took meds
for the symptoms and suffered all week while we mostly stayed home. I had to teach piano lessons in Bonaberi without her. She is feeling much better today.
I showed The Lion King and Ephraim’s Rescue at movie
night in Bonaberi. It will be our last
movie night and about 50 people showed up.
Now it is up to the branch if they want to organize something like that.
I held a branch presidency training session to teach the leaders of the 3 new branches how to handle branch funds.
I joined a group of 7 branch leaders who visited a young
woman who had left her family to live with a girlfriend. The goal was to convince her to return home. We spent about 4 hours listening to everyone’s
point of view. She finally agreed to
return home but on her own terms. Samgwa’a
Samuel is a very wise counselor.
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