Lukes Mission Blog

In Relief Society Sunday the lesson was on food storage. Imagine teaching food storage to people who eat one or two meals a day because that is all they can afford.  Most have a very strong testimony about the importance of storing food after the post election violence. They usually go to the market (stalls on the side of the road that sell food) everyday to buy what they need for the day. (A lot of them don’t have refrigerators) They didn’t worry about food storage because they could always get food. Or so they thought. After many went without much to eat during that time, they are now storing a little food. They don’t know how to preserve food by canning it here because the climate is so mild and something always growing that they can eat. They only have trouble if it doesn’t rain much during the dry seasons. The teacher taught that they should buy just a few shillings extra of rice or beans when they could and store that.

 One of the sisters mentioned that it was hard to find places to store food. The Mission President’s wife was there and she raised her hand and told about storing food under the bed. The other sisters started to laugh and then they told her that wouldn’t work because the rats and mice would eat right through the plastic buckets they stored the food in. Then one sister told how her bishop had said to store the food under the bed so she bought beans and rice and put them in a sack under her bed. The mice got into the food and mixed it up and so she spent a lot of time separating the kernals of rice from the beans.

May 25, 2008  We went to Upper Hill ward because we had a public affairs meeting there after church. Lillian who works as a guard at the service center at Upper Hill gave the lesson in Sunday school. The lesson was on fasting. There were some interesting questions asked by class members. One asked if you don’t have any food to eat does it count as fasting when you don’t eat? One member answered that question by saying fasting is depriving yourself of something, so you have to show a sacrifice. For example he said if have a plate of chapatis and you decide to fast and not eat them that is fasting. If you don’t have a plate of chapatis and decide to fast and not eat them that is not fasting. Another asked if you don’t have any money to pay fast offering have you really fasted? She said she had food but no money to give for fast offering. She was told she could give the food. The class determined that God knows your heart so if you don’t have food and fast or have no money to give for fast offering he still will except the fast, but if you even have just a little money you should give it. (Bet you don’t hear those questions in Utah)

For a perk to our mission couples conference we were able to travel to Tanzania and visit three game parks.  Dad did a great job setting everything up and even assigned seats so everyone had a turn in the best seats and a turn to ride with  each couple. Believe it or not the couples loved this and thanked Dad a lot for all his hard work. Have you ever heard of the Serengeti? We were there, we even flew over it on our way home. (In a single engine airplane) We also visited Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara. This lion came over to our van and decided to take a nap in the shade.

I could have reached out and pulled its tail as it walked by. It was tempting but I resisted.

The missionary couples in the two vans behind ours were trying to get a close-up picture of the lion.

We saw this fellow as we were leaving Serengeti. It is a puff adler. One of the most deadly snakes in Africa.This limping cape buffalo was trying to buffalo the lions into thinking he was still strong and would not make a good choice for dinner. He chased the lions away. Cape buffalo are one of the most dangerous animals.

Did you know lions climb trees? They do in the Serengeti.

We stayed at the Serena Lodges in the parks. They can’t fence around the lodges so they escort you to and from your room when it is dark at night and early in the morning. One early morning (Dad was too macho to call for an escort) (He claimed a guy with a flashlight was not going to be that much protection), we were walking up to breakfast. I was commenting  on how he wouldn’t call for an escort and then had to take the path by the pool where we were told lions had been seen the previous night, when we heard a noise in the bushes. I jumped in front of Dad to protect him. (Well I did jump)and made Dad jump too. (mostly because I landed on his foot) It was a fierce dik-dik. Actually they aren’t that fierce, but very shy. They are a tiny antelope that weigh about 10 lbs. On our way back it was almost light enough for a picture. His eyes glowed blue because of the flash, but that makes him even more scary.We had a great time during the conference and got to know the couples in our mission.