Zone Conference and Visitors - Go, Go, Go!

   This week we had Zone Conference. We just had Z.C. At the end of December 

but we had an early one because  Elder Hamilton was here.  It was shorter however, 

because Elder Hamilton did most of the training.  But the best part was that the whole 

meeting was in English - it was awesome!!  (E. Hamilton is from California but speaks 

French.)  We only have about 6 non-English-speaking Elders so other elders sat by 

them to translate the meeting for them. I definitely got more out of it than most Conferences

 because I could actually understand it - yippee!!!  It was good. Elder Hamilton is a good speaker and teacher. 
    He did take the group picture 20 minutes early though, so Dilles didn't make it in.

 They were bummed. :(   This was one of those times when I was grateful that your 

dad wanted us there 30 minutes early......;) 

We had a great lunch! The restaurant owner was out of town last time during our December conference and it didn't turn out very well but we talked to her and she did awesome. The Elders were in absolute food heaven!!! :)

After the Zone Conference, we went home and Sandi and I cooked dinner for us, the Kretlys, and the Hamiltons. We had eaten so much just a few hours before so we went lighter:
Chicken soup, fruit salad, cornbread, and key lime pie. Mine was the "Southern" half - pie and cornbread. Here we are with the Hamiltons and then Pres. Kretly tried out his newest gadget - an extention pole that clamps to your camera so you can hold it away from you and snap your fingers to take the picture. It took a few tries but we finally got it. The picture quality was kinda wacky though...

The whole gang - Kretlys, Hamiltons, Dilles, and us.

We collapsed in bed that night....

The next morning, Dad came in the bedroom while I was still asleep and said, "Kim, someone wants to talk to you." And held up my ipad where my gal pals were singing Happy Birthday to me! Oh boy! What a surprise!!! 

 

I told them they had to leave the room so I could put clothes on to talk with them. ;) And then, talk we did! It was so much fun!!! But alas, after 30 minutes the power went out and I lost them. It was fun while it lasted....

Here's a close-up.....;)

But then the power came on about 10 minutes later so I hurried and texted Lisa M. because Isabel had come over and I wanted her to see FaceTime. Everybody had already gone (it was like 1 am their time - bless their little hearts!) but Lisa was a great sport and said to call her. And she called Megan (another great sport!) who zipped back over and they Face-Timed with me AND Isabel. She LOVED it! 

 

I told her that Megan was the YW president and Lisa was the RS president and she said, "Tell her I'm the District RS president."I So I did and in true Lisa style, she bowed down to Isabel and that just cracked her up!! Getting an African to belly-laugh is no small feat! Anyway, it was really great to talk to my best buds and kinda feel like I was hanging out in Utah for a little bit.

Then some elders called and said their water had been out for 4-5 days and asked if we could do their laundry. We said yes and dad went and picked it up so Sandi and I did some laundry. 

 

But then Brooke Face-timed us with another AWESOME surprise - the video of all the fun birthday pictures she had gathered.

 

 She asked Lisa if she wanted to join in and Lisa went to town and rounded up a bunch of people. It took a few tries, but Dad and I had a blast watching it!!! Thank you again, kids - especially Brooke (and Lisa & co.) for doing that. It made my whole day/week/month!!! And yes, I cried a little but they were happy tears....

 

click to view video!

Dad bought shrimp, so that night I made ratatouille and shrimp. Well, I tried to. The power went out as I started cooking the shrimp so I couldn't finish it. But the ratatouille was done so we just ate that - with our headlamps. (Thanks again, Jas!)

When we delivered the laundry to the elders later on, they said they had a surprise for me and gave me some caramel popcorn that they'd made and the sweetest letter.

Still no power or water when we got back home, but it was a great birthday anyway!!!

We did burn up during that night without the A/C and we had Jaime (our cute country director from Maputo), one S & I guy from S. Africa, and one from the US coming in 2 days, so we decided to go to a hotel the next day so we could shower and get a good night's sleep. Most of the stores were closed that day because they didn't have power either and no generators. I had to cook for these guys so I was wondering how that was going to work out but fortunately it came back on the day they arrived. We picked them up from the airport and had a short training with them.

The next day, Saturday, we had a training meeting with all the branch presidents. Dad and spoke along with the visitors.

 Look at the guy looking at me...;)

Then we had training with our Seminary and Institute teachers. Dad and I did most of that because the men wanted to observe us. Oh boy...

 

Here's what our van looked like after the meetings. We gave rides to our teachers to save them the cost of the chapa. When I asked them how much the chapa cost - was it 5 metacaiz? (because that's the price in town), they quickly said, "No Sister, it's 10 metacaiz!" That's 33 cents, which is a significant amount to them....

(Last Sunday, we gave this bunch of girls a ride home after a fireside. I felt bad because 2 boys had asked dad for a ride but then some girls asked me and it snowballed to 17 girls! We couldn't fit the boys in and the girls get priority because it was night and safety is more of an issue for them. We had driven our truck so they had to cram in the backseat and the bed of it.)

The whole gang when we dropped them off.

On Sunday, the guys came to our branch, Dondo, that's 45 minutes away, and afterward we visited some youth who are struggling. We drove down some crazy back roads but it was fun to go in their homes. The one home had a freezer in the front room where we sat and there were a ton of flies swarming around it and us. We're thinking that with the city power outage, they probably had spoiled food in it.....yikes. They brought plastic chairs for us to sit on but the family - dad, mom, 3 sisters, and a cousin sat on a grass mat on the floor. The institute teacher came with us and we each took a turn speaking.

I knew the one sister was a good singer and told the men, so the guy from the US asked them to sing. They sang "I'm a child of God." and then we joined them singing in English while they sang in Portuguese. It was good. The dad said the family was going to come back to church and asked me to say the closing prayer. I told him ok but I only spoke 'poco' Portuguese. That got him to laugh. :)

 

We didn't go in this house but they brought chairs outside for us to sit on. They sat on coconut shredders and a stump. We were visiting three girls, so when it was my turn to speak, I showed them pictures of you 3 girls and told them about y'all. They loved the pictures and hearing about you. I told them how much I loved my kids and that I wanted them to be happy more than anything and that I knew, without a doubt, that the Gospel was the only way for you - and them - to be happy now and forever. Good spirit was there.

And a really fun neighborhood. Here are their next door neighbors. The ladies dozing on the mats and those are ducks and ducklings under the mosquito nets.

And here's a little boy going potty - he kept standing up to inspect his progress....

 

The neighbor kids crowded around dad when he brought his phone out.

And then me:

After our 4 hours of visits, we dropped the men off at the hotel and we dashed home so I could cook dinner. Dad then picked them up and brought them back over and we had lasagna, garlic bread, corn, and chocolate mousse. We had a good visit with them, took them back to the hotel, and fell dead into bed.
That was our FUN BIRTHDAY, HOT couple of days, and super busy weekend week!

Love you bunches!!!