Hi,
The power was out for a couple of hours this evening but is back on now! :) We went out and had a hamburgar for supper and it really wasn't too bad.
We have had somewhat of a busy week. We had the financial/audit trainers (Elder & Sister Howell) here on the weekend from Johannesburg. They trained all 4 branches and then the District. It seems to go quite well with no real issues so that is always a relief! We drove them around to the various branches but they did get their own transport to the airport at 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning (shuttle bus at the hotel).
Monday evening Elder & Sister Bean (our humanitarian mission replacements) arrived here in Blantyre and have been checking to see how the 'wheelchair' project is doing here. They arranged for their own transport etc. so we haven't seen too much of them, other than they did take us out to supper last night at the Hotel and it was very nice. Tomorrow morning we will pick them up and they will ride with us to Liwonde where we need to deliver some chairs for the new meeting place (school) that we rented last week. We were able to find some chairs to buy - black hard plastic seat with metal legs -- that cost the equivalent of $48. That seems pretty high but it is the same as they pay in Zimbabwe so that's ok. We will take 30 chairs up in the back of our truck tomorrow and then take the other 20 on Saturday and drop them off on our way to Lilongwe.
Sister Bean wants to go to a place that makes pottery near Liwonde so we will do that
Victor, the physical facilities guy for the mission has been here all week too. We got phone liines into the Blantyre chapel, which has been a long time coming. The application was made quite some time back and they suddenly called and said that they would do it as soon as we came in and paid so.... we hurried right over! Victor pretty much just had his own agenda while here but we did touch base a couple of times.
We have a couple of families going to the temple next week and we paid for the bus tickets today and it seems that everything is pretty much in order. Pres. Chinyumba has done a lot to help them and that is the way it should be. :) It is wonderful to have the Temple Patronage Fund to allow these members to make the trip to the temple - they could never do it without that.
I broke down today and had someone come in and clean all the floors and wipe down ledges, etc. It tends to get rather dusty - not really dusty as much as fine dirt/sand that blows in. We were at the church yesterday and Christopher Sitolo was there cleaning and doing some windows etc. and I decided to ask him if he'd like to do some cleaning here. He agreed and spent most of the day here and did a good job. With all the floors here being tile it does take a fair bit of time to clean them and the house is quite big. I went up to the wing that we never use a few days ago and realized that there were quite a few dead insects here and there as well as dust, etc. I did vacum it all but had Christopher redo it and mop, along with the rest of the house. He did a good job and was happy to earn some money. He is a returned missionary that served in the Zimbabwe mission when we were there.
I did wash baptism clothes and towels this week too - about 5 or 6 loads and as there is no dryer we hang everything out on the line -- which I don't mind. Rainy season will be more of a challenge though.
Jim met a man while he was waiting in line at the bank last week (I was in a different line) and he walked out with us after so we could give him a Restoration pamphlet. He came to church on Sunday and we just happened to be at that branch (Zingwangwa) with the Howells. He stayed for Sac. Meeting and Sunday school and then the Elders met with him and his wife Sunday afternoon and had another appointment today. He is about our age and is retired from working for the Airlines (not a pilot). Nice man.
We also had a nice waitress the other night when we were out with Howells and we gave her a pamphlet and sheread it and has some questions for us so we will get together with her next week. The fellow that we rented the school rooms from in Liwonde said he also wants us to tell him about our church s. that is great. It is nice to be able to do some teaching along with all the administrative things we have to do.
There seems to be a possible fuel shortage. We couldn't get any diesel today and Victor couldn't get any fuel either. We have seen some line-ups at the gas stations the past couple of days. We do have an extra jerry can of diesel that we will put in tomorrow when we go to Liwonde but if we cannot get any soon we won't be going to Lilongwe on the weekend. Hopefully - there will be some but today none of the stations had any. I think we pay 260 MK a litre for diesel ($1.73) and gas(fuel) is more than that.
It is time to head to bed. We will have an early morning again -- not that we could sleep in even if we wanted to. A rooster starts crowing about 4:00 a.m. or sooner. :(
Hope evveryone is doing well. Miss you all.
Love, Elder & Sister Bullock
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