The Devin Tree

We have had a good day working around the house. I made some Lion House dinner rolls to share on Monday night with the elders, got the laundry done and your dad worked on the computer doing many important things. We wanted to visit with a few people but were unable due to their unavailability so we ended up taking the white boards to the church, went shopping and dropped in on the Faith Radio station to let them know that we were still working on getting the go-ahead to do the program on Sunday mornings. The material we use has to be approved and free of copy right restrictions. Simon, the station manager, is just delightful and made us feel so welcome. He made the comment that he has been praying that we would be back and would do a program. Terry said, "Your prayers have been answered." Simon is a pastor of a Pentecostal church in Mbale and was thrilled that an open house would be held at our church (when it gets spruced up) on a Saturday so he could come.

Here are some more pictures of the Mbale home, the elders doing the dishes after Christmas dinner and our trip to Sipi Falls. The children accompanied us up and back down the mountain side and then of course, wanted to be paid for the guide service. The last picture is of us planting the 'Devin Tree' at the orphanage.

Note from Jenna: The pictures are so small because my dad must be reducing the size of the file to email them to me. We'll work something out so they can be bigger.

skype

I don't know about you, but I love skype. And internet connection.
I called up the missionaries in Uganda tonight just to see if I could because they wrote an email earlier saying their internet was finally set up. YEA!!!

As we talked I took a few 'snapshots' with the skype camera.

When they showed me outside they pointed out their gardener mowing the lawn with a machete. I can't see him, but that's a pretty awesome gardener if you ask me. Doubles as security maybe?

That is the button to turn on the hot water for that bathroom. My dad was turning it on for the young elders to come over and shower since their water is off.

"Uganda is not boring." - Mom

Christmas spaghetti dinner with the elders. Boy, can they eat!!

the Mbale home

The greeting that we received when we first drove up to the gate of our new abode. There were the four Mbale missionaries sitting on the wall to welcome us.

A typical scene on the roadways of how people are transported from place to place. They have to really hold on for dear life when going over the potholed roads.

a few pictures

I didn't know quite what to label this post. My parents sent these 3 images and said "please put these on the blog". OK. Done. The top one is easy. It's out cute missionaries at the MTC. The other two? Maybe dinner, before and during preparation? We'll have to wait for them to check in and comment to let us know what's going on.

{Sorry for the small image size. For some reason the pbpb blog wasn't updated when blogger did their upgrades. Sizing images isn't as easy in this old format.}

Land of the Boda Boda's

Hello from Uganda, the land of the Boda Boda's,

We took a weekend trip with Elder and Sister Thayn to Jinja to attend a CES teacher inservice meeting and to meet the members and Priesthood leaders in that area. We had so much fun with the people and we also got to eat two meals with our fingers because no utensils were provided!!

A few of the amazing things we saw were the head of the Nile, a couple dozen huge storks (with wing span of 6-7 feet), the open market with fruits and vegetables, purses, clothes, shoes and lots of people who seemed engrossed with the white people walking by, chickens being plucked and prepared for the Branch Christmas party, people catching grasshoppers around the street lights at night to take home for a snack and a million more potholes!! We stayed with Elder and Sister Harris in their home and were treated like royalty. It is remarkable how quickly we become friends with the senior couples...there is a real connection made.

We are scheduled to go to Mbale, our area of service, on Wednesday and are very excited to get there. Everyone that we mention Mbale to, says it is so beautiful and that we will really love it.
Tonight, we were stuck in traffic on our way to the mall to pick up a few more items to take with us when it seemed impossible to get across the three to four lanes of traffic to make our turn. I mouthed to the driver of a big van taxi next to us, "Would you help us get in here?" and he gave me a thumbs up signal. He then proceeded to block the traffic in each lane and allowed us in to make the turn. The people in the taxi were all smiling and we were too as we waved a thank you to them. Sure great to come across good people who are willing to help out a fellow traveler in life.

Hope you are all doing well and are happy.
Mom and Dad (Grandma and Grandpa)

Kampala

Hi everyone,

We are here in Uganda after about 31 hours of travel and have been enjoying the African experience again. The traffic is crazy here in Kampala...taxi vans, trucks full of people, Boda-bodas (motorcycle taxis) everywhere, pedestrians and cars all driving here and there. It's worse than Korea!!!

We are staying in a vacant couples' apartment in Kampala, will be traveling to Jinga with our friends, the Thayns, this weekend and will be going to our area of assignment next week. Everybody keeps telling us that we'll be given President Jackson's car since he'll be getting a new one and that our house in Mbale is really something with three rooms, no less. We are looking forward to getting there and starting the work. We met our four missionaries yesterday and they say that the area is already to set up a branch. Just waiting for approval.

We will try and write more later. We miss all of you and pray for you each day. Hope you are well and happy.

Love,
Mom and Dad

More Fun in Korea

More fun highlights of our visit with the grandkids. They are best told in PICTURES!!
First, Major Ben receiving a farewell gift from his company then having downtime with the little people in his life. He and Kwona make a very handsome couple and the children are beautiful in every way. Dillon made the comment the other day that he wanted to be a grown-up and not a kid....on further investigation he said he wanted to be a grandpa because he just gets to stay home and play. I had to explain to him that grandpa had to spend many years working before he could enjoy all the free time. He decided it was better to be a kid and not have to worry about going out and making money to take care of everyone else. His dad could tell him a thing or two about that! Enjoy.