Week 41-Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2008
HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ALL!

We don't have halloween here so we won't have trick-or-treaters come to our door. But we are giving a small bag of sweets (candy) to the elders as a surprise today at Zone Conference Workshops. We have not seen pumpkins here either, so we can't carve jack-o-lanterns. What we have seen are Christmas decorations and trees and "holiday specials" for sale in the stores--since early October! Seems some things are the same in Namibia Africa as in the States. We have seen pictures of Scott and Angela's 2 little witches and would love a picture of the other g-kids in their costumes.

Here's another update from our diary of what's been happening mission-wise.

Lots of love from Africa,
MOM and DAD, Grandma and Grandpa, Karen and Stan, President and Sister Allen

Week 41—October 13-19, 2008

13th: While Karen went with Yolandie to the psychologist, Stan obtained quotations [bids] for all the tyres for the elders’ and our cars. We also got prices on various types of fans to be used in the Kat building. Elder Johnson called from the office asking Stan to “chase down” 3 kilometer reports for last month which have not been submitted by the elders. Last Sat we received an order from the Johannesburg Distribution Center for the Katutura Branch which we delivered to the church building. We also faxed to the office Elder Domingos’s doctor’s visit info and electricity reports [3 of the elders’ flats do not have electricity included in the rent, so we turn in the amount of el used on the report and then the office figures out how much that should cost and puts that much money into the senior comp’s account and the elders buy the electricity for the next transfer period based on the last transfer’s usage.] We also downloaded the transfer travel schedule.

14th: We started the morning with our 5th visit to the American Embassy to vote for the presidential election—John McCain/Sarah Palin for the Republicans or Barak Obama/Joe Biden for the Democrats . This will be an historic election for the Americans! If the Republicans win she will be the first woman Vice President [no woman has been elected President] and if the Democrats win he will be the first black President [no black person has been elected Vice President]. Pres Danny Heyman of the Kat branch pres applied for financial assistance through the Temple Patrons Assistance Fund so he and his fiance can travel to the Joburg temple. This is the first time we have been involved with this. We were somewhat surprised to find out that after a person is approved for the funding, the branch then contributes what they can, then the mission contributes, then finally if more is needed Joburg pays. So it is handled very similar to meeting needs through fast offering funds. We received permission to obtain quotations for ceiling fans and their installation for the Kat building from the FMG in Cape Town. Stan spent some time today writing a detailed description of the fans needed and installation specifications so the different contractors’ quotations would be comparable.

15th: We met with Bro Hutton this morning and gave him info from the Municipality, from about a year ago, regarding various sites for properties that are available for churches in Kat. In the afternoon we took Elders Carter, Thethe, Lovett, and Antoine to the airport for transfers to other areas in South Africa. This would normally have been done yesterday, but transfers were moved forward a day because Pres/Sis Probst were in Joburg for training along with other Mission Presidents in the Southeast Africa Area.

16th: We followed up on an order for the Windhoek Branch from the Joburg Dist Cntr. We picked up a prescription for Elder Domingos.. As we were leaving the downtown area, we received a telephone call from Claudio [Wind building supervisor] stating that a business, Creative Computer Connections, had just called him about an unpaid bill from June. They said that if it was not paid by noon today [it was 11:45am] it would be turned over to their lawyer to take the church to court. The bill was for N$345 (US$46)! So, to preserve the reputation of the church, we paid it. We hope to get reimbursed from the Cape Town FMG. We next went to Nictus Furniture, which put down the carpeting in the Kat building a few months ago, and asked for some additional glue to repair a few spots where the carpet is coming up. We then made a trip to a local company which distributes industrial cleaning supplies. Since the Branch Pres Charles, custodian Robert, physical facilities rep Bro Hutton, or the building supervisor Claudio, do not have their own transport, guess who got to pick up tp, paper towels, and urinal deodorizers! So one can say that this was our sued, glued, tp and deordorizer day—we never thought we would have one of these on our mission!! We were supposed to pick up 4 elders at the airport today for transfer, but their Namibia visas were not ready in time so they stayed in Cape Town. Their visas cleared the committee at Home Affairs about 2:30 in the afternoon but the Home Affairs cashiers closed at 1:00. Jackey told us she would be there first thing tomorrow morning to pay for the visas.

17th: At 9:15am we met Patrick, our neighbor, at Kat to have him look at the ceiling fan project and submit a quotation. District mtg. postponed until tomorrow, hoping that the new elders would arrive today. We delivered the supplies that we purchased yesterday to both branches. Stan worked on a project of identifying the number of members in each of the Wind suburbs. The purpose for this was to have some hard data as to where we should look for additional property if the deal on the Kat property falls through. We received word from Jackey that visas were paid for and certified, but it was too late in the day for the elders to fly up, so they spent another night in CT. We were delighted to receive an email from Merilee telling us that Alexander’s bilirubin count was down sufficiently that he no longer has to have phototherapy. The prayers in his behalf have been answered.

18th: No post [mail] yet this week for the elders. We received notification that the 4 new elders will be arriving at 5:20pm from CT. We attended dist mtg. with the Kat elders. Stan talked to them about ways that they can help support the branch. At 2pm Emmanuel Tibinyane was baptized. He is a young man of 13 years of age whose mother was baptized about 3 weeks ago. We took Sis Tibinyane and her family home and then went to the airport. The 4 new elders arrived and on time—but 48 hours late! Elder Parsons from Arizona who has been serving as an AP for the last couple of months returned to spend his last transfer in Nam before going home. He served here prior to becoming an AP and really loved it. We also welcomed 3 greenie elders fresh from the Joburg MTC. They are all from the US—Elder Tanner from Lewiston, UT, Elder Jensen from Vernal, UT, and Elder Eason from California. We hope that we can obtain visa information earlier next time so Jackey will have enough time to get the visas. The highlight of the day was that we talked to David and Janet. Today is David’s birthday--#67.

19th: Stan left at 6:45am to attend the Kat Branch Presidency meeting. He came back home and picked up Karen and went back for church at Kat. In Sac Mtg. Emmanuel was confirmed and 3 of the young women gave talks, on faith, knowledge, and modesty. There were about 10 investigators in attendance. The elders were a bit disappointed because they were expecting more.. They said they had missed a lot of appointments because of the very disruptive transfer. It was the Primary President’s turn to do sharing time, but she didn’t prepare anything so Karen used the time to review and teach some of the songs that will be sung in the Sac Mtg. program. We wondered if we would have a dating class because when it was time to start there were only a couple of young adults there. Even the teacher was not there. She came sauntering in a half hour late, unconcerned that she had kept us waiting. By then a pretty good sized group had assembled. Such is “Africa time”! Some of the questions discussed included marrying someone with different beliefs, what happens if your companion dies early in your marriage, and can you be sealed to more than one spouse.