LUBUMBASHI

It just rolls off your tongue!  ....lube ume bosh ee... It is at the southeast end of the Congo. It is about 1000 miles from Kinshasa. There are two LDS stakes here and they are growing very fast.  It is possible that we could see 2 more stakes here before we leave.  It felt a lot like being in Zambia...possibly because it is only 40 miles from the Zambian border. We came to Lubumbashi to have a zone conference and meet the missionaries.  There is a couples' home here, which is vacant right now because our couple assigned here doesn't arrive until Sept 7th or 8th. We came down one day and President Headlee met with the 2 stake presidents, had a zone conference the next day, the following day we drove to Likasi (about 2 hours drive away) for a small zone conference and then drove back the same day. We left the following morning. I was thinking that all this travel would be a drag, but actually it is really nice to get out of Kinshasa and visit some these pleasant (and rural) areas away from the big city.

It is pretty amazing to see LDS chapels in the middle of Africa...and in the back of this one a bunch of Young Women were playing basketball!

How big is Africa?

God Bless America!

Here we are just after arriving 3 days ago...invited to a Fourth of July picnic at the US Ambassador's residence.



The Moon's, Bill and Annette. They are our office couple and we couldn't MOVE without them!  They do the work of 3 other couples... just amazing. We love them so much and are sorry they will be leaving as soon as a replacement for them is found.



The Moody's, Les and Joan, are the humanitarian couple. They have their office in our Mission Office and we see them constantly. They are not involved in our mission business, but they pursue humanitarian projects in our mission area. We socialize with the Moody's and the Moon's 2 to 3 times a week...movie night, game night, Sunday dinners and Family Home Evening.



This is the Congo River located just behind most of the embassy residences in Kinshasa. This area is deemed safe, so everyone does their walking for exercise along this route.



This is a local fruit market on the street where I get most of my produce.



This is the most we have ever seen of the sun. We came here in the dry season....absolutely no rain at all until September or October. With the burning of trash that they all do here we seem to have a combination of smog and haze. Gray skies all day and around sunset you see a bit of the sun before it sets. No shadows here ever!

How much could a little food possibly be????

So my new friend and helper here is Sister Moon. She runs the office and is half of a fantastic missionary team. The other half is Elder Moon. He does the finances for the mission (no small task) and is an amazing mechanical engineer who can fix virtually anything. Within minutes of getting to know them we loved them!  They sweetly and patiently help us find our way through all the complexities of the mission.

Elder and Sister Moon took me shopping for the first time. It was interesting to see how the pricing works. Since the value of the dollar fluxuates so much each item is marked with a letter and number. On the isles there is a price sheet which then identifies what that number represents as far as pricing goes. All they have to do is reprint the sheet with updated prices instead of remarking all the food.

Everything here comes and goes quickly and is never the same, so if you see something you want...BUY IT NOW. You may not see it again. It all comes from different places in the world like Belguim, South Africa or Brazil. Some things don't exist here so you might as well forget ever seeing it. In fact, don't even HOPE for it!  Regardless of what it is EVERYTHING IS ABOUT 3 TO 8 TIMES AS EXPENSIVE AS IN THE STATES!!!!!  I will cite some examples at the end of this entry.There is no fresh milk, but lots of cream and butter. There is powdered milk and boxed unrefrigerated milk. The couples here mostly live on chicken because they don't trust the beef. They have really great cheeses.

I started out just picking out a few things that I could build meals around. Right now the money system is a little strange so I wasn't sure exactly how much I was paying anyway. The items are marked in Congolese Francs but they only take American dollars at the checkout.

The small cart of groceries I got here was about $175.  Two days later Dad and I went to another store and for another 3/4 of a cart paid another $200.

We have arrived in the Congo!

After 30 hours in airplanes and airports we arrived in the DRC. It is warm and muggy. The airport was chaotic and confusing but we passed through uneventfully. The Livingstones were waiting for us and took us to our new home. They arranged to stay with a senior missionary couple for their last night and so we spent our first night in the Congo in our flat by ourselves.

The next day we were trained and oriented by the Livingstones. It was a lot to assimilate. Fortunately they wrote everything down because our jet lag did not help our memory processes.  At about 6 pm we left for the airport and dropped the Livingstones off. We tried to convince them that this was all a big mistake and they should stay for another 2 years, but they already had it in their minds to leave.  As we drove away we wondered what we were getting ourselves into!

The next morning we awoke to the reality that we were now in charge of 135 missionaries, 4 districts and 10 independent branches and no one was there to tell us what to do. I guess we will have to just do our best and try to take it one day at a time.