On Jan 6-9 we had Elder Carl B Cook of the 1st quorum of the Seventy and his wife, President & Sister Padovich and Pres  & Sis Bullock here in Lilongwe. What a sweet experience that was. They all arrived on Friday evening by car because all the flights were cancelled (fuel shortage, happens all the time). The Collins' hosted a beautiful supper for us all that night. On Saturday morning and early afternoon we had a Zone Conference with our visitors and all the missionaries here. What a wonderful opportunity it always is to be taught by our leaders and sit in council with them. We have been instructed to be very careful with growth here because the leadership is still so new. It is very hard for the elders to balance contacting, teaching investigators and strengthening the members. It would be easy to find, teach and baptize many many more people than we currently are but the foundation is still pretty green and there is no point in baptizing anyone if there is no support system for them. The leaders are so eager to learn and to serve. We are loving working with them and teaching the simple things that we have grown up with all our lives.
Anyway, what is this picture??? After the Zone Conference, the Cooks wanted to visit some of the members so we took them first to the branch president's home. While we were there it started to rain. Let me tell you, it can really rain here. We offered to take them back but they wanted to continue so we set off with our 1 umbrella to the 1st counselor's home, then the second counselor, the elder's quorum president, and a couple of other members. Their roofs are all made of corrugated steel with nothing underneath it so we had to yell in each others' ears to have a conversation the rain was pounding down so hard. It was such a privilege to be with the Cooks in those sweet humble homes. They seem like such a down to earth dedicated couple. We really loved them. Now, there's more to the story. By the time we finished our visits it was 6:30 and it is pretty much dark by then here. When we went to take them back to their hotel, the river had flooded and was running a good 4 feet over the bridge. There were hundreds of people there and several vehicles waiting to cross but it was not going to happen. So, what do we do??? Here we have a General Authority and his wife and we are stranded in the village after dark. Way to go! We waited for almost a half hour but the water seemed to still be rising so we called our dear branch president. There is really only the one road in and out of the village but he came and took us out the opposite direction, zigzagging through the field roads and after a while, what did we see? The sign for Blantyre Street which is the street we live on. I don't know how we got there but we were sure grateful.

We got absolutely drenched to the bone walking from the first home to the second and only wetter as the afternoon went on. We collected more umbrellas as we went from house to house but by then the damage was done. Elder and Sister Cook were determined to finish the visits even if it meant wading through ankle deep streams.  On Sunday we had a Branch Conference for each branch, first in the Lilongwe Branch at 9 and then in the Kauma Branch at noon. There was such a wonderful spirit there in both meetings and the buildings were packed. Luckily we had been able to buy 25 more chairs the day before. The members here really are the pioneers of Malawi and they are the foundation that the church will be built upon here. Already we can see strong leaders developing and a tradition of faithfulness is beginning. We already know so many people's stories and we love them so much. The Cook's asked for their talks to be translated in the first meeting and it made such a difference to the faces of many of the members. It really is cumbersome and time consuming but so worthwhile. Pretty much all the talks were translated either one direction or the other in the second meeting and the people so appreciated it. What a feast that day was!

 

I tried to upload a video of the gardener at the church cutting the grass. We do see lawn mowers here but most of the grass is cut with a machete. The grass here is coarser than at home but to look at it when it is mowed you would never know it was done with a swinging knife because it looks pretty darned good. I have had no success with video. It just goes and goes and goes and doesn't complete so you will just have to imagine.