A few things from our week

Sister Prete and I had gone with our branch President to get a load of compost for his garden (cabbage field) and he and a friend were unloading it at his home in the village.  As soon as we stopped the truck and started to unload, dozens of kids flocked around to watch.  I think there were 38 in the group around me.  They are just like children everywhere. Curious about everything.  Especially white folks in the village.  Often we have to park a few hundred meters from the home we are visiting and as soon as we start walking we have a mob of kids who want to walk with us and hold our hands.  It would be easy here to be the Pied Piper.

We have 4 young men preparing for missions and they needed some vaccinations so we took them to a clinic.  None of them could ever remember having a shot before so this was a new experience for them.  Notice the expression on the face of the one behind. Be sure to zoom in on him. It was priceless.  The one getting the needle was trying to be brave and Sister Prete and I were teasing them a lot.  I think the doctor was having fun as well.

These are our 4 young men preparing for mission.  The two on the left are from the Lilongwe Branch, Peter Chathyoka and Clifford Tauzi, the two on the right are from Kauma Branch, Gaston Khantankako and Yamikani Godfrey.  They are great young men.  They each go several times a week with the full time Elders to act as translators and to help teach.  All are converts to the gospel, mostly within the last year or so.  We have several other young me who will be going on missions soon as well that are preparing now.  We have way more men here in the church than women which is unusual but this is because most women here do not speak English and it is hard to teach them as effectively as the men.  We are trying to correct this by using translators etc but it is not quite the same.

On Thursdays we usually go with Elder Buckholz and Elder Okumu to visit a few families who live in Area 25 which is north west of the city about 12 k.  One of the families we visit is the Kamphinda family.  They are  relatives of  another family that are members and some of them are baptized, but the Dad and another son were baptized today.  They live in Area 25 but their farm is another 12k further on.  This past Thrusday, Brother Kamphinda wanted us to travel to his home village to meet with his older brother and his family.  When we arrived, we were greeted in a formal way and invited into his home.  We were joined by half the village.  At one point in the discussion, we had 38 people in a room about 12x12.  Sister Prete took this shot looking across the room.  The white Elder is Buckholz, on his left is Elder Okumu and to his left is our translator,  Brother Samson Moyo.   The fellow to the left of Buckholz is Kelvin Kamphinda who was baptized in January and to his left is his uncle, our host.  We were all sitting the floor on a bamboo mat.  There were several more people crowded around the doorway listening.  We taught them the first discussion and they all wanted to know when we were coming to start a branch in their village.  If we had invited them to the river, we could have baptized the lot of them.  I am sure that is what Heber C. Kimball and Brigham Young would have done.  Not allowed today though.

This is part of the family gathered outside the hut.  Notice my size relative to the group.  The one man next to Buckholz is one of the tallest Malawians I have met so far.  The average for men is around 5'6". We are always surprised to learn the ages of the children and youth. They are almost always older than you would guess.

This is the road we traveled to the village.  The jungle would take over very quickly if they stopped farming.  The soil is mostly sand so even in the rainy season, you can drive almost anywhere.  The roads are rough and a lot of water channels in the road but almost no mud.

Tobacco is one of the few cash crops grown in Malawi.  This is a drying shed.

On our trip to the village we had to cross this bridge covered in bags filled with sand.  We were not sure what was under the bags but it held our truck.

Prime grade Malawi beef.

Malawi gravel crushing crew.  People with hammers pounding rock into various sizes and selling the piles.  One tough way to make a living.

This is the type of sheep grown here.  Hair instead of wool.

Tobacco field

This is how we buy bananas here.  This bunch cost about 3 dollars and there are 28 bananas in the bunch.  We just get them from a vendor on the side of the road near our home. There are people selling bananas, pineapple, mangoes and such everywhere. Needless to say, we often have banana bread on hand.