Just like in the U.S.A., when it's time to prepare for school, the merchandise is everywhere.....the children here have to provide all their own supplies - mostly books of paper and pencils.
One of our branch members is building this school. It will be a wonderful school if it truly has all it says it will - computers, English as a 2nd language, etc. It also says it will have grades pre-school through what we call Jr. High and what is 'college' in French.
Many of the schools have painted blackboards on the outsides of the buildings with school information. This information tells about the school schedule.
We have learned from experience looking for a place to live, that if a building looks like this, but you want to rent or attend school in it, it will only take '3 days' and it will be ready. We hope the 3 days (about 2 weeks) until school starts is enough time for the school to be ready!
These desks are new, and look just like the older desks in other schools we have seen. If you look closely, you will see Elder Wheatley looking into the room.
We think this will be the Headmaster's Office because of the desk and even a phone (don't see many of these) instead of a cell phone, on the desk.
We were so surprised to see real toilets over in the corner of this room. None of the schools we have seen before have indoor plumbing.
We're pretty sure they won't be installed in the Headmaster's office!
Oct. 6, 2013
Dear Family,
We are sorry we didn’t write last
week. We seem to be very busy. Lots of things to take care of before we
leave. Our Mission President and his
wife are coming to Point Noire tomorrow.
Maybe they will have news about a replacement or what they have planned
if there still isn’t another senior couple to come here. We
were able to watch the Priesthood
Session of Conference on Sunday night with the Elders at our home. Getting conference live or even being able to
download it seems to be a real challenge.
Sister Wheatley has been trying to download some individual talks (to do
a whole session is impossible – our system can’t handle it) all day and it
takes hours for each talk. It’s interesting to hear the young Elders
talk about how their feelings about conference have changed and how much they
miss being able to see it live. I don’t
think I attended a Priesthood Session until I returned home from my mission.
Just something we didn’t do in my youth.
Once we get the conference edition of the Ensign we read the talks over
and over, as do the members here – they treasure their LeLiahonas and many
families order more than one subscription.
The branches will schedule a Saturday and Sunday to watch the conference
DVDs in French as soon as the DVDs arrive.
We will be looking forward to April of 2014 when we can partake of it
live.
We recently
were invited to a closing ceremony for the well the Church drilled here in
Pointe Noire (we went to another ceremony for the same reason/same well about a
year and a half ago – but then it was cancelled because the generator/pump etc.
didn’t work after all). It will provide
water to about 50,000 people. I think
that means water will travel to their parcels or a neighboring parcel or into
the few homes with indoor plumbing. Many
people just have a tap in their yard and that is a great blessing to them. The ceremony consisted of a few talks by
dignitaries such as the mayor and the director of the water company. They did acknowledge the important role of
the Church Humanitarian funds, although one of them had a hard time remembering
the name of our Church and had to get prompted each time he said it. They cut a ribbon and the mayor had a drink
of water out of the tap on the well. We
have had a few people indicate that they saw us on T.V. Sister Wheatley will post some pictures on
our blog – but every time she thought she was getting a good shot, one of the
camera men would step in front of
her. Before the ceremony a young man from Spain (it
is so interesting to see people from around the world in this city for various
reasons) who is here doing an internship with the water company told us that
when they pressurize the system they have a lot of leakage because they are
using old water lines. These pipes could
have been put in by the French eighty to ninety years ago. He said they have hired a company to help
take care of this problem. As he talked
with us we were reminded of the scripture in Matthew 9:17 “Neither do men put
new wine in old bottles, else the bottles break and the wine runneth
out,..” For this well to be effective
they probably need all new pipes to carry the water. This is very like the restoration of the
gospel. God and Christ chose to appear
to a young unlearned boy who was not tainted by the precepts of man. Someone not trained in a theological
institution, a young man they could train and mold line upon line, precept upon
precept. As we follow the life of the Prophet
Joseph we see that they were very patient with him and that many of the lessons
he learned came as a result of his mistakes such the manuscript that Martin
Harris lost. There were periods of time
when the power to translate would be taken away. Like us, he grew as he was challenged. Our challenge to you is for you to sing the
song “Joseph Smith’s First Prayer” with all the fervor of your heart (also
called “Oh How Lovely Was the Morning”).
Another
happening here has caused further reflection on the restoration. The key to our outside gate is a skeleton
key. When we were young most locks on
homes were opened by a skeleton key.
Until we moved here we hadn’t seen one for many years. We were given only one key. We thought it would be nice to have another
one. At a place where they duplicate
keys they said they could do it. Not
unlike Wal-Mart back home you stand about a 50% chance of getting a key that
works when they duplicate them. We left
the key and returned the next day. While
we were there they decided they needed to show some effort. We watched a man take a bolt and bend the end around until it formed
a circle on one end. Next they were
grinding the bolt down to size. Not
wanting to waste a day watching and waiting, we returned home. The next day the bolt had been ground down to
size and a rectangular piece of bronze had been welded onto to the end opposite
the circle. The man was taking a hacksaw and was
starting to cut teeth in the piece of bronze.
The next day they were filing the bronze end by hand. They had a pair of calipers and kept taking measurements. File a while, measure, file a while,
measure. Finally it was ready. It even looked a little like the
original. Sadly after all that effort it doesn’t
work. It won’t go into the keyhole. We have a file, so maybe, Elder Wheatley should file on it a
little more. When the Church and the Priesthood were restored God didn’t
create a Church by taking bits and pieces from other existing religions. He restored the Church and Priesthood
according to the same plan and organization that has always existed.. That is why the Church is able to grow and
function as it does. If the key that was
made for us was an exact copy it would work.
Since it isn’t quite the same it fails in its mission of opening our
gate. Hopefully we will appreciate that
we belong to the true Church and that it is patterned after the Church that
Christ established when he was on the Earth.
If we magnify our callings as intended we along with those we serve and
serve with will be blessed. We always
marvel at President Eyring’s talks.
Especially when he talks about the training he received in his youth. His talk in the Priesthood sessions was so
inspiring. Many former Bishops probably
thought, “ If only I had it to do over again.”
We hope you
are all happy and well. We once again
thank you for your faith and prayers. Please know that your prayers on our
behalf our answered many times each day.
We love you all. Mom and
Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Elder and Sister Wheatley
No comments:
Post a Comment