Award for the Cleanest Apartments

We started a new policy in our mission to award the cleanest apartment a trophy to display in their apartment for each transfer.  We started this in December and for the month of January three apartments tied for 1st place.  Here is one of the winning apartments it is the Elders in Matadi.  It was excellent.  All of the apartments improve through this new evaluation. Here is the President awarding the trophy to the Sisters apartment in Binza. We are so proud of them!

Here is our new senior couple Elder Gary and Debbi Bailey from Ogden. They are serving in Pointe Noire Congo.  Their assignment is Missionary Leadership Service.  They take care of our American missionaries in Congo and help the branches in Pointe Noire.  This is their second mission in Africa.  They were an office couple in Cote De Ivory.  We are so grateful for their williness to serve.We could not do it without them.  We are so far away in another country.

Saying good-bye is one of the hardest things to do.  Here is Elder Mpungu. He was our "trainer" when we first arrive.  He taught us everything.  He speaks beautiful English and French.  He spent many hours interpreting for me. He was one of the first Elders to go to Gabon. We are grateful for his service. He has a beautiful voice and has a dream of being in the Tabernacle Choir someday.

Here is our Elder Zurcher.  Elder Zurcher is from Providence UT.  We knew him before we came.  We are dear friends of his parents Arnette and Charles Zurcher.  Elder Zurcher was one of the first Elders to go to Gabon.  This was because of his diligence and hard work as a missionary.  Elder Zurcher is a great Elder!  We have loved serving with him.  We have spent the entire month of February doing Zone Conferences.  We have 12 zones so we have done 12 zone conferences.  It's so interesting to me how each one is different even though we use the same outline.

We said good-bye to two of our Senior Couples. The Gaileys serving in Douala Cameroon and the Whitesides serving in Yaonde Cameroon. They did a wonderful job in helping us in these areas with missionaries and branches. Thank you to them! And wish them much happiness!

President Cook celebrated his birthday on February 12 in Pointe Noire with our missionaries.  We had a great time there.  Time is flying !!

The New Year Brings Baptisms

Isn't this wonderful?  Going to a baptism is my favorite thing to do.  During the month of January we had 127 baptisms in ONE WEEK!!!!!  We personally went and saw 27 of the 127 be baptised that week.  Our Elders and Sisters never have problems finding people to teach.  So many just show up at church on a Sunday and want to "pray" with us and finally get baptised after they have been taught by the missionaries.  President Cook even loves to go grocery shopping with me because he takes off and finds someone to talk to about the Church.  Everyone stops him and asks what does his badge say and they end up in a great 1st discussion.  We didn't travel very much during January our visas expired after 6 months and needed to be renewed.  Aime our office helper was so excited when he told us that the government had renewed our visas until 2019 ???What I said?? President Cook got that twinkle in his eye thinking for sure NOW we can stay for 3 years....hmmm

Well it finally  happen!  Teaching the Elders and the sisters in Douala Cameroon to crochet.  Sister Gailey organized all the young women in Douala to come to the church and learn how to crochet.  We had to teach  Elder Masse to crochet because he was our interpreter how was he going to translate for us if he didn't know how to do it!! Haha (at least that's what we told him).  We were so surprise how quickly they all caught on.  It was the best two hours !!!  Here are all the senior missionaries and other Americans who work here in Kinshasa on New Years Day at a restaurant that is owned by a member.  We had a lovely time together.  You can see they reserved the whole restaurant just for us!!