Well, today was busy.
We were kinda stuck in the flat for a while because of the rain, but not really. We were doing weekly planning, and just kinda stayed in the flat for a few minutes after finishing to see when it'd stop, which it did not too long later.
We went to teach a Brother named Benson (I've run into three or four other Bensons in the past week or so) and his wife Georgina.
Then we went to see a Brother named Julius and his son Emmanuel (I'm still trying to figure out if naming a kid this is sacrilegious, but they don't see an issue here). It was a good visit, but something interesting came up: ushago.
Ushago is the nickname for their home towns, it can apply to pretty much any county and the actual location changes from person to person, so when I ask about this I ask: "Where is your Ushago?" "Oh, it's in Busia" or "Oh, it's in Machakos" etcetera.
Well, the annoying thing is that we don't actually have missionaries in many places out side of Nairobi. We have two entire zones for Nairobi, and they are the biggest ones. Second place is Dar es Salaam, Mombasa is third. The point being that all the missionaries are clumped together, so we aren't in many "Ushago."
So a question I've been getting is: "How can we get the church in my Ushago?"
My response is to gather a list of names for people who are interested in the gospel. If we have an actual list then President Mdletshe might justify checking it out or even sending missionaries out there.
He's pretty eager about the gospel growing (Isn't everyone? He just wears it on his sleeve), so I can see him jumping on an opportunity if there is actually people to teach out there.
Here's hoping.
10/27
Well, there was an apparent lack of spirit during church today, but I'm not sure if it can be helped.
Here's what happened, sacrament was normal -E. Mukendi had to give a talk on a five minute notice - but after sacrament the Bishop of the Lucky Summer Ward steps up to the front of the room, whips out some laptops, and tries to get people to come do their family history.
It didn't work, I got to do an hour+ of indexing because I was bored and literally no one else was using the computers.
So a congregation just kinda sat there while a high counselor got up and started teaching about random things, I gave up on trying to follow his train of thought - it wandered quite a bit, but the biggest issue was that his teaching was like a pastor, so there was no spirit there.
What time I had that I didn't use for indexing, I used to try and fix people's Baptizmal forms. Missionaries here suck at paperwork, so Sister Sorenson and I are scratching our heads trying to get everything figured out and having minimal success.
I'm just left with a question: "How the heck-fire do you put the wrong person on a baptizmal form? Not even a simple mistake, but a completely different other person?"
Still trying to get that one fixed.
Here's a good piece of info for today, S. Emmaqulate got Baptized.
This makes my third Convert! (I'm counting Ernest, I taught him everything even if I wasn't there for his baptism)
On the way back to the flat, we had to deal with a pair of mzungu lovers, which was a huge pain. We ended the conversation and walked away, but still kept shouting at me for some reason, so I just ignored them. At one point -when I was more than 100 feet away- they shouted "are you deaf?" which just amused me. I'm more than a little bitter about the racism there, even if it is friendly. I can't wait for the day when I no longer have to deal with this.
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