Information Please

There are a number of interesting photographs and images of Douala you can see from Google Earth.  There is also a nice collection of information about Douala and Cameroon on Wikipedia.

More Pictures

Lynda buying peanuts.

The Elders at our apartment on Christmas Eve.  They had exchanged white elephant gifts with each other.  

Seated:  Elders Shaw, Anderson.  Yannick, the branch President's son who is on a two week split with the Boniberi Elders since they are a threesome, and Elder Ritchi.  Standing:  Elders Neilson, Hunter, Thompson and Landrus

Elders Shaw, Anderson, Landrus and Ritchi on Christmas Morning.

Elders Playing football Christmas Day in front of our apartment.  Note the little grocery store where I buy a few things.

This is a typical home in Bonaberi near the Elders apartment.

This is a market close to the church in Bonaberi.

This is the church in Boniberi.  We use the upper balcony for sacrament and the hall for classes.

Picture Time

Here are a few random pictures from the Mission: 

 

Little children are selling delicious roasted peanuts in discarded whiskey bottles, well washed we hope.  I was going to buy 8 bottles, one for each Elder but didn't have enough change and almost caused a riot among them.  They cost 700 fcfa which is about $1.25.   

Cole's Brownie Recipe

This is the brownie recipe from the Coles.  These are the brownies they used to make before they returned home.

Ingredients

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/8 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa

Instructions

Beat butter, sugar, then add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Add vanilla and salt. In separate bowl combine flour and cocoa( I didn't do this), add to butter misture. beat until well blended. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes. Grease pan.

Letter from 12/14/2008

It is 5:30am. We are still having trouble with jet lag. 

Yes the gospel is growing here. We hear that the branch in Youande is about to be split, and that will make 3 branches there. There are two groups here in Douala but they operate under the same Branch Presidency.  One group (called the branch) is here in Bonapreiso.  The other (called the group) is out in Boniberi.  They are too far away to afford taxi fare. It is about 45 min away.

The branch Presidency takes turns going to Boniberi for church.  Four Elders are in Boniberi and four here in Bonapreiso. They are very close to us,  about 10 minutes or less.  For certain occasions the Boniberi Elders take a taxi in. 

District meetings (in our apt) and zone conference (our apt) and yesterday they all came in to bring the Elder that is going home today.  We went to the bus depot, which is very close,  to pick up the two who are going home from Youande.  It was fun to see the excitement!  Talk about great missionaries. They can teach all day so many want to hear about the gospel, however commitment is another story.  Now the Boniberi Elders are a threesome until we get new ones in Feb. 

We will be doing splits with them so they can keep up with all the appointments.  Although you see a lot of poverty, shacks, and beggers, the people are at least fed. They eat a type of tapioca (a grain I think) and a cooked ground root.  This is nothing like the "Haves" eat.  1000 FCFA is 2 American dollars. The guards for our complex are paid 1300 FCFA a day, about $2.50 for housing and food for a family. It makes you sad and grateful.  Two of our toilet seats were broken, and it cost 15000 FCFA each to replace them.  We had to get a new ink cartridge for the printer at 25000 FCFA or $50 American dollars. 

There is a big difference between the Haves and the Have Nots. There is an American lady who was a friend of Sis. Coles, and she is taking me shopping today.  She will be showing me the best places to get American type foods,  and we will try to find a rubber bathmat for inside the tub.  It is so slick with the rounded bottom.  We would like someone to please save a copy of all our e-mails for a good record of events.  We were going to do that ourselves but it is too expensive for ink.

Our project for now is to set up a contract to have the wheelchairs manufactured.  We are working with church legal in South Africa. Money has been put in our account for 50 chairs but we can't start without a contract.  We were told to come up with one so we are waiting for advice. The wheels turn slow here. The day after our arrival we went to the bank to sign for signature change on the account. One week latter still not done.

The heat is not as bad as we expected. In the 80's but very muggy.  One does not buy a lot of food because it molds too fast. We refrigerate most everything. We bought what we thought was chicken breast.  We didn't like it at all and wonder if that’s what it really was.  Hamburger is good here, but it is very expensive at $8 a pound.  A can of green beans is $3.  However, the fruits and veggies on the street are very cheap.  They also have wonderful pineapples and mango.

We miss all of you.  Right now 18 mo. seem like a long time. Love to all of you.  Sorry that the skype phone is such a bummer to work.   We hope to work it out.  E-mail all the family doings. Also any good national news and the Griz game.

Love

Dad and Mom

We have arrived

We arrived finally, but after a bit of an adventure.

In Salt Lake we had a long delay because our tickets hadn't been paid for. In New York, Air France wouldn't give us a bording pass because my name had been spelled different than on my passport.  It took one hour for us to get boarding passes.  After boarding the plane they took my carry-on saying it was too big.  This is the same one I have always used.  I had to fight to not pay another $150 for the extra checked bag.   We then arrived without yellow fever cards because they were in the very carry-on that I was forced to check, so then I had to talk our way through customs.  

When we arrived in Douala, the baggage from the two planes were thrown all over the floor in baggage area, and we couldn't get a cart.  The baggage carriers won't let you have them because they force you to pay them to carry your bags.  The young missionaries were watching what was happening and were trying to get into immagration to help us.  Finally Elder Shaw talked a guard into letting him in.  It was so good to see him.  Unfortunately he was a little too late to keep us from having to pay $40 U.S. to get our bags.  

The apartment here is very nice. The Bakers are staying until Saturday morning.  President Livingstone will be here tomorrow night for zone conference.   After that we will then be on our own.  At this point I don't think we can even find anything.  We are going shopping tomorrow to look around and learn to find our way around.  We also met the Branch President.  He took us to the bank and helped us set up our account.  I am quite nervous.  I tried to call several of the you kids using Skype.  We could hear you but you couldn't hear us so you hung up.  We have since been able to get it working.

View Larger Map

Mission Preparations

We're on the final lap of our mission preparations and we're heading into the mission home on December 1st.

We must admit, learning French has been a bit challenging. At this point, we know a few words and simple phrases, and we're learning more each day. At one point, we were out running errands one day, and I asked Brent if he had his keys with him. He responded, "What?". I repeated myself, "Do you have your keys". He again responded with, "What?". A third time I emphatically asked, "DO YOU HAVE YOUR KEYS?". To which he responded: "Oh, I didn't understand. I thought you were talking to me in French."

As you can see, we're going to need all of your faith and prayers.

We're really excited to go out and serve the Lord and the people of Douala. We have been spending the last week visiting our children and grandchildren in Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and Montana. We're on the home stretch, and we will say our last goodbyes to the kids at Thanksgiving.

Thanks to Paul and Whitney for helping us setup this blog and encouraging us to actually use it to communicate.

How it Came to Pass

It all started while visiting our daughter Whitney and her family in Boise, Idaho. Whitney's friend Darcie emailed a link to her uncle's mission blog. We enjoyed reading about the mission experiences they had and the impact it had on the people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Kinshasa mission. We were touched by what we saw and read.

We have been planning on serving a mission for a while now, and with Brent retiring from his more than 50 year career in road construction this year, the timing was perfect.

Through a series of events, including putting in our missionary application, we received our call to serve in that very mission.

We received our call exactly one week ago today, on October 26, 2008. We will be serving in the city of Douala, Cameroon. Douala is a modern seaport city of 1.5 million people. There will be 8 young missionaries from North America serving in the city. French and English are both spoken in the area, and we will be working hard to learn the French language before we arrive.

We are excited to begin this new chapter of our lives serving the Lord as missionaries.