Monkeys!!!

This is Larry buying produce from a local fender who walks up our road 2-3 times a wk.  He pushes his cart selling his vegetables.  He is really a nice guy.

This was taken in Bamburi behind the Branch church.  It is a building with a grass and palm tree roof.  This is native African buildings.

These next 3 pictures are of monkey's just out our back veranda.  Just being lazy and playing with one another.

Orphanage Pictures

This is a picture of the kids at the orphanage with us and Elder & Sister Harris.  This is Larry standing and watching the sisters bag the Atmat that is to go home with each child.  The kids are drinking their Atmat.  This is the group that was receiving the Atmat and they loved having their pictures taken.  This last picture shows a child being weighed and measured to see if the Atmat is increasing their body weight.  These children are so under nourished that they keep track of them.  Each Friday they have new groups who come and receive this.  Sometimes this is the only meal these children have each day

Orphanage Pictures

This is the Mikindani Catholic Church Youth Training Center, This is where they distribute  Atmat that was developed at BYU for the nutrition of homeless orphan children who have been affected by the aids epidemic.  Most have lost their either both or one of their parents.  This is  sister Veronica, who is in charge of this center, she is a Catholic Nun.  She is with Elder Harris.   Elder Harris is the one in charge of this program from the church.  They also give out medication to these children.  This is an Atmat sack and the church ships containers of this to various places in Africa.  Atmat tastes kind of like cream of wheat.  It restores the nutrition that these kids need so badly and helps so the medications will work that they take.  This is Angelina with nurse Lucy mixing up the Atmat.  Each child is given a cup and sent home with a months supply.  This is sister Janet from the Chamgawe Branch  primary who was teaching them songs like once I was a snow man.  They have never seen snow before.  It was a wonderful day

News From Africa

We are alive and well. We are receiving direction from the spiritof what we should do all the time. We are not getting lost as before but we are venturing out and seeing more things. The members really want us to come and visit their homes so we may start doing that with the missionaries. We are going to start teaching a temple class & family history class once a month to the 3 different branches. Family history will be hard because there is not much recorded records around here. Lots take on different names and some raise others babies. We know that the Mombasa President and his wife took a little girl and have been raising her as their own since the mother passed away. The aunt took the other girls and are raising them. Different society here. Marriage license are not required here and so that's another problem we have inquired . We hope to get at least their 4 generation sheet accomplished to be able to get to the temple. So if any have suggestions on family history please write us. Just keep in mind things are primitive here and most have no access to computers here. We may have to send the information to Nairobi and have them print it off. It's going to take almost a yr in getting ready to have these people ready to go. The nearest temple is in So. Africa which involves getting busses and lodging and meals and a lot of other things. It isn't as convenient as we have it back home to attend the temple. Here it is a once in life time thing to be able to do. We feel we have been given inspiration to do this. We have a couple of young men in the branches that have put in their papers to go on a mission. We really feel that the more return missionaries that we can get here will bring great strength to the branches because they know the basic doctrines that they can bring back to the people. We have some return missionaries and find that this is so. It is a different role for women here in the church. All talks, classes and prayers are given by men except in RS & Primary. They are wanting to have more to have callings. We feel this is something that we need to work with the branches on. But old traditions are hard to change. People view daughters here as wealth because their future husband has to pay the father to get to marry their daughter. One man here understands. His future son in law asked him how much he had to pay to marry his daughter and he replied in the correct manner which was he wanted him to be a good husband to his daughter and to treat his daughter with kindness and to provide and respect her. He said if he would do these things that this was payment enough. The people of the village thought he was crazy in turning down an opportunity to gain wealth. This man understood true wealth. Friday we had a chance to go to the Catholic orphanage. Here every Friday they provide Atmat pourage. This is a product developed at BYU to help orphan children who have been affected by the aids epidemic here to give them proper nutrition. They also give them medications at this time. But this product helps them regain their weight and give them proper nutrition so the medications will work. They provide a cupful of this for them to drink each Friday and send them home to where ever that may be with a months supply of atmat. It tastes kind of like cream of wheat. It was good tasting. Most children are able to partake but some have a hard time getting this down due to being so under nourished. Some are orphans, some part families. The church ships this atmat by containers to these different locations. Are job was with Elder and Sister Harris was to go there and document that they are receiving this atmat. Elder & Sister Harris take pictures and send back to SLC. Sometimes the wrong people get ahold of this and sell it on the open market. This is a great service given by the LDS church and administered to the children by the catholic church. These children need this so bad. We met a Catholic nun who was over the orphanage called Sister Veronica. From there we went and was shown the atmat and how they prepared it. A nurse was there in charge and was showing us how the pourage was made by another lady called Angelina. We will have pictures in our blog all about this. They brought in about 15 children and fed them the atmat and had them sing some songs. It was a humbling experience. The children just loved to see us white people. They love to be photographed. We will be going back to this place with the Elder's in the future. Next Wed. we are going to go with the elder's and visit a pre school for orphaned and homeless children. I believe this is also going to be a great experience. We also visited Acompa Handcrafts. It was a big area with a lot of different carvers. They carve about anything and their work is amazing. One sister we took with us from Chamgamwa sister Martha works there. There are hundreds of people carving out various animals and people of Africa. We will be bringing some of these back with us. If you get a chance to visit us here in Kenya I'm sure you will want to visit this place and you will want to bring big suitcases with you to take back souvieners. We will also take you on a safari but you can't take a gun just a camera. You will see lots of animals. This place is rich in history also. Elder and Sister Harris were on a safari and an elephant chased them down a dirt road. Luckily they were faster than the elephant. We have 8 Elder's here and they are great young men and really enjoy working with them. Some treat us as parents kinda. Some of the closest bonds we've made have been with the African Elders. We have 5 US elders now and 3 African elders. The next transfer date is in August and this is both a good and bad time for us because we have to say good bye to some but we get to say hello to some. Those who have been transferred from here still email us. They are doing well. We love these boys. The last one who got transferred out almost cryied when he left and so did we. We are meeting our new mission President & wife this Thursday. It will be good to get to know them. A busy wk ahead of us. We will continue to send pics and information on our blog so be sure and ck it out. Forward this email to anyone you might think we have missed. We think of you and pray for all of you daily. Love Elder & Sister Palmer, Mom & Dad and friend

Indian Ocean

You will never see such white sand anywhere.  It was beautiful!  We went there after doing the laundry and had lunch.  This the Indian Ocean is where they go when the tide is out to collect shells. 

We stayed at the beach (Indian Ocean) and layed out a few blankets we had in the truck and had ourself a picnic.  The Elder's had brought a sack lunch for each one which consisted of pbj sandwich, potato chips,soda and lifesavers.  We brought fruit, water and hugh jar of cookies.  The family was so happy.  Sister Sabeancia looked better today.  We are hoping to get her body built up to have that operation she needs.  Sabeancia and myself was folding the blankets which were new and a still small voice said, ReNae she needs these.  She looked at me and said she had only 1 blanket and that she got so cold at night.  I asked her if she would like these. The look on her face was pure joy.  Many hugs were given and she looked up to the sky and said bless them, bless them.  I also felt the love of our Savior as I stood there.  The joy of service was wonderful

This is the Indian Ocean where we had the picnic with Sabeancia and her family.  Sister Jael, Sister Eva, sister Sabeancia and myself enjoying wading out in it.  It was so warm and like I said the sand was so white. What a glorious 4th of July we had. 

Sabeancia

This picture is taken in front of Sabeancia's kitchen which is just a lean to.  There is no power to her flat.  From left to right. Me, Sister Jael, Sister Eva and Sabeancia

We were hanging clothes everywhere due to the fact that Sabeancia has really been sick and has not been able to wash.  Her kids collect sea shells to sale for money.  That is how they make their living.  It is very little but she has such a sweet spirit about her.  She loves her kids so much and loves the gospel.

Africa Pictures

These are women who go to the market everyday and they have so much to carry that they carry their loads on top of their heads. They go out daily for their meals

We got two new transfers in.  Elder Jamison is from Alberta Canada and Elder MaSibi from South Africa.  Elder Dimingu & Elder Rakotonalala were transferred to a different area.  We will miss these two. 

Sister Sabeancia has been really sick so Elder Lyons and Elder Jamison, sister Eva who is RS president & Sister Jael who is Primary president, some Sabenacia's kids and Elder and Sister Palmer  went and did a months worth of laundry by hand.

Update from Mombasa

Dear Family & Friends We've had quite an eventful few wks. The blessings have really been poured out and prayers have truly been answered proving yet another kind mercy from our Heavenly Father. Habari (how are you) we are mzvri sana (very fine). We have been trying to learn alittle Swahili, atleast some greetings. We feel that as long as these people know we are trying they are happy. On the most part the people have so very little but yet seem so happy. Of course you see a lot of very very poor people who you would like to help but can't. But the most valueable help we can give them is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is more important than anything else that we can give them. As we travel into Mombasa City where the branch is it sore of reminds us of Las Vegas. When your at a stop or busy intersection people are handing out flyers or selling something. Here there is no stop signs or lights but traffic is so heavy your often at a stop. Here they are trying to sell you apples, oranges, sugar cane, jewlry or knives or are begging for money. That's what they do just to survive. They told us these people are very poor but yet they are well dressed. The men all wear trousers or slacks, very few have levi's on and they wear nice dress shirts, maybe a few have t shirts but the women wow they are very colorful, The women wear skirts and jackets and beautiful dresses, some I'd like to have for myself. You see an occasional woman wearing pants but not too many. I think a lot of it is the humidity and skirts are cooler. Most children go to private schools here and it is quite a sacrifice for their families. The school children have uniforms with the same color for both boys and girls. They live at these schools and have little contact with their parents for 3 months. Then they come home for a few days and the other children who aren't rich enough go to public schools but as of now the teachers are on strike because of low wages. It seems so funny that there doesn't seem to be any government help. But the government is corrupt here and they keep money for themselves. Just an update on our accident with the matautu (missionary van). It ended up we pd 41,000 shillings just to be able to keep our truck. $410.00 The mission home will reimburse us. The sad part it wasn't our fault and if you were here you would know what we mean. Seeing that we are white we are suppose to be very rich. The matautu owners are Muslins and they have 3 vans. They estimated they take in 4000 shillings aday but there is a lot more money than that but once you pay the drivers the owners pocket the rest. The owners were nice and the husband works at the prison as a guard. But his wife did most of the talking with us and the police. The husband was not there he was in Niarobi at the time. We did meet him and he seemed really nice. He did cut the bill down about 17,000 shillings. Elder Harris we found out did not have Malaria but him and his companion have Dengue Fever from mosqueito's It's a virus and you can't really treat it. They are to get plenty of rest and eat fruits, veg. soup and drink lots of fluids. They are doing much better now. It's better that they didn't have Malaria, because Malaria has lasting effects for life. The Elder's take a lot of our time up and it's ok because we really love them. 2 got transferred and we've heard from them in emails which was so nice. That must mean they miss us. We have been here alittle over a month, Larry thought he'd include a few of his journal entries. May 28th- boared our last plane to Niarobi and was very tired of flying and was alittle air sick. We got at Niarobi about 9:30 pm. Met President and Sister Broadbent and was able to have a good night sleep. May 29th- Went with Broadbent's and Olsens to Mombasa. On the way there we stayed at a motel in a Safari area. Saw quite a few animals. May 30th Thrusday- continued on to Mombasa, The roads are in terrible repair. I'm amazed at the volume of traffic of trucks and cars. We got to our apartment , holy cow poor mom, I can tell she is struggling After a while comes out of the back room and is thankful to be here, however I am not so sure. May 31- Went to a zone conference and met our missionaries. We asked president Broadbent what we should do,he told us make your own mission. Take it slow. We had expected more direction. June 2nd we prayed night and morning to know what to do. Went to Changamwa Branch and was amazed at the strong testimonies of the people here. Have started driving in our truck, I am so lost here. Monday June 3rd- Happy Birthday Angie, we are so homesick. Mom is to but she is coping very well. I'm so proud of her. If they ask us to go back to the US I know we would. But I know we should be here. We went to pick up the elders we got lost finaly they found us. They showed us around & one was sick took them to the doctor. They told us how to get back to our flat. So we left them Then we became hopelessly lost. After driving around for some time a man stopped us he said that he knew the couple before us and could tell we were lost. He came with us showed us back to our apt. I was so glad to be back. And happy the lord answered our prayers. June25 opps mom said I need to be better at my journal Mom has me working out every morning.& I am eating smaller portions Holy cow it is working .I can know look down & see my feet. I don't know how much I have lost but the belly has gone down a lot .I have to tighten my belt or my pants will fall down. So much has happened with us. We don't get lost any more. But have had a few problems with the other drivers and have had a few fender benders, not as bad as the last. As you can read in his journal entries he was very homesick and confused, but today is July 2nd and our prayers have been answered. We know so much more of what we are to do. We are still learning but understanding more everyday. Just wish we could get the computer skills working. We have yet been able to scan documents to send to the mission home. We are really struggling and we even had a missionary who thinks he is pretty smart in computers come show us and he didn't know either. He said he hates windows 8 as even Staci has mentioned it. We need to pray for help and so we will be able to do our part. We really are doing good and really love the people here, we would like to help them with money as they are so very poor. But we have been instructed not to do that. But we can show them the gospel which will effect them for eternity and is worth more than any amount of money we could give. We know we have purposes here and hope we will be able to accomplish them. We are going to start teaching a temple seminar class and a family history class. We love you guys and miss everyone and we pray for you daily. Not only our family but for our friends as well. Love Elder & Sister Palmer