A few visitors

Over the past few weeks we've had some visitors.  Elder Alfredo (sitting to Briant's left), was here serving in our branch when we first arrived in Angola.  We had him over every week for 4 months, and grew to love him and his gentle spirit.  He would always wrap himself up in one of our blankets during their meetings because of the cold air from the air conditioning wall unit.  Angolans and Mozambicans (as most Africans, I hear) have very thin blood as we've discovered, and are known to wear winter hats, coats, and sweaters in warm weather.  Elder Alfredo was finishing up his mission that week (after several months in the office as one of President Merrill's assistants), so he wanted to come and say good-bye before heading home to Mocambique, and of course eat one more of "Irmao Platt's" dinners.  Briant has given many Elders nice journals that he orders specifically for them.  Most of them come into the mission without a journal.  Elder Alfredo expressed gratitude for the journal that he had the chance to write in for almost a year of his mission.  Briant gave him another journal as they said good-bye, explaining that he could write about school, his search for a wife, his wedding, etc.  After Briant said this, Elder Alfredo smiled.  The Elders leave the mission normally very excited for the next stage of their life, especially the thought of getting married.  :) And now we have three Americans serving in our area (the most we've had at one time) with Elder Bradshaw and Elder Mitchell that are new.  It's sad to say goodbye because most likely we will never see the Mozambican Elders again.  We're grateful for modern technology though so we can stay in touch that way!

Another visitor was Aaron, our wonderful friend.  Sadly for us, plans have changed for him, so his summer departure will now be earlier, much to his relief.  It's hard for both husband and wife to be apart 4 weeks at a time, every other month,  We'll be sad to see him go though because we've become friends and have enjoyed our association with him.  We all love when Aaron comes over to eat, play games, etc.  Savannah was excited to learn that Aaron knows how to play the violin since she has started taking lessons after school.  So the last time he came over before he left for the states, they had fun playing together!Sunday we had the pleasure of visiting with President and Sister Merrill in our home.  They came to pick something up, and stayed for dinner so they could eat Briant's famous tacos.  It was great to visit with them.  They stood in front of the wall that says, "With God, nothing is impossible" to take the pic.  They said that it is very true and appropriate for them.  Sister Merrill in particular had never traveled outside of a 200 mile radius from her home in Arizona until they came to Angola.  They were quite shocked by the call but they accepted with faith!

 

The Merrills' three years of serving is up in June, so we're grateful that we'll have almost our whole tour here with them.  They are wonderful people and I love hearing about how their lives are going here in Angola.  That is not what you would call a "coveted" place to serve as mission presidents!  :)  I appreciated the chance to have Sister Merrill's input on our church situation too.  She empathizes with my feelings as of late, that the kids and I aren't getting much out of church being in Portuguese.  About a month ago, I started helping in the nursery the last hour instead of going to Relief Society because the little kids there talk my speed of Portuguese.  :)  Since then, one of my kids' Primary teachers (Sister Vicky) that is American, has moved, and Sister Lisa is out of Angola right now, and is out of Angola much of the time, so they're without a teacher.  I've gone back and forth on whether we should just attend Sacrament and then do "home-church" for Primary because the kids have complained that they don't understand anything even when they're with a teacher.  They want me to attend with them to translate for them.  Sounds easy, but the room is made of concrete and tile so everything is loud like the noises from the chairs, the a/c unit, doors opening and closing, etc.  Everything is loud except for the soft voices of the leaders/teachers, so it's hard for me to understand what they're saying (I've been amazed at how softly they speak here to each other, and they can still hear one another!).  And for me to translate would just add to the noises and chaos that exist already.  Briant doesn't want to home-church because he wants to be useful, as do I, so I've started taking the kids with me to nursery.  They absolutely love it and are leading all of the activities for the teachers--Sunday we sang a few songs like "Do as I'm doing" (translated our own way because we didn't have the words with us), played "Duck, Duck, Dog" because we didn't know how to say 'goose' in Portuguese, hand games like "Rock, Paper, Scissors," and "Micky Fala," our version of "Simon Says," etc.  Now that I can see the leaders are depending on us to do almost the whole hour of play/activity time, we'll try and prepare quieter activities and maybe even try to have a gospel focus.  We were in a very small room because the slightly larger room where they are normally (which is very small), is next to a bathroom that had clogged pipes and reeked of urine.  This smaller room had no windows, so we were uncomfortably hot and sweaty the whole time.  Did I mention that it's summer here and most a/c's don't work?  The teachers express their appreciation for our help and the toys that we've given, so for now, this is what we'll do.  One of the teachers, Irma Maria, said that she appreciates learning from me (not that I have anything to teach her!), but if it's helping Irma Maria, then we'll be there.

Our last visitor that we had just a few nights ago, was our U.S. Ambassador, Helen La Lime.  She came to our building to look at another apartment, so she stopped by to see ours.  She has tried to encourage the housing board to look for homes instead of apartments for families because she knows how tight things can be for the kids if they don't have an outdoor space to play.  She walked in and right away said, "I don't know how you do it.  It's like living on a boat!"  Really, at this point, we're used to the "coziness" and intimacy that a smaller place gives us, so I have no complaints.  And how can I when we live in a space much nicer and larger than most Angolans?

After looking at the apartment, I invited the Ambassador to stay for dinner (I totally shocked Briant because he was just planning on making "breakfast for dinner."  He was a good sport to go along with it!  (Here in Angola, as much of our time when I homeschooled in Utah, Briant cooks dinner while I handle the kids with homework, reading, piano, etc.  We're both very happy with the distribution of responsibilities.  :) ).  Surprisingly, the Ambassador agreed to stay, but she wanted to contribute bread from a nearby bakery, so she and our kids walked together to get the bread.  The kids misled her a little (it was actually dark), so it took them a little while to find it--poor lady, she was in high heels walking these rocky, dirty streets.  Anyway, they returned as Briant finished whipping up a wonderful "Cobb" style salad with some Olive Garden salad dressing and bacon that Aaron brought back for us the last time he came from the states (we didn't think bacon and eggs would cut it for the Ambassador).  We had a wonderful visit with her and got to know about her and her kids better.  She has lived a very full life in fun places and speaks 4 languages fluently.  She will probably be retiring soon.  We're glad our kids had this experience of being with the Ambassador in our home.  They enjoyed talking about school and showing off their piano skills to her too.  As seen in the pic, our kids still don't really have any sense of appropriate diplomatic behavior, nor do they care.  And that's okay with me.  Things get a little too 'stuffy' for me too sometimes in formal settings with 'important' people.  It's nice when you can be yourself, especially in your own home.