Good morning to you,
The mission is once again very busy as always. President Weed will finish interviewing every missionary on Thursday.
He interviews every missionary about every six weeks and has frequent
contact with them throughout the month. So he and Sister Weed are
very well aware of the missionaries situation temporally and
spiritually. Every missionary will have his/her ups and downs
throughout the month. Most of the time the missionaries are pretty
even. Once in a while there are things that seem to be bigger than
life. Give a day or two and things are back to normal. For instance, I
have a landlord who is may not be as nice as our other landlords. He
lives in another village 1/2 of the time, which is not unusual. We
spend more time with him trying to solve problems. He seems to be
difficult to live deal with. Just before a major holiday on a Friday
and another holiday on Monday he has left to travel to his other home. On Friday afternoon
the missionaries water was turned off by the water company for
non-payment. The water nor electricity company are suppose to turn
anything off on a holiday. So the missionaries were without water for 4
days. We do own our water tank on the top of the building. And the
missionaries should have been able to get water. But the door to the
roof was locked and they had no access to the tank. Results, no water.
So the missionaries went across the road and paid for water that they
put in 5 gallon containers and carried up the water three floors every
day for 4 days. When I found out about it on Friday night,
I offered to pick them up and bring them to to our apartment for
showers. They thought it was a nuisance and continued to carry the
water. Now how would you like that! I visited with the elders
following their ordeal, they said it was extremely difficult and was one
of the hardest things they had to do. The stairs are uneven and a new
elder tripped and fell, hurt his back. I think on Elder Maxwell's
talk on "patience" and wonder what they learned and what I learned.
All is well. I hope it doesn't happen again. By the way the President
was at their apartment when the water was out and the electricity went
off as well; which is a usual occurrence in our mission. The president
seems to be where the challenges are and is well aware of them. The
Lord knows how he is tempering each of us. There was a book written
several years ago by Elder Dyer, as I recall, called The Refiner's Fire,
or something like that.
Another example, last
Friday we went to the Post Office. We received about 15 Christmas
packages and 25-50 letters and cards. We go to the post office 2 or 3
times a week. They had been stored for some time. This is not unusual.
They told us that there had been some kind of security breach which
caused the delay. Some of the packages were mailed 19 Nov and 23 of Nov
and up to 21 of December. This is why we suggest DHL or FEDEX and not
USPS. Some of the packages, letters will be delivered to Togo today.
Some packages that the missionaries are expecting still have not
arrived. Those with letters and packages were very pleased.
I noticed a trend this
month of January. It is only 2/3 of the way through the month and
missionaries are short of money. I wonder if they got caught up in the
Holiday season spending more than they should have. They will be
fine, they do know how to manage.
As I have said, the
missionaries have lived many more wonderful days and have many more
stories to tell. I leave the stories for them to tell and most of the
details are for them as well to share in their own way and time. This
is true of the no water in the apartment for 4 days.
The new mission president
for our mission was announced recently. He and his wife are from Quebec
Canada. Both speak French. I understand that she is a nurse. I don't
know much about him yet. The picture is just being put together. The
new mission presidents go to Provo for four days. His name is
Pierre-Paul Morin. He begins 1 July 2014.
We hope that all of you are well. Our thoughts and concerns are for your well being as well as the missionaries.
Elder Semken
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