Hi Fam,
So, I surely won't be able to top the African adventure. We just picked Matt and Jodi up and it was so great to hear of some of their amazing trip AND it is also great to see them again on the soil of the good ole USofA. The can feel a lot safer now, like for example when I was driving home a couple of days ago there were cop cars on every corner but mostly on our corner by Ricos. Dang, I was 10 minutes too late or I would have seen a gangster laid out on the ground getting handcuffed and the rest had scattered. So the cops had bloodhounds and were going all through the neighborhood and had set up a "parimeter" (that's Jack Bauer speak). Guess it was a clash between a white and a black gang.
Like Bryn said....all in a days work. So to get the flavor of our ward/stake, we went to Adult session of Stake conference. One guy, from Democratic Republic of Congo, spoke French and so he had a girl who interpreted his talk into English where some other interpreters were there in the crowd to interpret into Spanish for those who need that. Wild huh. His story was about growing up there in constant state of war, turmoil, running and ALWAYS hiding. He almost lost his life like others around him twice. One time he watched his Father and brother get killed. Another time, he escaped from the "secret prison" where people go and just disappear. Then he and his wife and a few kids ended up in a refugee camp where they almost starved, caught Scabies, and the condidtions were horrible. He prayed to get out. They said it would be 8 months. He couldn't stand it that long, so he prayed to God that their paper work would go through more quickly. After 3 short months, they were taken to the US. He didn't know where he would end up, but he knew when he got here he was going to look for a church. You can guess the rest.....Then another gal got up and was from Nigeria. She and her mom had looked and looked for a church they could believe in, but finally decided there was not one so they held their own little church at their house every week. The missionaries came but her mom was very skeptical....finally they joined and this girl went on a mission a year later to Ghana. Her soon-to-be husband was in the US and got a feeling he needed to go to Nigeria. He had no idea why, but went. Met this girl and they got married very soon aftter. A really cool couple. If you look around the audience you don't see very many families. Mostly elderly, newly weds and majority of single folks.
Our Stake Conference was held in the Assembly hall on Temple square.....WOW! Same old, same old. Our neighbor in our ward was just announced as Stake YW President. We talked to her after. There are about 15 girls in the whole stake who show up for activity so they have combined them and just have stake activity every week. There are about 60-70 girls elibible. And the ones who do show up I'm sure all have their various major issues and need the love and support of some example leaders.
So we were going to catch Trax to get to temple square but just ended up walking there instead. We are getting great ideas for our weekly "new" restaurant venture as we walk these streets.
My work had a surprise B-day party last Friday and I WAS truly surprised. I thought I had snuck under the radar being a weekend and all, but it was way cool anyway.
So now I see Dad blogging over there so I'm sure we'll repeat some of the same things.
I'll be for jumping off now.
Great story Ryan. That's a keeper. Jodi, thanks for the wild pictures (literally) and Bryn, good show ole girl. War wounds after all! Sweet!
Love you all!!
MOM
So, I surely won't be able to top the African adventure. We just picked Matt and Jodi up and it was so great to hear of some of their amazing trip AND it is also great to see them again on the soil of the good ole USofA. The can feel a lot safer now, like for example when I was driving home a couple of days ago there were cop cars on every corner but mostly on our corner by Ricos. Dang, I was 10 minutes too late or I would have seen a gangster laid out on the ground getting handcuffed and the rest had scattered. So the cops had bloodhounds and were going all through the neighborhood and had set up a "parimeter" (that's Jack Bauer speak). Guess it was a clash between a white and a black gang.
Like Bryn said....all in a days work. So to get the flavor of our ward/stake, we went to Adult session of Stake conference. One guy, from Democratic Republic of Congo, spoke French and so he had a girl who interpreted his talk into English where some other interpreters were there in the crowd to interpret into Spanish for those who need that. Wild huh. His story was about growing up there in constant state of war, turmoil, running and ALWAYS hiding. He almost lost his life like others around him twice. One time he watched his Father and brother get killed. Another time, he escaped from the "secret prison" where people go and just disappear. Then he and his wife and a few kids ended up in a refugee camp where they almost starved, caught Scabies, and the condidtions were horrible. He prayed to get out. They said it would be 8 months. He couldn't stand it that long, so he prayed to God that their paper work would go through more quickly. After 3 short months, they were taken to the US. He didn't know where he would end up, but he knew when he got here he was going to look for a church. You can guess the rest.....Then another gal got up and was from Nigeria. She and her mom had looked and looked for a church they could believe in, but finally decided there was not one so they held their own little church at their house every week. The missionaries came but her mom was very skeptical....finally they joined and this girl went on a mission a year later to Ghana. Her soon-to-be husband was in the US and got a feeling he needed to go to Nigeria. He had no idea why, but went. Met this girl and they got married very soon aftter. A really cool couple. If you look around the audience you don't see very many families. Mostly elderly, newly weds and majority of single folks.
Our Stake Conference was held in the Assembly hall on Temple square.....WOW! Same old, same old. Our neighbor in our ward was just announced as Stake YW President. We talked to her after. There are about 15 girls in the whole stake who show up for activity so they have combined them and just have stake activity every week. There are about 60-70 girls elibible. And the ones who do show up I'm sure all have their various major issues and need the love and support of some example leaders.
So we were going to catch Trax to get to temple square but just ended up walking there instead. We are getting great ideas for our weekly "new" restaurant venture as we walk these streets.
My work had a surprise B-day party last Friday and I WAS truly surprised. I thought I had snuck under the radar being a weekend and all, but it was way cool anyway.
So now I see Dad blogging over there so I'm sure we'll repeat some of the same things.
I'll be for jumping off now.
Great story Ryan. That's a keeper. Jodi, thanks for the wild pictures (literally) and Bryn, good show ole girl. War wounds after all! Sweet!
Love you all!!
MOM
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