I’m here! I’m still positive that it’s going to take me a
while to process everything.
This morning we had Stake Conference, and seriously it was
fantastic. When we arrived at the Stake Center, seriously so many people
came to shake our hands. Members, missionaries, young girls, kids, and a lot
of eligible young men. (I've never had so much attention from boys. Jenn's assured me
it’s only the beginning….) The new Stake Young Women’s president spoke about the
worth of a soul, and told the congregation that,
“We should be losing sleep about our brothers and sisters
who have wandered off the path.”
Her whole talk was on this subject, and everything in the
conference was about acting on the messages. One speaker even challenged
everyone to find someone to bring to church within the next 2 months. I’ve got
my work cut out for me! You should take on the challenge too. :)
After church, we visited some more, and then the mutatu came
to pick us up (more on these later). Peter and Kate took us to the grocery
store for some food. Thank goodness for the reserve of airplane food and
granola bars that I’d stored away.
For the first few minutes, I seriously just wandered around.
I knew that we had to plan for breakfast and lunch without power and
refrigeration (just in case), so I finally ended up with 2 pkgs. Spaghetti, 1
jar pasta sauce, 2 loaves brown bread, 1 box. Corn flakes, 1 bag of milk (yes
you read that right), 1 jar peanut butter, 1 box of orange juice, and 2 Twix
bars. All for UgSh 60,000 (about $24).
Because the bagged milk has like, zero preservatives, I
decided to make my next 3 meals corn flakes and milk.
Bowl of cereal. Simple, right? Wrong. This bag of
milk was not conducive to pouring at all. I cut the corner, small enough I
thought to manage, but immediately milk started flying all over our small
kitchen. My friend Emma grabbed the bag, and when I tried to redirect the milk,
I lost even more. Well, I guess the good news is that there’s less milk for me
to go through.
Everybody in Africa really does live by the phrase Hakuna
Mutata. So many people around here say “no problem” or “roll with it,”
even out of context, to the point that it’s just a cultural thing. So, after
cleaning up all of the milk, and getting what was left into a pitcher, I
finally sat down for my bowl of corn flakes and tried to laugh it off. It tasted different to say the
least, but definitely not the horrible break from American food that I had imagined before I got here.
After lunch, we got to go to an orphanage for babies and
toddlers, and oh. my. word. Can I please just gush about crossing this one off
of my bucket list??? The kids were so precious, and all they wanted was to be
held (there were so many of them). They weren’t very interested in going to
play or even sharing my friends and I. In fact, a few fights ensued when they
found out that I could hold more than one child at a time. I think that after
being raised in a loving setting, but with many, many other children, they just
wanted some one on one time. One woman walked by and said, "Are you a mother of three?" I told her I was just holding the children, and she replied, "Today you are." Tender moment, for sure.
A birthday party was taking place at the orphanage, so
everybody got a small piece of cake to eat with their hands. Even the very
small babies (they had to be no more than 1) were walking around and
feeding themselves, and caking me in the process. It’s okay, I’ll just wash off
later. I sang the ABC’s with them, and I even hummed I am a Child of God to
them. They were so pure, and so sweet. I’m just so excited to go back next
week. :)
We're ending tonight with the power out. We're supposed to have it fixed around 9 tomorrow, and then maybe I'll actually be able to post all of this!
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