Preparing to make and keep sacred covenants.

We attended Nsambya ward today for Relief Society and Priesthood meeting.  The lesson was on "Eternal Marriage."

Our discussion leader was a young sister, not married, but was anticipating a time when she would be married and would want to go to the temple.

We talked about how marriage is a vital part of God's plan and is ordained of God.  We discussed why eternal marriage was essential for exaltation.

We read in the Doctrine and Covenants that an eternal marriage must be performed by one who holds the sealing power. The Lord promised, “If a man marry a wife by … the new and everlasting covenant … by him who is anointed, … and if [they] abide in [the Lord’s] covenant, … it … shall be of full force when they are out of the world” (D&C 132:19).

I was asked to share what I thought were the benefits of Eternal Marriage.   I realized I was talking to six sisters who I was almost sure had not gone to the temple and had not received their endowments or been sealed as a family .  I told them about the blessings that come to a husband and wife as they continually work together for that goal of eternal life - that we are entitled to His help in raising our families and solving our problems when we have covenanted with Him in the temple.

The next part of the discussion was "How do we prepare to go to the temple?"
As I listened to the sisters I realized they were struggling to come up with the steps to prepare for the temple.  At that point I saw 'in my minds eye' the Personal Progress book from Young Women.

I remembered the beautiful picture of the temple on the front of the book and inside a picture of Christ  overlayed with  an outline of the temple.

I realized that Personal Progress literally is preparation for going to the temple.

I asked the sisters if any of them had been through the Personal Progress program.  Two of them had and they bore testimony of how much they grew during their time in Young Women's and how they have continued to practice the  principles of learning that they used in the program: setting goals, giving service, reading the scriptures etc.  Personal progress had become a way of life for them.

I asked them if they remembered the Young Women's Theme and we recited it for the rest of the sisters.

WE ARE DAUGHTERS of our Heavenly Father,

who loves us, and we love Him.

WE WILL "STAND as witnesses of God at all times

and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18:9)

as we strive to live the Young Women values, which are:

Faith • Divine Nature

Individual Worth • Knowledge

Choice and Accountability

Good Works • Integrity

and Virtue

WE BELIEVE as we come to accept and act

upon these values, WE WILL BE PREPARED

to strengthen home and family,

make and keep sacred covenants, receive

the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy

the blessings of exaltation

I told the sisters that I had been invited by my granddaughter, Rachel, to participate in personal progress with her and her mother.  I have been working on the values ever since I have been on a mission and I have learned a lot about myself and about my Father in Heaven

I encouraged them to get a personal progress book from the distribution center and work their way through the program and when they finished they would know they were ready to go to the temple.

What you can learn and gain from participating in personal progress.

You are a daughter of Heavenly Father.

You can increase your faith in and testimony of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
You can remain worthy by obeying the commandments and living the standards of the church.
You can come to recognize and act upon the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
You can prepare now to be a better wife, mother, homemaker, and leader.
You can keep your baptismal covenants and be worthy to make and keep sacred temple covenants.

Thank you Rachel for inviting me to participate in Personal Progress.  What a wonderful way to prepare yourself to go to the temple.  Any women whether she was a member of the church or not should be striving for those values listed in the YW theme. 
 
What would the world be like if every woman strived to have Faith, a Divine Nature, if she knew her Individual Worth, if she strived to continually gain Knowledge, if she would try to make good Choices and was Accountable for her actions, if she was continually doing Good Works, if in all things she showed great Integrity and if she truly understood what is 'a woman of virtue'.
 
I love the church and the opportunity for personal growth that it affords me as I have participated in all the wonderfully inspired programs.  I often wonder who would I be if I wasn't a member of the true church of Jesus Christ.  I am grateful for a husband who accepts his role as leader of our family, who honors His priesthood, who loves me and will continue for all eternity.
 
I have come to realize something about myself:   I am centered in the gospel. . .  it defines me . . .it is who I am.

 Young Women Personal Progress Program

Peace and Hope doing good.

One of the great finds of our mission so far is a little group called Peace and Hope. After striving to help the people in their neighborhood they organized themselves in 2006 and became a recognized NGO (non governmental organization.)

They have sheltered young homeless girls, they have taught a sack gardening program to improve the nutrition of families, they started up three sewing training centers: one for women with HIV/AIDS, another for orphaned street girls, and another for girls at risk in their own neighborhood. Through this program they have taught basic sewing skills and training to mothers and girls to sew their own reusable sanitary pads.

Peace and Hope have developed a program teaching maturation clinics for young girls to learn basic knowledge on women’s health and the prevention of HIV/AIDS. They have helped them set up a business of sewing reusable sanitary pads. 

Peace and Hope Training Center

When we visited their center we were impressed with the sheer volume of activity happening there and the number of people benefiting from the services.

Olivia and Elder Barlow in front of Peace and Hope Training Center

The director of Peace and Hope is Olivia Sserabira. She is an amazing woman doing good at every turn and always looking at ways to support those in need. She came to us with a project to train girls of maturation age in school on how to make reusable sanitary pads. She was made aware of a great problem here of girls missing 5 days of school each month because they have no way to manage their monthly needs in a school setting.


The first Peace and Hope project was written for 12 schools and 21 communities to receive health and maturation training. The project provides a sewing machine for the school and even some of the communities. They are taught how to make the reusable sanitary pads and why it is important to embrace this program.


The program provides a bag containing the sanitary pad kit for each girl of maturation age in the schools and then they are taught how to make the pads along with the girls counselor, who keeps the sewing machine and continues to train and mentor the girls.


In the villages the group works with women's organization or they help women get organized and then they train them on the reusable sanitary pad program and give them the personal health and hygiene training using the church’s Family Health and Hygiene manual.


Women learning how to make reusable sanitary pads.

The issue of disposable sanitary pads is a huge sanitation problem in the cities and in the rural areas girls and women are unable to purchase sanitary pads and menstruation is difficult to manage especially if a girl is trying to go to school.
Olivia’ s reception in the schools was wonderful as the girls and their teachers embraced the program and were delighted to get a sewing machine which will sustain the program for years to come. The schools are taking the Health and Hygiene manuals and creating a health curriculum for all the children in school.

expect 40 and get 140

The most overwhelming response was with the women in the villages. We attended two training sessions in the community. Each session was suppose to bring in 30 community members to train on making reusable sanitary pads and discuss health and hygiene. The first session had 80 women and men in attendance and the second session ended up with 140 people attending, far more than anticipated. Dr. Bayigga Michael Lulume,Member of Parliament in this area, has attended every training session and even given some of the Health and Hygiene training as he is a medical doctor.

MP teaching hygiene and sanitation

Communities are left with a trainer, a sewing machine and materials for furthering the training. Peace and Hope also gives them enough material to get started in making the pads which they will sell to generate more sewing supplies for more pads. An average of 3-4 training sessions are conducted in each community.

While doing the Hygiene and Sanitation training Olivia realized that often the women do not have soap to wash their clothes or cooking pots. So she just went ahead and taught them to make soap. She shared with them the idea of sack gardens for those who had no space for a garden. She even taught some groups how to make candles. All of these trainings are potential income generation projects which the women can use to improve their family income.

The Member of Parliament stated that the training has given his people much needed concepts to improve family health, something they had never been given access to before. This training was only covering half of his constituency and he asked if we could extend the project to cover all of his area. At this request we have been given approval to do another project so that all of his constituency will benefit from this program.


Women state that they never understood what causes illness nor did they understand the role of nutrition in the health of their children. Women are being empowered to impact their families health and nutrition and younger girls are learning to be their own advocates and being empowered to manage their own needs.

Studying the Health and Hygiene manual

One father thanked Olivia for training his daughter in maturation and the prevention of HIV/AIDS as his wife had died and he felt helpless in how to teach his daughter the things she needed to know. He called her a blessing and knelt down in front of her. Olivia was at a loss as in Uganda the women kneels before man not man before a woman. It was such a wonderful expression of gratitude.

Mother and daughter going over the healthy pregnancy information

This project is so successful at motivating people to improve their health that one woman’s organization has petitioned Peace and Hope to become a satellite of their organization. Peace and Hope have granted permission to the group and they have already started making plans to go deeper in to the rural areas to share the information they have learned and they have started a commercial business of selling the sanitary pads to fund their outreach.


We visited the second project last week and found women working together to improve their abilities to sustain their families. They were already organized in to clubs concentrating on farming, cooking and baking and the third of making, marketing and selling crafts. These are rural women finding ways to unite together to solve their problems. One group has a bank in which each member puts in 2,000 shillings a month ($1) and the bank can make loans to the women for school fees, starting a business or even for needed health care. The loans are paid back at a simple interest of !0% with no time frame stipulated. Pretty impressive. . . 

Some make paper beads and sell them as a group to strengthen their organization



Some women weave mats and sell them in the market

Peace and Hope is working with them , giving them the Health and Hygiene Training and the concept of reusable sanitary pads. The women are embracing all the information and incorporating it into their organizations even committing to take the training to the schools themselves making it possible to reach many more schools than we had planned for in the project.

This is called perpetuation of the project and will ensure the sustainability of the training which all of our projects strive for.

One of the concepts we have learned:
If you give people good information and the tools they need to be successful they can govern themselves and accomplish great things.

WE CALL THIS SUCCESS!

Suckers help make friends.

While buying that huge jackfruit we met some beautiful children. 

Hey, muzungus!

Anyone want a sucker?

Can I help you unwrap it?

(She's going to unwrap if for me!)

(Maybe she can unwrap it.)

(Come on muzungu, you can get it.)

Thank you. . . . . . . . Bye.

How many times since coming to Uganda have we exclaimed -- "What is that?"
Living all my life in a desert means many firsts when you come to the tropics.  We had seen these odd, huge things hanging in trees and for sale on the side of the road and were told they were jackfruit, very sweet.    When we've been out in the villages we see children eating this strange fruit and relishing every bite.

We tried to buy a jackfruit when we were out in Wakiso.  We had Ssimbwa try to purchase one but because we are muzungus and Ssimbwa (not a muzungu) was riding in our nice, brand new truck the lady asked an exorbitant price of 20,000 shillings ($10) which we refused to pay. 

So when we were out in Masaka I announced to everyone that would listen that I was going to buy a Jackfruit before I left town. 

When we got ready to leave Eddie rode with us to the outskirts of the town to a roadside market and purchased a Jackfruit so I could have the experience. He warned me that I should wear gloves when cutting the jackfruit as it has a very sticky latex type sap that sticks to everything it touches including the knife and your hands.

We got home late and set the jackfruit in the kitchen.  The next morning there was this odd, rather nasty smell in our kitchen.  I thought the garbage was smelling but no, it was the Jackfruit.    Farrell refused to cut the thing open so it was left to me to have the Jackfruit experience. 

I got on the internet and found a video tutorial on cutting jackfruit  (who puts this stuff on the internet anyway).  I got some news paper and covered the counter put oil on the knife and my hands as a precaution (the sap) and attacked the giant green thing. 

"Jackfruit is the largest tree-borne fruit in the world, reaching 80 pounds in weight and up to 36 inches long and 20 inches in diameter. The exterior of the compound fruit is green or yellow when ripe. The interior consists of large edible bulbs of yellow, banana-flavored flesh that encloses a smooth, oval, light-brown seed. The seed is 3/4 to 1-1/2 inches long and 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick and is white and crisp within. There may be 100 or up to 500 seeds in a single fruit, which are viable for no more than three or four days. When fully ripe, the unopened jackfruit emits a strong disagreeable odor, resembling that of decayed onions, while the pulp of the opened fruit smells of pineapple and banana." (Wikipedia )

I believe it!  This fruit is another one of those interesting creations. It does have a sticky sap that glombed on to the knife and refused to let go.  It stuck to everything it touched.  

Seems all of this fruit is useful.  The seeds can be roasted and eaten like chestnuts or ground and steeped for tea.  Ssimbwa said that the tea is used for controlling blood sugar in people with diabetes.  The fiberous inside around the fruit is boiled and eaten like a vegetable (didn't try that).  He also said that when he was a young boy that they use to use the outer peel to comb their hair. 

It is rather spiny and could be used like one of those round plastic, palm brushes that my brothers use to use for their flattop haircuts. 

 

But look at the beautiful pockets of fruit nestled inside this monster.  You can cut them out intact to eat.  The texture is firm and somewhat chewy and has a pleasant taste that is a combination of mango, pineapple and papya. 

Why does it have to be so huge.  It took me forever to dissect the fruit from the fruit and I only dissected half of it.  I tried giving the left over half to Sis. Beachley but she refused and said, "I'm not going to eat that, it stinks!"  Farrell ate some and we made our guests who came to dinner try it as none of them had eaten it before. 

 I finally gave the other half to Henry our apt. manager who was delighted.  He loves to eat and will eat anything.  After about 4 days I told Christine, our housekeeper, to take the rest home as i felt we had had our fill.

So that was the Jackfruit experience.  The only real negative to the experience was that sticky sap.  I washed the knife and my hands with soap, bleach, and cleanser to no avail.  I still had sap everywhere.  WD40 to the rescue.  You can conquor anything with WD40 . . . oh and duck tape both of which (by the way) you can get in Kampala.

I love Jackfuit!  Will I ever buy another jackfruit?  I doubt it.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

Got a call yesterday that some old friends would be in town and could we get together for dinner. 

It is like having our own kids coming to Africa to see us.  Pres. Eustache Ilunga  from the DRC and Robert Hokenson from Salt Lake City came to dinner and it was great fun.

Eustache was the mission office manager in the Congo when we were there.  Since then he has a new position of Employment coordinator for the Africa East Area and the same month he accepted this new position they made him Stake President of the Kinshasa Stake. 

Robert Hokenson was over all water projects for the church when we were in the Congo and took a trip with us to that great water project in Luputa.  We will always remember him jogging around the village one evening with about 300 kids following him where ever he went.  Robert is now over Microfinancing for the church (or something like that).  They have come to Uganda with Elder and Sister Byrd to talk to microfinancing groups in Kampala trying to find places to refer members for help in developing businesses.

Eustache was very good to us in the Congo and we love him and his family.  Robert reminds us so much of our son Ben.  He has the same crazy sense of humor and laughs just like Ben.

So you see today was a great treat for us to get to see two very special people who we never want to forget and who have become part of our lives.  --  just like our kids coming to visit.

Well, it's a , it's a , , , well, what is it?

Are we stepping back in to prehistoric times? What is this thing? A Pterodactyl? A Aepyornis?

We had to go to the Barclay bank this week. Not the branch close to home but the one right down town in the middle of the traffic nightmare. We parked in the first parking place we could find which happened to be several meters from the bank but walking was less hazardous than trying to get through the downtown gridlock (so we thought).

As we walked along the sidewalk dodging the pieces of broken concrete Farrell grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side just in time to miss being drenched in a bucket of . . .

I looked up in the tree and there sat 3 huge birds. One sat on a large nest while the other two perched on the branches. They were right in the top of this huge tree.

I was remembering my Congo days and my "pig poop" experience and I felt a great relief that Farrell was aware enough to pull me out of the line of fire. This is not some Utah Seagull or pigeon this is a very big bird that stands about 3 feet talll with a 6 foot wing span.

We have seen this bird flying through the air looking like an airplane with it's huge wings flapping.

We have seen them standing on water tanks on top of buildings.

We have seen them standing in the very tip top of large trees.

They are HUGE! They are UGLY! They are way too big to walk under when they are sitting way up in a tree.

But actually these are not the only odd birds here in Uganda. There are some huge crows that bombard our apartment every day cawing so loud you think they are right in the apartment with you. We haven't been able to catch a picture of the crows yet.

We have other strange long beak birds that sit on the roof top of the buildings surrounding our apartment.

All these birds are rather large and fly without any difficulty.

There are many beautiful, colorful birds of all sizes including parrots. At least we have been told there are many parrots but we havent' seen any yet.

Uganda's national bird is the Grey Crowned Crane. A beautiful bird that has become their treasured logo and is featured in their flag and coat of arms.

But my favorite are the Guinea hens with their black featheres, white dot markings, little splash of red on their head and their fat little bodies.

But the mystery remains as we try to identify these huge, ominous birds and we are at a loss . . . so here is the challenge my grannies:

The first one to identify this big, ugly bird wins a real Ugandan drum.

You are going to like it so get busy and identify this ugly prehistoric beast . . .

Really, This is the Equator!!

Who ever thought we would be on a mission in Africa right on the equator?
There ought to be a park, a reserve, a monument, something to really designate this special place here on our world.  But no, just a few souvenir shops and  a yellow line across the road but still pretty exciting to stand on the Equator.  Bet you have never had your left foot in the Southern Hemisphere while your right foot was in the Northern Hemisphere.(well actually you may have as the Equator passes through about 10 countries)

Come on now, let's get a little excited.  This is the equator, you know, that intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass.. . .  the imaginary line on the Earth's surface equidistant from the North Pole and South Pole that divides the Earth into a Northern Hemisphere and a Southern Hemisphere.(That def.'s for you Lincoln and Ethan and Kade) 

That's right The Equator - it is right here in Uganda just an hours drive from Kampala.  We crossed the Equator the first time we went to Masaka.  The road is dusty as it is all under construction but it is there and we got to transverse it July 22, 2010.

Here on ther Equator we experience the quickest rates of sunrise and sunset in the world.  It is daylight and within 10 minutes it is dark.  Same in the morning,  it is night and in 10 minutes it is totally light.  There are12 hours of day and night throughout the year (or almost). 

  

Their is a unique experiment they do at the Equator.  For a price they will show you the gravity pull in the different hemispheres.  You stand on the southern Hemisphere side of the Equator and watch water go down a drain.  The water will circle clockwise.  Then you go 20 feet over to the Northern Hemisphere side and watch the water drain and it drains counterclockwise.  If you stand right on the Equator the water just swooshes down the drain hole without circling either way.  Pretty amazing!

You can have such an experience by paying 20,000 Ugandan shillings for the privilege.  But only if you have Ssimbwa along with you who tells the man that you are rich Americans and can afford the big price.  Actually we got the privilege for about $2.50 after Farrell refused to pay the muzungu price.

Eddie and Ssimbwa were with us  for our first Equator experience and they seemed to enjoy watching our "first" and agreed to pose for us.  There are probably a hundred pictures of them at the Equator floating around the world with all the missionaries they have taken to see this landmark.

Well, it was one of those firsts for us, one of many in Africa.  Don't think we will forget this first for a while.

Oh, and by the way, it seems that the little experiment is not as valid as we thought .  It all depends upon how the water was introduced and the geometric structure of the drain.  I could have done with out that little bit of reality - I got pretty enthralled with that experiment.