Winding it up

We can hardly believe the measles immunization campaign is almost over and we are going home. We've had some very difficult challenges. Not one thing has been easy or simple, but just when we started to feel overwhelmed and discouraged, everything worked out, just like President Hinckley said it would. "Things will work out, keep trying, be believing, be happy, don't get discouraged, things will work out." Those words have been on our wall and we read them every day. We are very grateful for the help we have received in this important project.

The leaders in the Ministry of Health are very appreciative of all we've done. We really feel like we made a difference. One official said we were like angels sent to rescue them. Many people who have never heard of the Church before, now know who we are and hopefully have a good impression.

This is a picture of one of the members of the Church working in a clinic. He is administering vitamin A drops to a child to boost his immune system. The head nurse at the clinic praised the members for beeing so dependable and working so hard. She was very happy.

Volunteering all day can make you hungry. One of our coordinators bought snacks and took them around to the members.

Two of the Young Single adults were records keepers. They counted the hundreds of children who came to get immunized. Each child gets a "tick" on the sheet.

We are starting to get good reports from all over. The members of the Church are out there serving their country in large numbers. They are making a difference.

Sunday in Lobotse

We visited the Lobotse Branch, about 60 miles from Gaborone, on Sunday. It was amazing to see how much they have grown since we were here four years ago. They have a new building that is really nice. The members are stronger. We attended a baptism after. These boys are filling the font out back.

It is wonderful when they have someone who can play the keyboard. This Elder must have been thankful he took piano lessons when he was a kid. Most of the time they push a button that plays the hymns automatically, someone gets up and waves their arm and everyone sings along.

Members of the Lobatse Branch are ready to serve in the measles campaign next week.

Lobotse Primary children acting goofy

The Game Drive

We took Saturday afternoon off and went for a game drive in a reserve near Gaborone. When we were out in the bush a sudden a storm blew up and it poured rain. It was a real gully washer. Even though we were in a covered vehicle, we got drenched from head to toe. We found shelter in this little building.

Then the sun came out and we drove to a hill where we could see for miles. The water in the background is the dam that supplies water to Gaborone.

Ostrich



Rhino

We saw elephants, leopards wildebeasts, warthogs, giraffes and impalas. It was fun.

Some Interesting Things We've Seen

A sign in a restaurant...

Beautiful trees in bloom. It's the rainy season and all the trees are happy.

The guard outside our housing complex. (What is hooting?)

Is this guy the boss of the guards?

The biggest mental hospital we've ever seen.

Some of The Things We've Been Doing

When the ministry of health moved the dates up for the campaign, we lost a whole week of preparation time. We have really been scrambling double time to get everything done. Here are some of the things we've been doing.




Organizing members of the Church to volunteer. Here are two typical, eager volunteers (the sister on the left is the same wonderful woman who volunteered in 2005, the one with a prosthetic leg). The sister on the right is a returned missionary. Our volunteers are from wards and branches in Gaborone, Lobotse, Molopolili and Francistown. They will be delivering literature door-to-door, putting up posters, and assisting in the health clinics by giving Vitamin A pills, doing record keeping and comforting the children.

Printing and assembling 3,000 volunteer badges to be used by volunteers throughout the country.

Purchased and donated 109 phone cards with 100 units of air time each for districts to facilitate communication with the department of health

Purchased 30 megaphones for use in announcing the campaign. This is every megaphone in the country, plus some imported from South Africa.

. . .and some other stuff.

Volunteer Badges

We asked the Young Single Adults to help us assemble 3,000volunteer badges for us to donate to the Ministry of Health. They were excited to do it. This is Calvin.

Bishop Mbongwe had the materials to make the badges and told us he would have them at the church as soon as the fireside was over at 6:00. However, everyone made a mistake and the broadcast was really over at 5:00. The Bishop was nowhere to be found and after an hour of trying to contact him our "manpower" was getting restless. That's when Lynn and I went into a room and offered up a fervent prayer for help. We knew the kids were hungry so we included a request for refreshments in our prayer. Then Lynn told everyone to please wait until 6:00. Ten minutes later at exactly 6:00 the Bishop came driving into the parking lot. We were so glad to see him. He had turned his phone off and taken a nap. I think an angel woke him up and told him to get going. After the activity, we went outside and there was a table all set with polony sandwiches and fruit juicy.

Preparing the Member Volunteers

This is Moses Williams, the chairman of the Church public affairs committee for Botswana. He is an outstanding young man and has been very helpful. Last Sunday we had four meetings with the members of the Church to explain what we want them to do (pass out literature, put up posters, assist the medical personnel in the local clinics). Moses went to Lobatse, Elder Tolley spoke to the members in Gaborone (3 wards), and another committee member went to Molelopoli. After the meetings, we asked members to sign up to volunteer. Moses was excited to get 28 volunteers from the Lobatse branch.

The Botswana Ministry of Health

This is Ms Bakanuki Nfila, the child health manager for the ministry of health. She was very helpful and kind to us. She introduced us to several key people, including Mr. Setshwano Mokgweetzinyana (try to say that one--if you say it real fast it sounds like "Louisiana") who is the acting director of public health and disease control, and several others. We were introduced to so many officials, it was hard to keep track of them all. Elder Tolley keeps their names on little cards in his shirt pocket. That doesn't mean we can say the names correctly.

Before we left home, we wrote letters to the director of public health and the child health manager in the Botswana Ministry of Health. We explained who we were and told them we were coming. Last time we were in Botswana in 2005, we started at the bottom of the protocol chain and worked our way up. This time we started at the top and worked our way down. It was unbelievably slow either way. All we wanted to do is offer our help with social mobilization for their measles campaign. We had donations to make (flyers, radio advertisement, volunteers, etc.) and support to give. But they were suspicious of our motives. Elder Tolley assured them we were only here to serve. They all really warmed up to him, but it still took 13 days to get the letter of introduction to the districts and permission for the members of the church to volunteer and serve in the campaign. Sometimes the protocol drives us nuts.

Getting Settled

These are our roommates. They think they own the place and keep popping up everywhere. At first we were killing about 15 a day. Now it's down to about 3-4. We have spray, traps and bait everywhere, but they still refuse to move out.

The apartment is very comfortable and even has a TV. The landlord provides furniture, linens and dishes. It's very expensive so we're glad we're only staying for six weeks.

We found a place to stay fairly quickly in a secure gated community. It's the same place we stayed last time we were here.

Brother Million, a Church member here, loaned us his vehicle. What a great guy!

Arrival in Gaborone

We finally arrived in Botswana on Wednesday morning, October 14. It was so beautiful, warm and sunny we didn't care if we were dog tired. It was good to be back on Gaborone again after 4 years.

Nelson Mandela Welcome

30 hours later (two nights and one day) here we are in Johannesburg, South Africa. We saw this really great statue of Nelson Mandela outside of one of the gift shops and we couldn't resist taking our picture with him. He looked so friendly and welcoming.

Off to Botswana

Here we are off on another adventure! On October 12 we left Salt Lake for Botswana, Africa to help with the measles immunization campaign.