More Goodbyes, Hello to Olsens and Mission Tour

During the second and third weeks of January the schedule did not slow down. On Sundays we stayed after church for a couple hours each week to make of few more visits to friends in the Kilili Branch. Back at the office during the second week we furiously tried to catch up on some things that went undone while we were on our temple trip to South Africa. While at the same time trying to get ready to train our replacements Elder and Sister Olsen who were scheduled to arrive late in the evening on the 17th. In the financial office the 2011 files had to be move out and archived to make room in the file cabinets for the new year's files. Elder and Sister Cook arrived in Nairobi on the 15th to start the Mission Tour. They and President and Sister Broadbent their whirl-wind tour of the mission by first flying to Eldoret, from there on to Mombasa, then on to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and finally back to Nairobi. All of this in just 8 days. Whew! And we thought our schedule was busy!!! The Olsens arrived in the middle of the Mission Tour so they did not even get to meet with the Mission President until he returned to Nairobi.

One of our last visits was to the Jeffery Muindi family, brother to the other Muindi family previously shown. They surprised us by feeding us a traditional African meal of rice and goat stew with hot (fresh from the cow) milk and chapatis. Their father, in the center of the picture, is almost 100 years old.

This is Agnes, one of the first to attend our investigator class and to be baptized. Karen is visiting her at her at her shop where she serves meals to the locals.

At the end of the Mission Tour Elder and Sister Cook had dinner with all of the couple missionaries serving in Nairobi at the Mission Home. Afterwards there was time for us to visit with them. It was an especially intimate sharing time because Elder Cook grew up in the same North Ogden area that the Broadbents, the Halls and the Olsens did. He shared very tender feelings regarding the role that the parents of both Elder Hall and Elder Olsen had had on him as a young man. What a blessing to be in such an intimate settling with such great people.

Here the Broadbents are finally able to officially welcome and reunite with their old friends the Olsens.