Nov 28, 2005

Dear Family and Friends, A letter of Thanksgiving.
We missed Thanksgiving with you, but we aren’t short on thanks giving.
Mondays sure come around quickly when you are having fun. Next Monday will be 3 months since we left the early fall weather of Salt Lake. 1/5th of our mission is spent. Though it has taken some time to become accustomed to the differences-and there are so many they are without number-we are now very comfortable with the lifestyle here. All of the missionary couples met for thanksgiving on Friday and spent Saturday Christmas shopping in Victoria Island where all the ex-patriots live. On our way to the island, some of the couples were pointing out some unusual aspects of Nigerian life. I thought to myself that I’m sure they wouldn’t live like they do if they had any alternative. Almost everyone I’ve met would have it differently…but they can only change a small-small. They can better themselves in the conditions they live to a point. They can lift their neighbors only a little because they don’t have much themselves. They do the best they can with their circumstances. They put the rest in the hands of God. It was difficult for me to move from the world of missionary work-where we forget about ourselves-into the world of shopping where we think mostly about ourselves but I made myself. We had gone with a list of must haves and found almost everything on our list-miraculously! A yoga mat for each of us to exercise on was the top priority and we found them-they were in the first shop window when we walked into this posh mall! I was positive that we just wouldn’t be able to find such a decadent thing.
We just received 3 letters from Frank, Heidi and the boys. We love to get them-a special thank you so much for the beautiful drawings by Ethan and Miles. We are wallpapering our bedroom with the grandchildren’s drawings. We received a large packet from my ward primary-thank you Merrily. I will be writing them back to answer their questions. We receive a letter a week from my mother. Thank you for being so newsy mom. We really do not know what is happening in the world. We get the BBC EU news but almost nothing is said about American news makers. Your one page letters keep us informed on the biggest events. Thanks Aunt Feetie for the weekly postcard. We appreciate your support and the beautiful postcards adorn our kitchen wall. Thank you Kylie for being grandma to the grandkids for me and for visiting Grandma Kay. I know that you will be abundantly blessed for this service you render in our behalf and you will find joy in doing it. Thank you and bless you Heather for your help with Grandpa Gilmore. He writes that he sure does miss Ava every morning for breakfast. He wishes it could have lasted longer but he told us that your new home is wonderful but too far away from him! We heard from Red this week that his health is improving to even surprise the doctors. We aren’t surprised…he told us he would do just fine while we are gone. Heavenly Father is helping him keep that promise. May God continue to bless you Red. We are looking forward to the arrival of the goodies that Ian has arranged to get to us via delivery by a Church authority that is coming to Lagos tomorrow night. It will be Christmas early this year…and no we won’t wait until Christmas to open them! Thanks so much Ian, and anyone who helped, for all the work in gathering, preparing, and delivering the things we needed. Grant, we have prayed and prayed that you would find a good job. We hope that your new job just fits you! We will take your job hunt off our prayer list of needs for our family and move it to the list of prayers answered that we are grateful for. Lissa, thanks for your contribution to my piano class. Because of your help I can teach more effectively. I will take a picture of the class with our new piano next to the one I brought. It is a blessing to these Nigerian Church members who never dreamed they would be able to do such a thing as learn to play the piano. (And believe me, I never dreamed I would do such a thing as teach piano!) When we leave, I will leave the piano for the branch so that those students can play during church services. I’m hoping to have them give a recital for one of the Friday night activities when we get far enough along. To everyone, thanks for all of your notes to us. I really wish we could answer them individually but it is impossible. We do receive them and cherish your messages and encouragement. Thanks to all for your prayers in our behalf. I want to testify that we feel the influence and blessings for your prayers. We have been protected in a country that isn’t known for safety. We have never felt in danger. Ideas to resolve problems come at our bidding. There is joy beyond measure in doing such a thing with my husband ...I would not believe it if I didn’t experience it. Everything we have ever experienced and learned is put into practice on our mission. It is like our whole life experience has been in preparation for this work in which we are now engaged. We are truly grateful and blessed by your love and support. Love Elder and Sister Gilmore

Nov 20, 2005

Dear Friends and Family

We have had a few questions sent to us that I haven’t answered so I’m sending a general letter. If you sent me questions, they might be answered below. If they aren’t answered, I apologize but I don’t remember what you asked.

Mike asked for our address

To mail letters or pictures on paper only (no photo paper)

P O Box 30150

Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150

This will get to us in between 2-3 weeks and only requires a regular stamp

To mail anything else

Sister and Elder Gilmore

5, Gbemi Oluwa Close,

Off Sule Abuka Crescent,

Opebi Road

PO Box 9028

Ikeja

Lagos State, Nigeria

This will get to us in between 4-6 weeks and requires international postage rate

And yes-I can now correctly pronounce all the names of the streets in the address!! Doug still struggles a little with pronunciation.

Cathy asked about the weather.

We are now finishing up the spring and entering into the summer months. It has turned hot and dry. Dry meaning no rain not no humidity. It is very humid…the landscape looks like the atmosphere is filled with smoke only it is water instead. If I am wearing my glasses while driving in the air conditioned car they will fog up because of the heat and humidity when I get out of the car. The plants that grew during the 6 months of rainy season are now blooming. I would have thought that the flowers would be spectacular, but they are non-descript for the most part. I had to really take notice that things were in bloom because they don’t catch your eye at all. The small streams and ponds are already drying up. There is a swampy river that we drive past gong down the hill from our apartment. The drivers of okadas (motorcycles), vans, taxis and semis pull off the road a and wash their vehicles there. So many vehicles are driven into the swamp in this area that a muddy pond has been formed. That pond is now drying up. On the way to one of the chapels that we drive to, there is a natural spring that seeps up in the middle of the dirt road, creating a stream that settles into ponds along the route. All rainy season the spring is always running. We work our way back and forth along the road trying to go around the streams but we just plow through the ponds. But this last week the seepage has stopped, no running streams and the ponds are now dried up. We were very surprised at the depth of those ponds that we have been driving through now that we can see the bottom. The dirt road is so pocked and rutted from the rainy season traffic, we hope that it will be grated so that the next six months will be easier driving on our car. We really need a 4 wheel SUV for some of the places we drive.

People tell us that the dry season is really hot. We don’t have much of an idea what that will mean to our comfort, at least not until last week. Our air conditioner in the living room wasn’t working very well so we called in the service repair man. He came the Nigerian way with no tools, no ladder, no cleaning supplies. The air conditioner fan is close to our ceiling, which is 10 feet high, the compressor is on our porch. He took one of my dining chairs, stacked one end table on it, then stacked another end table on that, then a third on that and climbed up to reach the cooler. I left the room so I didn’t have to watch. Doug went back and told him he couldn’t climb on the furniture and had to go get a ladder. He went somewhere and came back with a big drum barrel that he rolled into the room, put on its end and used that as a ladder. I don’t know where he got it but he had hauled it up 3 flights of stairs. I don’t think he was very happy about it because every time he needed to get to the air conditioner he had to press himself up onto the tall barrel…being unable to step on any of the furniture to reach it. He was nice to us however because he didn’t have any tools nor cleaning supplies-needing to borrow them from us. The reason I started in on this story is because the hottest day of the year so far was the day that he came to fix the air conditioner. It was about 95 degrees outside…awful inside. We were drenched from sweat. It was so hot all we could do was sit around…we couldn’t leave the house because the repair man was there. It took all day!!! When he finally left it was dark. I took the remote to turn on the cooler—the remote wouldn’t work. He had done something to disturb the remote reader. Luckily we could still turn it on with the power switch but we couldn’t adjust any settings. (Our gateman just stopped by to borrow our hammer. He is a young man who barely speaks English. He calls Doug “Sister Gilmore” and calls me mother. There is no way that we can get him to understand that I’m Sister and Doug is Elder. He borrows the hammer a lot and Doug always asks him “What’s the magic word? Of course Lawan doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about but Doug always tries. He will do the same thing when he returns it.) Anyway I think we have a real idea of what the dry season will be like.

The power has been out for 7 days. It will come on for short periods but won’t last long. We have a generator that provides us power but it uses about 2 liters of fuel an hour at the cost of 79 cents per liter. Every time the power goes off, we debate whether we can live without the fans or air conditioner for very long. We usually don’t last long. We are on the third floor. The roof of the apartment is metal corrugated sheeting (they call it zinc but I don’t think it is really zinc) There is no ventilation out of the roof and no insulation between our ceiling and the hot air trapped in the attic. Our ceiling is 2’x2’ sheets of heavy paper that are tacked to the beams and plastered over. This doesn’t offer any insulating ability. Our room heats up pretty darn quickly when the power goes off, so we bite the bullet and turn on the generator. We have used up 1 ½ months supply of diesel this week alone. I think I told you about how we get the tank refilled. Itunu is coming tonight to refill it.

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day in church. After Sunday School the elders always come get my bags and carry them to the chapel. I visit with the members as I work my way to the chapel to retrieve my bags. I couldn’t find them until I got to the front of the chapel. I picked them up and realized that sitting next to where the missionaries had placed me was an oba (King). Undaunted, I introduced myself and sat next to him. He introduced himself, and said he had come to attend our church but hadn’t known what time it started. He had guessed right. I explained to him a little about what he would see. I told him about how we have a reverent atmosphere so that we can hear the still small voice of God instead of the jubilant horns, drums and dancing of the traditional African Christians. I showed him where this was taught in the scriptures. He pulled out his palm and found the bible reference. I shared my hymn book and he sang all the hymns. He took notes on all the talks and looked up the scripture references. If they were from the Book of Mormon or Doctrine and Covenants (Doug’s talk was on the 59^th section) I found the reference and gave him the book. He noted every scripture. I could tell he was impressed by the topics…sacrifice to serve others, the blessings of keeping the Sabbath day holy. After the service, the members came and bowed in homage to him. He visited the elders and other leaders. I gave him a Book of Mormon so he could look up the references he had noted. I always ask about families, so I asked if he had a family…he replied “Yes, two” Oops! I guess he is a muslim…I wonder why he wanted to visit our Christian church.

Later when I told another missionary couple who had come to spend the night with us that we had met him…they were so impressed and told us who he really was. He was not just any old king but THE King of kings. The king of all Ijebu-land. This couple and the missionary president had their pictures taken with this oba, had it laminated and stapled his card on it. Then if the police stop them at road-blocks, they pull out their picture with the king and they were allowed to go without being hassled. Oba Adetoli invited Doug and I to visit him at his palace, he gave us his card and told us to call him at a convenient time. So we will!

Love Sister G

13 Nov 2005

Dear family and friends,

This week’s letter will focus on our Friday night movies. Sister Gilmore and I decided that the members of the Sagamu Branch need to be friendlier with each other. Many have been members under 1 year, don’t know each other and don’t socialize. As we discussed this problem, we thought that if we started showing movies on Friday night, it might make a difference.

Here they don’t have movie theaters so people don’t watch movies. Those few people with TVs don’t watch movies or American shows. They have Nigerian produced TV shows. We have never watched any, but they appear to be like Soap Operas.

So we took our 19-inch color TV and VCR machine downstairs to the where we hold church and tried it out. We placed the TV on a table and a box to raise it high enough so everyone could see and turned it on. The sound wasn’t loud enough so we rigged up a microphone in front of the TV speakers. With this system appearing to work we announced we would begin showing movies.

Our first movie night was two weeks ago. We showed “The Other Side of Heaven”. At 5PM we hold Branch PEC (priesthood executive committee meeting). At the same time Sister Gilmore teaches her piano class. Seven brethren attend PEC and Sister Gilmore’s piano class draws about the same. Both end at 6PM, and then we set up for the movie. At 6:30 we start the movie. Even though it isn’t dark yet, it is still ok.

For the first show, we discovered a couple of things. The sound system isn’t very good. That and the fact that the movie (The Other Side of Heaven) had a lot of dialogue contributed to many in the audience not understanding the dialogue. Also contributing is that for many of the audience, English is a second language. So we had some people explaining or interpreting for other watchers.

The second problem was that the movie was too long, 2 hours. We started a little late because not many people were here, but eventually about 30 people came. However, many left early (after 8PM) because many people don’t like to be out after 8:30-9PM. And since they walk, they left before it was over. When the movie ended at 8:50, we had about 15 left. Also contributing to the lateness of the movie was that half-way thru we lost power.

As I have explained in previous letters, the National Electrical Power Association (or Authority) (NEPA) is the national electrical utility. It is famous for going out all the time. On average I would say we lose power 3 or 4 times a day. Sometimes the power is off for 5 minutes, sometimes for hours. The longest it’s been out since we’ve been here was two days. When the power goes out we have a big diesel generator we start up to provide backup electricity. So of course during the movie, NEPA went out. We were sitting in total darkness. So I carefully walked over to the door, went out and started up the generator. We then restarted the movie at the closest point we could find. So we watched the hurricane scene twice.

Afterwards we had to consider the results as less than spectacular. So we decided that we would try something else. We can’t do anything about the sound system, so we decided that we would try a comedy, and maybe that would overcome the lack of understanding.

So last Friday we showed “Finding Nemo”. We thought this would be a perfect movie for them, it is funny, well made and is only 100 minutes long.

Well, we discovered problems with our choice again. While it is a comedy, there is a lot of dialogue, much of it spoken very fast and hard to understand. Also most of the people in our audience have never seen the ocean, even though we are only about 50 miles from the ocean, so they didn’t know anything about what they were watching. They didn’t know what a shark was, so the whole Bruce “fish are friends not food” thing just didn’t work. So while they all stayed (about 25) till the end, I don’t think any of them understood it all, and many of them probably didn’t understand any of it. I had to stand up during the movie and explain things like “sharks eat other fish”, Sidney is a city in Australia, a fish tank is where you keep pet fish, etc.

So after the movie, Sister Gilmore and I have decided to try a different approach. We are going to prescreen all our movies. We will look for little or no dialogue or dialogue that is simple and clear. Modern cartoons like Nemo, Toy Story, Monsters Inc, are out. They have too much fast dialogue and American humor. We have decided that we are going to try to get old Disney movies like Bambi, Cinderella, Snow White, etc. We don’t have any of these so we are going to try to get them from home. We will see how that goes.

We are also going to show more LDS produced videos like Legacy, Windows of Heaven, etc. This Friday we are going to show “The Restoration” followed by President Hinckley’s talk from April 2005 conference entitled “The Great Things Which God Has Revealed”. It is a great talk about the things revealed to Joseph Smith.

We brought the DVD of April Conference with us. We are glad we did. We like to watch the talks and choir. We even try to find Suzanne as the camera pans thru the choir. It is one of the best things we brought.

So we plan on showing more conference talks if it works out this Friday. We will let you know what happens.

This concludes this week’s letter.

Love, Elder Gilmore

November 7, 2005

Dear Friends and Family

2 months in the mission field. I have the top ten things I’ve learned here in Sagamu, Lagos State, Nigeria, West Africa.

10. Sweat is your constant companion, the stink of which does not easily wash off of you or out of your clothes.

9. It is ok for men to stop and urinate anytime and anywhere they feel the urge.

8. You can take a shower in the corner of the bathroom, with no curtain, under a trickle of luke- warm water and not get cold.

7. Cars do not have heaters and if they did, they probably would not work anyway.

6. There is no speed limit on the expressway, nor any other driving law that we can observe

5. Car horns are used in place of brakes, turn signals, rear-view mirrors, tapping your feet to the beat of the music on your radio, or expressing that you have just had a bad day.

4. A small three drawer dresser has plenty of room for both our clothes leaving ½ a drawer still empty. A 2 foot wardrobe is not quite large enough for both our hang-up clothes but we make it do.

3. Make-up melts and, therefore, it is not worth wearing

2. Contractions are not used in Nigerian English, so we have stopped using them.

1. After almost 32 years of marriage, I found out Doug really does know how to clean house.

It was a little more trying this week. Elder Gilmore is dealing with some disciplinary action with the leadership and missionaries. I spend a lot of time reading in another room. We had so many things go out in our apartment in the last 3 days. Our shower faucet won’t stay tight enough to turn off the shower so we use pliers, the burner of the toaster oven went out, the satellite service got scrambled so we have no service, the plug to the regulator for our TV, vcr and dvd broke, and the wall plug that the regulator was plugged into is shorting. Last but not least after fasting for 24 hours without getting into our frig we found that the wall plug that the frig was plugged into went dead sometime during that period. When I opened the frig last night to prepare dinner to break our fast, it and all the contents were warm. There is a bright side, I did not have to defrost my frig today. And oh yes, 3 of our tires separated from the tread…or so the mechanic said that happily sold the mission 3 new tires for our car. I do not know how it could have happened but then I am not the one responsible for taking the car in for its monthly check, another mission couple does that. I have to defer to their judgment, though I think we got taken.

Love Sister Gilmore

7 Nov 2005 10:10 AM Nigerian time

Dear Family,

We just finished cleaning the house. Sister Gilmore may have explained that every Monday (our P-day) we clean the apartment. I sweep and then mop, she cleans the bathrooms and kitchen. The broom is an American style broom but the handle on both the broom and mop are only 4 feet long. So I have to bend over to use both and by the time I am done, I have a back ache. We have looked for longer handles but can’t find any.

Had to look in my Missionary Daily Planner to see what we did last week. The Church issues every missionary a spiral bound 6-week planner (like a Day-Timer). We use it for scheduling our days, to do list, etc. The young missionaries also use it to keep track of their key indicators. Part of the new Preach My Gospel is setting goals and keeping track of 9 key indicators. The 9 key indicators are baptisms and confirmations, investigators with a baptismal date, investigators who attend sacrament meeting, lessons taught to investigators with a member present, others lessons taught, progressing investigators, referrals received and contacted, new investigators and lessons taught to recent converts and less-active members. By tracking these indicators the missionaries can see their progress, and see where they have to expend the efforts. I wish we had this when I was a young missionary.

Well this past week included a trip to the bank, our first Friday night at the movies, a quick trip to Lagos, and our first inspection of a missionary apartment. I will let Sister Gilmore tell about the apartment inspection. She said I should tell about the bank trip.

The Branch here in Sagamu was organized two years ago and was part of the Abeocuta District. Abeocuta is a city about 40 miles to the northwest of Sagamu. The Branch here was part of that district until this summer when a visiting Area Authority told the Mission President that it shouldn’t have been made a District branch and should be a Mission branch. The difference is that as a District branch the District is responsible for servicing it and the Branch leadership reports to the District Presidency. A Mission Branch is independent from any districts and reports directly to the Mission President. A Mission Branch is typically too far away from a District, the District is not capable or strong enough to service it, or the Branch is too weak. In the case of Sagamu, it due to all three.

Anyway, in August of this year, Sagamu was separated from the Abeocuta District and was made a Mission Branch. As part of that change, Sagamu was separated from the Abeocuta 2^nd Branch, got its own Branch President, etc. Part of establishing this branch on its own is setting up a bank account. The day we arrived, the Mission President handed me a bank application form, some Branch funds and said I needed to take charge of setting up the bank account. That was two months ago.

After being here about a week, the Branch President in a Branch Presidency Meeting suggested that we go down to the local branch of First Bank and set up the account. So I got out the application I have been given and we all met down at the local branch. We were going to have 5 signatories on the account, so all five of us showed up, the Branch President, 1^st and 2^nd Counselors, clerk and myself. When we arrived, we waited for about 20 minutes for the new accounts manager, then sat down at his desk. He proceeded to tell what we would have to do to set up an account. The application is 15 pages long. Unfortunately I hadn’t looked at it before we went to the bank. It hadn’t been filled out, so we couldn’t open the account. The application requires information about the Church, such as its incorporation, other accounts, two reference letters, etc, etc, etc. I had to take the application back to Lagos so we could get the necessary information, including a copy of the registration document when the Church was registered here in Nigeria in 1996. Additionally, for each of the signatories the bank wants two passport pictures, two forms of ID, and a copy of their power (NEPA) bill. The forms of ID include drivers license and national ID card. For me, because I am a foreigner, the bank wanted copies of my passport, visa and ID card. Even foreigners are required to get an ID card.

The problem with the national ID card is that nobody has one. The government here requires everyone to have one but no one ever gets one. The problem is that each state is required to produce them, but the State governments aren’t doing it. So nobody has one. For us missionaries, we are required to submit our passports to the capital, Abuja, so they will issue us our national ID card. They are so slow that none of the senior missionaries or Mission President have yet received theirs. And the Mission President has been here 18 months. If they don’t get their passports back by the time they need to leave, I don’t know what they will do.

So because I don’t have my ID card, I was told by the Mission President to write a letter saying that I had applied but had not yet received my ID card yet.

After filling out the application as best I could, and gathering our information and the signatories again we made our third trip to the bank. The second trip, Sister Gilmore and I made by ourselves. We visited the Bank Manager, put on airs, etc. He was very cordial, and then introduced us to the accounts manager (who I have previously met) and told him to help us when we returned. So Friday, Nov. 4^th we met at the bank again.

When we arrived, the bank gate was closed and they wouldn’t let us in. So we parked and walked up to the gate. We discovered that it was closed because they had the Mol-Pol in there. The Mol-Pol (military police) were that because they were either delivering or taking a large amount of money from the bank. The mol-pol had two jeeps, one open, the other enclosed and 8 armed guards. Everyone who wanted to go to the bank had to wait outside the gates until the mol-pol drove away with their sirens blaring and weapons pointing.

When we finally got to the accounts manager, he reviewed our application page by page (20 minutes). We had to fill in a few more things, and then he began reviewing our proof of ID. First, he wanted a copy of my national ID. I reviewed with him the above issues, showed him the letter I had written and signed but he still wanted a copy of my ID. After about 10 minutes he agreed that a copy of my Nigerian driver’s license, a copy of my American passport and a copy of my Nigeria visa, two passport pictures and the letter explaining why I didn’t have my Nigerian ID card was enough ID to establish who I was. I also had to give him a copy of our NEPA bill even though the bill didn’t have either our address or our names on it.

The bank also requires a 20 naira stamp. I guess in case they need to send a letter. Although they don’t have postmen who make deliveries. 20 naira is 14 cents. Only problem, the Post Office doesn’t sell a 20 naira stamp so we bought a 50 naira stamp instead.

Then the other signatories had to produce their ID. They had forgotten to bring theirs. None of them have national ID cards, the Branch President has a driver’s license, and the 1^st counselor and clerk have no forms of ID. So we left the bank after about 1 ½ hours without our account open. The 1^st counselor and clerk are going to have to make up ID of some kind. The 1^st counselor will go to his work and see if his boss will prepare on a company letterhead an ID for him. The clerk will copy his student ID. They also have to come up with copies of someone’s NEPA bill. We will try again when they get this information. Hopefully, it will work and we will be able to set up a bank account. Until then I will have to continue to hold all the fast offerings, hand carry the tithing to Lagos and distribute Branch budget expenses out of my “operating” funds.

I have 50,000 naira (about $250) that I use as a working fund to pay for Church and missionary expenses. Because this is strictly a cash economy, we have to carry cash on us to pay for any expenses that may occur. Missionaries receive their living allowance once a month at Zone Conference. But this doesn’t include other expenses such as NEPA, or water bills, bicycle repairs, etc. Some of the missionary apartments don’t have running water, so we have large plastic water tanks (1,000 liters) that are filled up and they take their water from them for cleaning, bathing, and filtering water for drinking. It sounds primitive and it is. But it is what they are used to doing before their mission so they don’t think it is unusual. So I carry my briefcase with me at all times in case there is an expense. We fill out receipts and once a month in Lagos I account for the expenditures and get another 50,000.

Second topic. Friday night movies. Sister Gilmore and I decided that if we could have Friday night movies in the Branch downstairs it would provide entertainment and an opportunity for the members to socialize. They don’t have movie theaters here. And the ones they have apparently show the wrong kind of movies, so no one here has been to movies. Some people have TVs but I think they watch Nigerian soap operas. They don’t watch American shows on TV. Last Friday night was our first movie. We showed The Other Side of Heaven. About 25 people came. It was ok for our first time. This Friday we are planning to show Finding Nemo. The Mission President has a copy so we will borrow his. Surprisingly, people here have never heard of it. They haven’t even heard of Walt Disney. When I asked, they didn’t know who Walt Disney was, but they had heard of Mickey Mouse. So we will see what happens. We take our TV and video player downstairs, put it in front of the chairs and turn it on. If this succeeds we will have to come up with some more movies. We are sorry we didn’t bring more. We brought The Other Side of Heaven and The Work and the Glory (part 1).

Victor Dixon was baptized yesterday. If you read a previous letter, he is the man we taught with a group of women (one was his adopted mother). He is university trained, a teacher here in Sagamu. He is quiet spoken, very intelligent and has a humble spirit. When we taught him the first lesson, he asked why the Book of Mormon was necessary since we already have the Bible. When we explained that it was another witness of Christ, that it contains the fullness of the gospel, and answers many questions not answered in the Bible. He very humbly said, “I believe that” and promised to read it. He did, he prayed, attended church and was converted. He was baptized about one month from when we met him. When asked what he liked about our church, one thing he said was that in our church each person can ask questions, can learn for themselves, and there is a quiet, reverent spirit in church.

Many churches here beat drums, dance around and make a lot of noise.

He was baptized behind our apartment building in a portable font. The font is about 7’ long, 4’ wide and 3 ½’ deep. It has a metal frame with a plastic liner. It isn’t big enough that I could be baptized in it. A young man baptized two weeks ago who is now a Priest did the baptizing. Victor is about 6’ tall, It took three tries to getVictor baptized. A combination of inexperience by the young man, Victor stiffened up and the small font all contributed. On the third time he went all the way under, just barely. A 20 year old woman was also baptized. That one went off perfectly. In retrospect we should have had Jeremiah baptize the young woman first.

This concludes this week’s letter. Love, Dad.