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