December 6 - Church and Music Program
We attended church this morning in the Nyashi 2 Ward. It is off the main roads of Lubumbashi. We went with President and Sister Thomas. After turning off the asphalt road onto a narrow dirt lane, we wound down several other lanes until we arrived at a large tent. Sacrament meeting is held in a large white tent. The floor is cement. There is a podium and a piano and chairs set up. Outside the tent on three sides, there are several cement rooms where we attended Sunday School and Relief Society and Priesthood meeting. There are rooms also for the Primary and the young men and women.
The meeting was held in French with no
Swahili translation. The congregation sings out during the hymns.
They have beautiful voices. Today was Fast Sunday. Many of those
bearing their testimonies spoke in Swahili. Dad bore his testimony in
French. I could understand pretty much everything he said. When he
was finished the President leaned over to me and whispered, “He
speaks French very well.”
All the adults meet together for a
opening exercise for Sunday School. Then the investigators and
missionaries go to the Gospel Principles class. As Dad and I got up
to leave, the Bishop motioned for us to sit back down. Obviously he
wanted us to stay in the Gospel Doctrine class. So we stayed.
Unfortunately the lesson was a mixture of Swahili and French (mostly
Swahili). So even Dad didn't understand what they were saying. I
opened my scriptures to 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John and read those
chapters that were being discussed.
The Relief Society Lesson was Neill
Marriott's talk from the Women's Conference on “Sharing Your
Light.” Since most of the discussion was in Swahili I didn't catch
any of it. Near the end of the lesson the teacher pointed to me and
asked me a question. I looked to Sister Thomas for interpretation.
The sister was asking how we can share the gospel. I replied by
example –how we treat our children and our husbands. Sister Thomas
interpreted in French for me. Then the discussion continued in
Swahili. I read through the talk twice during the Relief Society time
since I really couldn't figure out what they were saying. There was a
lot of hand gestures and very passionate voices during the
discussion. It would have been nice to know what they were saying.
Sister Thomas didn't understand it either. She was trying to figure
out why they were pointing to two of the women at various times and
what was being said to them. The lesson went over time by 20 minutes.
At 3 p.m. we went to the Katumba Stake
Center with President and Sister Thomas. Sister Draper put together a
Christmas Program. She led a choir of all the missionaries in the 3
zones here in Lubumbashi. The Katumba Stake also had a choir which
sang several numbers, as well as two children choirs that sang a
couple of songs each. The singing was very good. As I have mentioned
before, the Congolese love to sing.
There were not many people from the
stake who came to listen however. About 90% of the people there were
performing. Sister Draper was a bit disappointed. The piano was not
working properly so the missionary choir sang a capella. The
microphone for the speaking parts between songs was not very good
either. The congregation sang songs between some of the choir
numbers. It really was a great program that helped to get us all in
the Christmas spirit.
After the program a young man
approached us. He is Kefa Milambo. We met his brother and
sister-in-law in Kellie Allen's ward in New Hampshire when we were
visiting her family on our Boston trip. The father of these two men
was the first stake president in Lubumbashi. He now lives in
Kinshasa. Kefa served a mission here in Lubumbashi and has now
returned here to work construction on a housing project.
Elder Peterson, Kefa Milambo, Sister Peterson |
Loved reading your blog. We miss you but will follow your blog and feel like we are experiencing your mission a little bit with you. Love, Katie Newman
ReplyDeleteIt crazy to see Dad in a short sleeved church shirt. Great lookin Missionaries right there!!
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