Our dear friends the Livingstone's have completed their mission and left for home. It was hard to see them leave. They have done a wonderful job as mission president and wife. The mission has almost doubled in number of missionaries since they came. They have had to travel under some pretty rugged conditions but have kept a good attitude about it all. We are grateful to them for all they have done for us.

We had an office dinner and farewell for the Livingstone's before they left. Eustache and Mamie and their three kids(Stacy kept running out of the picture), were there along with Pascal and his wife Gloria. Elder and Sister Moody, (Humanitarian Directors) President and Sister Livingstone and the Moon's. We have had a great working relationship.

President and Sister Livingstone just before a testimony meeting with a number of returned missionaries that served under them.


The Kasa Vubu Ward had a nice event to honor the Livingstone's. There were many friends of the church there and the Livingstone's did a great job teaching prinicples of the gospel. We couldn't get everyone in one picture but this is part of the group that was there.

The Livingstone's share their testimonies and love for the people.

This is Francois Lunda's family. He is the head of the Church Distribution Center here in Kinshasa. He is a counselor in the Ngaliema Stake. They invited us to dinner one night before Livingstone's left for home. They have ten children and a couple of brothers that live with them. We had a wonderful Congolese meal. They are a very gracious family. His wife Jeannette is on the right holding their baby. Lunda helps me alot with orders which can be very challenging.

In our garden on the porch we have a big round tub that collects water from the air conditioner that drips from the apartment above us. We often have lots of birds that stop for a drink or bath. These little guys hung around for quite awhile one day. They usually get chased off by some very large birds that look similar to our magpies back home.

In the circle of the street just outside our apartment building is a popular workout area. Who needs a gym when you have a delapidated monument to work out on! Every morning around 6:oo am you can see a large group of guys doing very interesting workouts!

This is Tyler and Becca Nicholes with their son Spencer. They have been such great friends! Becca and Spencer leave this week to return home for a vacation before they move on to their next assignment. Tyler will join them in a few weeks. We will miss them immensely! We have enjoyed some fun evenings with them. They have also been very generous in loaning us many of their movies and puzzles. What a great family!

These are the new missionaries that arrived last week at the DR Congo Mission! They are excited to be here and I know they will be great missionaries!!!

Dr. Crouch, Sis Preece, Mrs. Ngoyi, Dr Ngoyi and Dr. Preece pose for a picture after dinner. They taught hundreds of doctors in Africa how to get babies to breath after the are born. Neonatal Resuscitation. There efforts have already saved the lives of many babies!!!

The Nakales are having a birthday celebration. The father, David, is getting help from his 2 boys blowing out the candles.

Yes, Elder Moon is blowing out his candles with a wind turbine (his hand). It really works! You should try it. Elder Moon's mother taught it to him.

These missionaries have served an honorable mission and are getting one last picture before going home. They are diligent, hard workers who have seen tremendous success.

This is a typical market with cooking stoves, charcoal, soap, food, and anything you can imagine.

Sister Moon and Sister Livingstone pose with Sister Bokala at their home on the Kinshasa University Campus.

We had dinner with the Kinshasa Stake Patriarch, Elder Bokala, and his wife, shown in the previous picture. After dinner, 6 of their 7 sons and their daughter sang several chuch hymns for the Livingstones and us. They sounded fantastic!!!

This beautiful bird crashed into the window at the mission office. We brought it in, photographed it, and after a few minutes, it was well enough to fly off (in the office) Pascal was able to get it outside and it flew away.

The "mission" sewing machine broke. The speed control foot peddle uses the principle of a carbon pile. Those are all the disks on the white papers on the table. After considerable work I was able to restore the speed control capability. Before repairs it had only one speed, maximum speed.

The Moody couple have been wonderful!!! We see them at the office almost every day and have Friday night dinner and movies with them.
President and Sister Livingstone

at Bonobo Park.

Elder Moody with Stacy and Steven.

Sister Moon with Johann.

Yes, they have heavy equipment here. This D-9 Catepillar hasn't moved for several years, but it greets everyone at the entrance to the Bonobo Park.

Playing in the Park!

Sister Moody enjoying time with Stacy and Steven Ilunga.

Here is the whole Ilunga family. From left to right: Mamie, Johann, Eustache, Stacy, and Steven.

These women are in an acre area that is sequestered from the rest of Bonobo Park by an electric fence. The new born Bonobos live in this area and are cared for by the monkeys mothers and also the four women shown in the photo. All of the 60 Bonobos in the park have names and all the attendants know them by name.

We are in our jungle outfits for the Bonobo experience.

This is George. The attendant told us all about his personality. He is cranky in the morning, but perks up in the afternoon. He loves to tease the mothers and enjoys tossing dirt at us.

Lunch!

Stacy's hairdo for the day! Stacy is Eustache and Mamie's little girl.

The autoclave at St Joseph's hospital broke. Since replacement parts were not available, I had to go to the local hardware store, shown in the photo, and buy "parts".

The autoclave was repaired at the hospital. Basically all the electrical parts had to be replaced.
The maternity ward is in the open door behind me.

Elder Moody, one half of the Humanitarian Couple in the DR Congo (and Republic of Congo and Cameroon), and I pose with the finished autoclave makeover product. Please note the new gravity operated door latch. The door stays shut because of a dead weight, made from a heavy lock, that rotates on a gate hinge. We are applying for a patent on it.


We took our 2nd excursion in a year, to Bonobo Park. It is a Bonob0 monkey semi-open reserve about 30 kilometers from Kinshasa. This little water fall is at the park.

Walking at Bonobo Park. Annette is holding Eustache's baby Johann. Eustache is the glue that holds the office together, along with Pascal, and he is in the background.

Two of the beautiful women from church. They wear wonderful headwraps that match their dresses. We should adopt that custom back home. It would really help out on bad hair days!

This is one of our porches to our apartment. It has had problems with the drain. One night a huge storm hit and within two hours, the entire thing filled up(it is 7 feet by 24 feet and is 6 inches high). We were in the bedroom which is in the back of the apartment watching a movie. As we got up from the movie, we noticed water pouring into our bedroom from the hall. As we scurried to investigate where the water was coming from, we found that our entire porch was flooded and was spilling into our apartment. It had already flooded the living room, dining room and kitchen and had flooded the hallway down to our bedroom! What a mess! It was about 11:00 at night but I ran down to the guard station to get help while Elder Moon started bailing water. We had four guards helping Elder Moon and I clean up and trying to unclog the drain to the porch. We finally got to bed about three hours later. We thought the problem had been fixed but a few weeks later another storm hit and it started filling up again. This time we knew that we had to keep an eye on things. Elder Moon tried all sorts of things but in the end he had to take one of the drainage pipes off the outside wall and we found a rock that had lodged in the pipe. Over time I guess it had collected all sorts of debris that had clogged the pipe. It was great as the next few storms hit to not worry about being flooded, something you don't expect when living five floors up from the ground!

OK, no makeup or hairdo but we found the rock. Amazing what something that small can do!

Typical way to catch a ride to wherever someone is going.

Bill got up early on Mother's Day and prepared a wonderful breakfast for me and served it to me in bed. He even picked a beautiful flower from our garden and potted it in a cup with dirt and all! What a fabulous husband!!!!

Elder Moon has taken on all the dish washing responsibilities since we came on our mission. He has been a huge help. As you can see, sometimes he does not put the vinyl apron on and then he gets pink spots all over his pants from the bleach as the water splashes on him!


We get beautiful sunsets. This was taken from the roof of our apartment building.

The soccer fields here are not the most beautiful but get used constantly. There is always a game being played. I'd hate to make a sliding tackle on these fields!

At our Stake Conference where
Elder Jensen of the Seven Presidents of Seventy was presiding, the power went out and the generator wouldn't start. Bill had to take the battery from our truck to get the generator going. Elder Moon saved the day again!

Still in love after all these years!

Pascal and Gloria at the church wedding. What a happy couple!

Putting on the ring at the government ceremony. The judge told all the couples that she expected to hear that they all had babies in nine months!

All of the brides had beautiful hats.