Our DR Congo Kinshasa Mission has come to an end.

Elder and Sister Moon leaving to be released from their Stake President. We will miss our badges! We are grateful for the experiences we had in the DR Congo Kinshasa Mission. We will always cherish the wonderful people we had the privilege of associating with. The experiences we had for the twenty and a half months we served will be forever deeply rooted in our hearts. The Lord blessed us so abundantly with tender mercies each day! How can we ever fully express to Him our extreme gratitude?

David made sure the world knew we were arriving home!

One picture that never got posted was this treasured picture taken with Elder Holland, Elder Koelliker and his wife, President and Sister Headlee and Eustache. We were privileged to spend several days with them when they came to split a stake in Kinshasa. What a blessing to spend time with an apostle and a member of the Seventy!

Sister Moon with her mother, Ruth Challis the day we arrived home. We are grateful our parents were so supportive!
Elder Moon's parents, Grant and Ella Moon on the day we arrived home. Mom Moon had a bad heart attack last June while we were serving. We are so grateful she has recovered and was here to greet us!

Saying good bye to some of our sweet sister missionaries.

Mac and Janet Coleman who are on a one year consulting assignment became dear friends while we were serving. They had both served in French speaking missions when they were younger. He is doing some work with the military.

Elder and Sister Moody have been accomplishing many great humanitarian projects throughout the mission. We loved serving with them and playing with them and eating with them and walking with them. We even shared a few tears with them Their combined talents make them a top notch Humanitarian Couple!

Priesthood Brethren singing at our ward farewell party.

Youth Choir at the Tshibobo village water closing ceremony.

The Hoki Poki with our English class

Congolese man receives wheelchair from LDS Humanitarian

Our farewell party at the mission home hosted by President and Sister Headlee. They are doing a great job in very challenging circumstances. We were privileged to work with them!

Pascal and his wife Gloria. Pascal is one of the hardest workers you will find. He has the greatest sense of humor and is a joy to work with. We are so excited for he and Gloria with the upcoming birth of their baby.

Oh how we love Pascal and Eustache! They have deep rooted places in our hearts. We will always cherish the experience we had working with them
One of our last nights on the roof of our apartment building. We loved the beautiful sunsets from that vantage point.

Sister Moon with Hardy Lumu. He was my youngest piano student.

David Beck, the General Young Men's president of the church came to our Stake Conference the last Sunday we were in the DR Congo. We discovered that he and Elder Moon have the same Great grandfather, Helorum Moon.

Don't you love all the cute hair accessories in this little girl's hair?

The Lumu family and three other kids our last Sunday at church. The Lumu family were great friends.

Bombyck helped us our entire mission in many ways. He was very instrumental in increasing the size of our English class from 20 students to 90 regular attendees. He also helped with many projects Elder Moon did. He served as ward mission leader most of our mission and helped many people learn about the gospel.

Some of our sweet friends that we will really miss!

Elder Moon had to create some boxes to bring home some of our stuff. He was testing the strength or maybe he thought he could just ride cargo class!

Construction has been going on twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for the last year across the street from our apartment. We got to go to sleep each night with the sound of rebar clanging and cement pumps pumping!

Sister Moon working out on the roof. We are 10 floors up and had great views in every direction.

We should really send this picture to the St. George Marathon. They collect pictures of people wearing their shirts all over the world. I wonder if they have one from the DR Congo!

Elder Moon getting buff!! I do love those muscles!

Elder Moon running on our roof top. A lap only takes twenty seconds but at least he could run every day!

Some times you have to get creative to get a good workout! This metal ladder on the roof worked great for pull ups.

We should have cropped this and zoomed in so you can really see all the people crammed in this truck. Do you think they are wearing seat belts? At least they have their hard hats on!

Sister Moon wore out her running shoes. One of the sisters was still happy to get them when we left.

Elder Moon pulled rank and posted this picture. The sleeve of this fun Congolese dress was really cute. Wish you could see the detail!

Angelique Tarr, Sister Moon, Getruth Nakale, and Daange Tarr at the Nakale's home. They had a going away party for us.

Ameda Tarr, Da Tarr, David Nakale, Elder Moon, Gelda Tarr, Erich Nakale, David Nakale and Lee Nakale.

Yummy cake!

Another young couple in the ward presented us with these outfits. So many people were so generous and spoiled us with wonderful keepsakes. One man from our English class presented us with some beautiful copper artwork and named his garden the "Moon Jardin".

Melissa wanted to braid my hair the night the ward had our farewell party. We had to settle for one braid right up front. She was very pleased to have been my hairdresser!
These are some of the primary children that sang for us at the party.

A number of our English students showed up to the ward farewell party. They have been so fun to work with and their language skills have greatly increased. A number of them are learning about the gospel.

This is the table cloth the priesthood presented after singing to us. We attached a video of the brethren singing. They did such a good job, they were asked to sing in Sacrament meeting the following Sunday.

The priesthood brethren singing at the farewell party.

Micadeau crocheted this beautiful tablecloth for us and presented it after the Relief Society Sisters sang to us.
Marie Lumu has been serving as Primary president and presented us with this painting after the Primary sang to us.

Bernard and his wife Yaya along with Tommy and his wife Julie from TIFIE took us to dinner along with the Headlee's and Moody's. They have been great friends and some of their cohorts at TIFIE have been good to transport needed items as they have traveled to and from the states.

One of the last things Elder Moon helped fix was the generator at the building where the mission home and office are located. The workers were trying to fix the generator and fortunately Elder Moon had the right size wrench they needed.

Glad most of the oil ended up on his face and not his shirt!!!

After Luputa, we drove back through Mwene Ditu and had been asked by the Branch President to stop and meet with the members. We met them on a Monday about noon. We visited for awhile and then went into the church where we were all asked to speak for a few minutes. They were so warm and welcoming. We enjoyed our time with them.

This is what has been used for many years to send messgages from one village to another. They ususally will send their messages in the middle of the night when it is quietest. It was a way of communicating that someone had died, or other information they neede to pass along. They use some type of code and pass it from village to village. That way someone in a distant village gets the message and can come when needed. Not much has changed in a thousand years in many of these villages, except now they have cell phones!

A picture of the homes in Luputa.

We met at the mayor's home the morning we were to leave. He had just learned of the death of a family member. He was still gracious and received us. He has pledged to be very supportive of the last two phases of the water project along with the casava project. Je is standing in the middle in the green shirt.

Sister Moon singing again with a group of people.

What is Sister Moon doing?! Actually, she was enjoying teaching songs to a group of people while we were waiting for the others we were traveling with to have a meeting. The Congolese do love to sing! We made a quick stop at Marie Josee's orphanage. She receives many orphans, malnourished children, children of violence, and displaced people. She tries to help them all. I think she has already qualified for sainthood! What an amazing woman.

We heard some wonderful music one night at the monastery coming from the church. We walked over and found this group playing away on their homemade instruments. They were fantastic. The little boys in the background were playing african drums and shakers. They really put together some great sounds! Hopefully, our video of them will download so you can see and hear them. They were really fun!

This picture is a little out of place but shows much of the foliage that the workers had to cut and dig through for the trenches for the water project.

Omar has been our driver when we go to Luputa. He is a fun person and a great driver. We appreciate his skills and company.