Christmas Morning in Liberia

Christmas morning in front of our African Christmas tree. Up close of the tree and the decorations and the gifts.

This is Sister Kimball doing one of her favorite things, baptism samplers for the grandchildren.

Sister Kimball's New Friend

This was a little friend that Elder and Sister Kimball met at the border. She was a little scared of them at first, because she doesn't see many white people, but slowly warmed up to them.

Her ear was so soft.

Sweet Little Friends

This little girl came up to Elder Kimball in church and put her tiny hand in his and just looked up at him. Sister Kimball had her camera and caputred the moment. What a sweet little face.

Kakata Baptism - Nov. 6, 2010

This is the part of the path we used to get to the river where we did the baptisms. What a beautiful river where we were able to have our Kakata investigators baptized.

There are 6 that were baptized, 5 men and 1 woman. We also have the baptist with the group, Brother Sackie who is on the far left of the group. They are all great people who are so grateful to be members of the Church. Some of them have waited more than 2 years to be taught and baptized.

The one with his back to us is Nathan Sumo and he was so happy when he walked down in the water that he raised his hands and Brother Sackie who was to preform the baptism raised his hands in greeting.

This is James Thomas walking down into the water. He has been attending for about 2 years and has a strong testimony. He is very focused on serving a mission when he reaches the age 19. He is on the right side in the picture below with his friend Boima Togba who introduced him to the church. It was fitting that it was Boima's birthday on Saturday when his friends was finally able to be baptized. They will both be powerful missionaries one day. James father and mother live out in the bush and he is a Doctor. They are very happy that he is being baptized.

This is Samuel Zinnah on the left with his brother and nephew. Sam is 62 years old and has been attending for 2 1/2 years. He said this was the happiest day of his life. He has been really excited to become a member of the church.

This is Nathan Sumo on the right, his wife Alice in the middle and Nathan's younger brother Henry who were all baptized. Their son Joseph is also in the photo. Alice has been coming to church for a couple of years and Nathan and his brother started to come about 2 months ago. Nathan has been bringing a ton of his friends to church with him.

This is Alexander Coker on the right with his father who is a counselor in the Branch Presidency. These are all great people and will add great strength to the branch over the next few years.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!! This is Thanksgiving dinner with all the Elders.

Missionaries with whom we serve

Total Zone for Liberia- 20 great Elders, Great Mission President and Wife and Great Area President and wife.

Three Faithful Returned Missionaries (Orlando Nelson, Lucia Twea, and Melvin Quoiebieda) and two young lads (Boima and James) from Kakata. Assistants doing dishes after enjoying a great meal from Sister Kimball.

Paynesville Elders.

Elders Insitful and Taylor

Elders Kimball, Jenkins, Moss, Okeke, and Afadi

Three of trusty returned missionaries and Invesitigators from Kakata.

To and From airports and borders

We are very busy taking and receiving Missionaries that are both leaving and returning to airport or the border. Waiting for Pres and Sis Roggia to arrive. Sister Kimball thought she was really cute taking a picture of the people "standing and waiting" at and No standing/waiting sign. What do you want them to do "Sit and Wait."Elder Freeman coming home. Roberts International Airport

Sisters Salomie Weah and Denise Nelson leaving for their missions, they first go to Accra, Ghana MTC and then will be going to Nigeria.

Elders leaving on a mission Elders at the clinic, yes we take them there too.

Elders coming from Sierra Leone

Our duties to bring and take people to the airport and the border all sadly started when Elder and Sister Cutler had to return home because of Sister Cutlers very serious bouts with Malaria. We were so sad to see them go. We have missed the greatly and forged a great friendship while they were here. Thankfully they were able to continue to serve in Canada. This is the Cutlers pictured with President and Sister Suloon and their 2 sons. Cutlers were able to teach and Baptize Sister Suloon and their 2 sons and 2 daughters of age.

Us pictured with our dear friends, Elder and Sister Cutler.

Sister Kimball's Friends

When anyone of the workers at our apartments approaches me and wants to talk to me it is only to find out "where's my Friend?". That is what they ask exactly, to them all, she is their friend. She will take some food out to them if she is trying out a new recipe, they see her out behind the apartments feeding the birds, they are there when she does the laundry, they thought it was funny and strange when mom took such a liking to a rooster that was tied by the foot and which was soon to become someone's dinner, they know she is their friend when one has a newborn baby die and she talks to them and gives him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and he passes it around, and most of all when she lines up one of the men when he says he wants to know about her church with his seven children to be taught by the Elders. SHE IS THEIR FRIEND IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD. Every one of them break into a smile when they see her, it is something to behold. I like it all cause I am her friend too. --Elder Kimball

Water Everywhere.

We recently had an experience where the elders called us and wanted Elder Kimball to come and help give one of their investigators a blessing because he thought he was having a heart attack. This picture is Elder Kimball walking back over the planks after checking out the investigator. When he was crossing one of these bridges to get here, one of the planks broke and after about 3 steps to try and catch his balance, he fell in.

While Sister Kimball waited for Elder Kimball to go see the investigator, these children brought her a chair to sit on. They live in these little shacks that you can see in the pictures.

This was there hopscotch that they would just trace into the wet sand, (we are in the rainy season, so everything is wet). They showed us how to play on a round one and it looked hard. If you look in the background, you can see another bridge that connects the little islands.

Here are a couple of pictures that Elder Kimball sent to his grandkids. There are lizards of all sizes...And the following is what he shared about the water wells. This one is by one of our church buildings.
Our mission President Phillip Squires first came to this part of Africa on a humanitarian mission and he helped the people here learn how to dig a well down to good water and how to keep it clean. He worked with many people here to dig many wells. When they dig a well they put a top on it to keep it clean and with a pump so the people can get the water when they need it. We have one of the wells he put in right next to one of our church houses and we see little kids come all the time to pump water. They make a game of it, sometimes they just jump up and down while they pump, sometimes they do a little dance while they pump, sometimes they sing and sometimes they see who can pump the fastest. It always amazes me when I see these very little kids carrying the plastic jugs of water, I can't believe they can even lift it.

Visitors at our Meeting

This was taken at one of our Outreach meetings a week ago. To start off, there were only 5 YSA there and we were watching a church history video. We were sitting on the first 2 rows. After a bit, I heard some shuffling behind us and I turned around and there were all these adorable little children about 4 rows deep. Too Cute!

Piano Students

These are my 3 piano students. We only have access to 1 keyboard, so they meet me an hour before we do our Outreach and they practice the same songs, just in different octaves. Never a complaint.

High School

This is outside one of their High Schools. They wear uniforms to most of their schools all the way through high school.

Bridge

This is a narrow bridge that will only allow auto traffic one way at a time. You can't see the other side to know when cars are lined up to cross on the other side so sometimes you start up and get about 1/3 of the way across and see another car coming at you from the other side. One has to back up to allow the other through. As you can see, the motor bikes go whenever and wherever they think they can fit and sometimes it plugs up the whole bridge.

Service Project

These were shots of a service project we did with the young single adults at the Sinkor building which is one of the district centers here in Liberia.

Water Well

This is a well that is located just outside of our Gardnersville Branch Building. They keep the well locked up except for a few hours each day when people line up to get their water. If they left it open the water would get too low and it would foul the water. (There was an article about this in the Church News in Sierra Leone on March 1st or March 8th.)

Hotel

This is one of the floors of a very exclusive hotel which was gutted during the war by the governments own troops. When they could not afford to pay the troops in the war with the rebels, many of the troops were housed in the hotel and they began taking the hotel apart piece by piece until everything that was movable (even granite floor tile for instance) was gone and sold off to buy food. This picture is of the dining area of the hotel which was very plush before the war and would have compared with any five-star hotel anywhere in the world.