Families from Kitale, Kenya

On Friday, November 28, the Area Office celebrated the beginning of the Christmas season with a Christmas devotional and luncheon for the entire Area Office staff and missionaries. When Elder Grandpa and I arrived that morning the PR people were just taking supplies out to the big tent on the white house lawn so we offered to help. We had to set up more tables and put cloths, napkins, plastic ware, etc. on the tables. Suddenly 4 young people who were here with their families from Kenya for a temple trip showed up to help. Three were siblings and one was from another family. They were so great. They had been here since Monday afternoon and had all been to the temple to be sealed to their parents. They were to leave by 11 that morning.


From Left, Elisha, Lucy, Sammy, and Edward.

After we got set up I spent time talking to them and later met the rest of their families as they came from the temple. Here is what I learned: In one family, The Gideon Chirchir family, the father had been introduced to the gospel in 1991 by missionaries from Salt Lake while on a school break in Sweden from his university studies. He said it was still 5 years before the gospel was introduced in Kenya. I asked him if that was hard and he said it had been very lonely. He said it took time for the church to grow but now there were 5 branches in his area of Kitale. He had been a branch president and now was a counselor to the branch president. He said they had brought 4 branch presidents with them on this trip. I asked if he had been before and he said this was his first time to the temple. They had had to get special permission to have his children sealed to them because 3 of them were already nearly grown.


The oldest daughter, Juliana,(in the purple suit) served a mission in Cape Town. She graduated from the University before her mission and is now teaching high school chemistry and biology and next year she will begin her Master’s program. The next daughter, Damaris, is attending the University in Kampala, Uganda and plans to be a teacher teaching Christian studies (that’s not the name she called it, though) and another subject, maybe Swahili, and the next one, a boy, Elisha, who had helped me earlier is in college in Kitale studying business management. The youngest one, Eliazer, I didn't meet till this picture. I was so impressed with all of them! What a wonderful family. What a blessing that these children have had the experience of attending primary and young men and young women as they grew up.

The other family, the John Mdungu family, have children slightly younger. Sister Bragg is with them. She is over Patron Housing, where the families stay when they come to the temple.


Their father is the current branch president and very warm and friendly as were the children I met. They have been the church for 6 or 7 years and the children have also been through the church programs. They were easy to talk to and so helpful and willing to share their stories with me. All were planning to go on missions and to college.

All family members were so grateful to be at the temple. The adults attended sessions every day and the older children had been doing baptisms for the dead. Returning home would involve a 5 hour flight to Nairobi, then 10 hours by bus back to Kitale. The father said there was a plane flight, but it would be too expensive for them. But no complaining. Then the gal in college in Uganda had another bus ride, 6 hours I think, to get back to school by Monday to complete her exams. What a great experience for me to share this time with them.

This young couple with their little ones we met and talked with earlier in the week and were so excited to be at the temple and to have their picture taken.

I'll send the pictures on to these great families and tell them how much I enjoyed meeting them. Everyday I learn something new because - TIA (this is Africa).