"Time" for some videos

We are rapidly moving toward the end of this portion of our lives.  Being on a mission has been such a blessing in our lives and we hope every senior couple that is able will take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to serve full time – together - on a mission.  My thoughts are moving to how best to spend our remaining time here in Africa. 

"We live in deeds, not years;

In thoughts, not breaths;

In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count  time by heart-throbs."

—P. J. Bailey Some Transitional Comments

Neil A Maxwell said “No challenges of discipleship are more vexing than the management of one's time the day-to-day choices we have to make—not always between bad and good things, but often between competing good things. These are precisely the areas where we need to apply our Father's morality, because these challenges are so real and so persistent. It is also at these confluences of time choice, and tasks that we will achieve our greatest growth or experience the greatest failures.”

I like this quote from the philosopher Hegel: "there are very few simple choices.  No blueprint gives us easy answers.  Life's most wrenching choices are not between right and wrong but between competing demands on our time, our resources, and our love and loyalty."  Simple right?

In our lives we have vital and urgent things we must accomplish.  The vital things are usually not all that urgent because they tend to be more long term.  I remember starting a new semester at school and you would get the syllabus for the class outlining the vital tasks necessary to receive a good grade.  Rarely did I get right on the vital tasks because there were so many other urgent things that needed to be done.  When our life if filled with only urgent tasks we may need to pull back and look for the vital tasks before they become urgent or left out all together.  I plan to do that with our remaining time here in Uganda.

This week we have many videos that show the culture and awesomeness here in Africa.  Understand that we are traveling outside of any large city by over 1½ hours on dirt roads doing the humanitarian project I blogged about last week.  To see the excitement over the planned receipt of a garden hoe and how it will provide a way to be self-sufficient in feeding their family brought to me a time of reflection.  Each of us need to individually appreciate what we have been blessed with and give our Heavenly Father gratitude for these gifts however they are packaged.

Let's get started with a very cute girl who thinks everyone is laughing for her.

Different girl, same cuteness factor.  Playing "fetch."  Mom was actually seeing how close she could get her little girl to Sister Squire.  

If there is music, there will be dancing.

This was by far the most fun stop.  We arrived and this group of dancers led us to our chairs at the front of the crowd and then performed three different musical and dance numbers.  It is fun to see the many ways they make their own musical instruments and then make beautiful music with them.

The man in Green is Musa, the member of Parliament who they are really welcoming.

The horn is from one of the animals.  He gets a bit embarrassed when he see he is being videoed.

The welcome song.  The humming noise is the speaker system.  It was much better when they would just turn it off.  They had a huge truck battery to run the system.

This one is a bit blurry but we had a school next to where we were holding our meeting and we were just starting to hand out the hoes.  All of a sudden hundreds of kids started running to see what the crowd was all about.  It was crazy to see all these kids and more in the back.

Sister Squire and Sister Howard getting their "grove" on.

Oh yes, lots of dancing.

A board and some sticks with a shaker board and they have some great dancing music.

Driving around Layton will be rather boring after this adventure mission!