Squire Uganda Missionary Blog: Finally an elephant!

Another wonderful week right down the tube. We are loving the adventure and the wonderful senior couples, Mission President and his wife, and of course the Elders and Sisters. We rub shoulders with the most wonderful people and that doesn't even get to the people we meet on the street or in our everyday dealings here in Uganda. We do get a little sad when we miss a sweet granddaughters baptism or the newest addition to our family, Talmage Jex Squire. We are blessed on so many levels.

I have been thoughtful this week on some of the postings from the remembrance of the 9-11 tragedy. It is sad that people will claim the lives of innocents to justify their cause. Some have mentioned where they were or that the event caused them to reconsider their whole life and what they stood for. It is always OK to consider where we are going with our lives and what is important. We can change from a Conservative to a Liberal or Democrat to Republican or vice a versus but I love the one thing we never have to change is our relationship with our Father in Heaven. He never changes and His love for us in unconditional. None of the measures we so often use for one another really matter to Him if we are living righteously, doing good works and love Him and our neighbors.

I know we had a spirit that existed previous to our coming to mortality. All living things exist as individual spirits and our spirit is in the likeness of our physical body (Gen 2:5). Each and every one of us is a literal son or daughter of God. He knows us and we know him. We are immortal and will live with our Father in Heaven once again. God is our Father and through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, he has created this wonderful world on which we live. I always feel sad when someone rejects the only way to find peace from trials and hardship. The only way to find comfort is to keep the pathway to our Father in Heaven open with sincere prayer, reading scriptures and pondering. The Holy Ghost will comfort and help us understand when we are humble and believing.

God knows the end from the beginning and while we may not understand why the world seems to be out of control at times, He does. Even in time of trials we can find peace and joy. We never have to question God, only what we need to do to have His spirit to be with us. We can be happy, we will have joy, and we will at some future day understand why things happen that we cannot currently understand with our limited capabilities. Never, ever stop believing there is a higher power that is watching over us with a perfect understanding of all.

President Uchtdorf summed up quite nicely that we as members of his church are not perfect but we never have to stop believing in God. “To be perfectly frank,” Uchtdorf said, “there have been times when members or leaders in the church have simply made mistakes. There may have been things said or done that were not in harmony with our values, principles or doctrine. God is perfect and his doctrine is pure, he said, but human beings — including church leaders — are not."

We finished the training in Lira on Wednesday afternoon and then drove to Chobe to stay overnight at this beautiful resort. We went there for lunch only when we traveled back from Gulu after the knickers humanitarian effort. It is still beautiful and we were able to see many animals. What a wonderful Country Africa is. They were able to train 58 midwives on how to resuscitate newborn babies that are not breathing at birth. Currently 90 babies out of every 1000 deliveries die. In the U.S., 1 baby dies out of every 2000 deliveries. This will save 90% of the babies if the principles taught, along with the equipment, are used.

This is the administration building where the training was held.

These are the trainers: Dr Joyce, Sister Squire, Dr Charles and Dr Lind

The final speech, she did great

This was a much bigger class than the first one. We had 8 extras attend this one.

President Chatfield was able to give final encouragement and talked about how you can't use this training for yourself. You have to use it helping others and how wonderful that is for all of us.

Some of the class wanted a picture with Sister Squire.

This is one of the midwives preparing to do a skit in front of the class at graduation. It was cute.

This little girl would only let me hold her if she was asleep. I got a phone call and handed her off to Sister Lind and she was not happy to see an unfamiliar face to wake up to.

This Nun had a baby as part of the training, it was cute.

Sister Lind kept everything organized and made sure everyone received a certificate at the end of class.

Babies and hair, love it.

As we got close to the lodge we finally saw our first elephant in the wild. This guy was close to the road and we were able to take pictures from around 20 to 30 yards away. Part of our group was with the rangers having arrived earlier and were about 100 yards away. They were waving at us and we thought it was to get out of their picture so we slowly moved down the road as we waved back to them. Later we found out the ranger was telling them to get us out of there because the elephants like to ram vehicles and tip them over.

Senior couples have it rough. Here we are on the Nile river at sunset.

Several hippos in the water. There are litterly tons of hippos in the water around the lodge.

Nice huh?

Elder Wallace caught a Nile Pike a month ago when he came up for his anniversary. He was willing to go again so here is Patrick, our guide, catching tilapia in the pond at the lodge for bait.