Hal and Janis

Quentin L. Cook came to Lusaka on 22 February 2023 where he held a member devotional and a missionary conference. The missionaries have been busy contacting people and distributing 10,000 of these little cards inviting as many people as they could. Emmanuel was at least one of the ones that walked for 1 1/2 hours to come to this meeting!!                                       It was a full house but not as many as was hoped. Some one told us there was about 500 in attendance but it was hoped there would have been 1000 or more. This picture was taken after the devotional. One thing I really enjoy about these people is how they love being together...all smiles and hugs! They tend to linger longer even when there is no Linger Longer! Besides, the Spirit was so strong I simply think no one wanted it to end!! Less than five minutes before the meeting was suppose to begin, President Lumbama came from the stand down to Hal and I and asked if I would please come and play the piano for the meet

Emmanuel Banda has been investigating the church for over a year. He has gone through quite a few sets of missionaries. There have been challenges teaching him because he does not speak English very well, but his testimony is genuine.   Sister Johnson and Sister Manning would meet Emmanuel at the mission office and invite me to sit in on the lessons. That has been a real treat!  Later, Sister Soko and Sister Johnson continued to teach him. I always was impressed when a scripture was brought up that Emmanuel was impressed with. He would hurry and put a piece of paper in the Book of Mormon, marking the place. One in particular was when he met with the missionaries shortly after his father passed away. The scripture that brought him a lot of comfort was Alma 40:11 “…  as soon as they are departed from this mortal body, yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are taken home to that God who gave them life.” He really liked that verse and was anxious to share it with the r

Our family continues to grow! We are now up to 114 missionaries. We started out at about 80. We have met young men and young women from 19 countries and 10 states. This group arrived on 1 February 2023. It is always a delight to meet them and to see their enthusiasm to begin their labors. Once in awhile we see a deer in the headlight look on their faces, but mostly it is simply excitement for this new adventure! Let me introduce you to these new missionaries:                       Sister Kamanura from Zimbabwe.           Elder Larkin from Meridian, Idaho but                                                                                                          received his call while in Indiana. I don't know                                                                                            the story behind that. Maybe one day I will have                                                                                          the opportunity to ask. Idaho boys are some of 

                                                   I woke up yesterday morning at about 5:00 AM. It was raining. When we walked out of our apartment at about 8:00 AM we were shocked!! The parking area was totally under water!                    We determined that if we took a giant step we could get onto the running board and then into our truck. Since the driver’s side is on the far side of the truck from where we were, Hal crawled in first and then over the console into the driver's seat. It was a stretch but I also managed to make that giant step. We thought we were ready....                 ...until we realized that we had left the keys in the door!!! So I had to climb back out, get the keys and climb back in!!! We got a good laugh at that!                                                  Looking into our apartment area from the gate! Our place is on the far end at the bottom. The entire parking area was under water.      Here you can see that even the grassy area along side of