Elder and Sister Condie Mission Blog: April 12, 2015

Another great week has come and gone! The first of our week always begins with calls to the kids and the grandkids! We really enjoy these calls so much! It truly makes a difference with the homesickness. I guess it could go both ways but for us….it makes us feel soooo good! We love our family so much! It has been a very hot week this week. We have been told that this time of year is when the sun is the closest to Sri Lanka. These are the hottest times in the country! Steve takes his hankie with him wherever he goes and it is soaked so early in the day! We were able to get our visa’s this week as well! That means we are good here until February. We will have to leave the country then and go somewhere else but for now….we are here to stay! That is a big relief. We made many visits this week as usual! We love doing that! We really get to know the members and less actives so much better when we go into their homes. We went with the missionaries to the Nimal family. They are members but haven’t come for several years. Their 3 daughters are attending another church. They are fun to visit. She is a great cook and she fed us this fried egg thing with dhal. She is starting a business from home this week by selling things she cooks. They want us to pray for them in their new venture! We had the missionaries (all 4 of them) over for dinner for FHE. Sister Ann taught us how to make real Sri Lanka food….minus the extra spice of course…..and it was so very good! Fried rice, chicken, dhal, cauliflower salad, etc. We had a really great evening with all of them. Steve and I split up on Tuesday. I went with Sister Ann and Sister Sherine to visit Rosemary on her birthday! She is also not healing after her diabetes problems. It was quite a ways out. But it is always fun to see new things. And she is a wonderful lady with so much faith. She has done so many things for the church here. Steve went with a young man who is investigating the church for lunch today. His wife is a member. He is really great and Steve and he have hit it off really well. I hope things keep progressing for him. We have also found that we can only visit one family each evening because it takes so long to get there and to get back. It will take at least 1 to 1 1/2 hours to get somewhere in the trishaws and the traffic. The people live far away from us! But we love visiting them! We also began our home seminary classes for some of the youth who don't come to church. That has really been a lot of fun! Sherines kids, Shanu and Shami are really great! They are super smart. We gave them the new manuals and gave them assignments and were able to visit with them and enjoy them. Sherine is a great mother and has a wonderful relationship with them. It is fun to watch her with them! We also visited a family who's mother works at a salon. We surprised them by going there with the Elders! The girls were really sweet. The oldest has been reading her scriptures and doing all her seminary stuff even though they don't attend. The younger girl is not old enough for seminary yet. She had drawn some patterns on her hand and arm. It is called Mehendi. People will pay a lot of money to have that done. She had drawn her own. She showed us what she used and how it is done. So she did a design on my thumb! It is still there but not very dark anymore. I guess it wears off after a week or so. We had a great visit with this family and were able to get seminary started for them! We were also able to visit Elder Rajan best friends while we were out that way! Elder Rajan is serving in Negombo. That was really fun hearing stories about him when they were growing up together. They said we could come back! Hopefully we will meet his father on one of the visits and try to teach him! We had another big Skype conference with Ana in Jakarta. Hopefully we will get all the computer stuff down sometime soon! Later, we visited Inoka and her husband and daughter in their home. She is a returned missionary who was in a bad marriage at first and then married a Buddhist guy. They seem to be happy. She has a testimony still but hasn't been coming to church. She wants her daughter to be baptized. Her daughter, Stephanie, is really excited to learn. She is 9 and so cute and shy! It was really a wonderful visit with them. The Elders were supposed to come but had helped a family that was moving. Steve actually helped for awhile but came home for an appointment. I started my piano lessons....well sorta! I had a whole list of people coming....and they didn't come! Everyone apologized and said since it was the holiday they had so many other things going on and forgot to call! Oh well. I got to read a bunch of the Conference talks! We will see what next week brings!! However, everyone is now gone for the New Year. It is so interesting to learn about this Buddhist/Sri Lankan holiday. We had a wonderful church meeting today! I was surprised that so many were there when we heard so many leave for the week. The talks in Sacrament meeting were great and the lessons were wonderful as well. They still count on us to say things in their lessons...or they ask if we will add something or if something is right! It makes me laugh. We try to explain that they know so much too but they don't think so! What a blessing it is to serve as missionaries! We are so grateful for this wonderful experience!