May 25th Was A Very Busy Sunday

Last Sunday was the busiest we have had, except the one Sunday we tagged along with Elder & Sister Wadsworth before they went home. It was "Missionary Sunday", and the missionaries took care of many of the member's regular responsibilities. This is what we did: Set up a table near the front door to hold brochures and Books of Mormon, greeted people as they arrived, Blessed and Passed the Sacrament, Gave the Talks (Kurt), Bore Testimony (Linda), Missionary Choir Number (Linda directed - ha ha). Kurt taught the High Priests' Group, one Elder taught Elders' Quorum, Elder Ma'u taught the Young Men, and Linda taught the Relief Society. Then afterwards we had 5 baptisms. Sister Eki is a lovely woman. She is a trainer of stewardesses for Arik Air and her husband works for the government in Abuja, which is quite a commute. However, he probably flies for free. We hope to also teach him the lessons.
It was a pretty fun Sunday for us. The Elders were busy teaching first discussions to new investigators for a long time after church.



These are four of the five people who got baptized on our busy Sunday. Sister Eki, left & her daughters & cousin are with Elder Ma'u, who helped to teach them.

Brother & Sister Ekpagah & their son are with Sister Eki's group. Their children go to the same school, and Sister Ekpagah is the member who first invited her to church. Brother Ekpagah is on the High Council in our Stake.

Elder Agwu and Elder Darku (our AP's) taught the lessons to Kingsley, who is one of the guards for the church compounds. He is a very nice young man,

Pesky Neighborhood Goats

We see more stray goats and chickens than cats and dogs here. That seems funny to me. We even saw a bunch of goats on Opebi the other day, which is unusual because it is a very busy road. They seem to go where they want, though.

They also seem to eat whatever they want. This reminded me of the darn neighborhood dogs at home when they are let out to roam free on garbage day.

Our Baby's Growing Up

Haylee hanging out in a snow cave with Amy Johnson and Rachel Reschke. She was blessed with great neighborhood friends to play with.
It looks like Haylee was only about 5. She was still young enough that she would let me put in pink sponge curlers and play with her hair. She loved to pose for the camera.

Haylee always loved cats and dogs. The problem was that she was allergic, especially to the cats. Here she is at the Kasper ranch in Victor.

This is definitely one of my favorite photos of her. Of course, that is one of those nifty dresses that I made for her. She looked pretty cute in it, I think.

What a beautiful smile! Haylee was such a fun baby to be around. Here she was about a year and a half old.

Happy Memorial Day and Happy Birthday to Haylee. Haylee's birth fell on Memorial Day the year she was born. I am starting this post early because we have a Zone Conference and Elder Golden will be here with us that day. Sunday will be filled with church and other responsibilities. But I sure don't want to forget Haylee's birthday because we all love her. Let's see what I can dig up from my photo files to tell a little about our "baby", Haylee Miriam Krupp Marshall.

Haylee turns 22!

I like this cute picture of Haylee and Owen taken by her friend, Heather,
during their "courting" days.

Hanging out in Mom's kitchen

Our "princess Bride"

Here's Haylee, showing her creativity with a bunny cake for Easter. She is smiling as she puts up with an annoying big brother and a goof-off husband.

Haylee is always so helpful with all of her nieces and nephews. Here she is helping Tyson dye eggs for the annual Easter Egg Hunt in Grandpa's yard.

Haylee with her own baby on Miriam's blessing day with us and Owen.

Big Truck - Small Street

Night before last (in the dark), this large semi-truck pulled nose-first into the Church Compound next door to us. It was a large curriculum order for all of the Lagos area. The truck was unloaded yesterday morning and by noon the driver was ready to leave. Problem was - How to get out? By 3:30 p.m. he was still stuck in the parking lot, wedged in super tight. Everyone was out there yelling different directions at the driver in their native language. He knocked some trim off the guard shack. Finally Marcus Ogbonna, who is travel coordinator and a retired military officer, took charge. He emptied the parking lot of cars to give the truck room to move and he was finally on his way - or so we thought. Since we were trying to leave ourselves to go to the store, we needed him to move. I shot a little video to show his continuing problems in getting out of our little street. I don't think this driver will want to come back any time soon.

Linda's Flowers-one week after planting

Sister Krupp had our daughter, Heidi, send some flower seeds. She had Elder Krupp fill some pots with sandy dirt. She planted her little seeds and took this picture of one pot and it's little flower starts after just one week of growing. We are not sure there are enough nutrients in the sandy dirt to give us flowers, but she is trying.

Construction Nigeria Style

These five men are standing in a trench dug by hand. The two with their feet up are resting their feet on a slab of concrete. The concrete had to be removed to allow the trench to be dug. Three of these men worked for the better part of 3 days to beat through the concrete. They used a small sledge hammer with a handle the length of a normal hammer. There was no Jack Hammer. There were no power tools of any kind. There was not even a normal sized 10, 12 or 14 lb. sledge hammer with a long handle. They just beat on the concrete for 3 days by hand with the little sledge. Everything except the mixing of concrete (that is done in an old style tub mixer on site) has been done by hand. The picture on the left is one of the workers with a 5 gallon bucket full of water on his head. All of the water for the project is hauled this way from the LDS Service Center, right next door. That's how everything is moved. The material goes into a bucket or big "pan", up on the head it goes and then to the appropriate floor and room in the building where the material will be used. There are dozens of men on this one project all the time. The trench is now full of a concrete footing with re-bar in it. On top of the footing is a concrete block wall that will rise to 8' or more. The block wall will be surfaced smooth with plaster or stucco. When you show up with a camera to "snap" a picture, everyone around wants to get in the picture. That's why the 5 men in the picture, instead of just the 3 who beat the concrete and then dug the trench. I have had a great time getting to know some of the construction workers and having them explain the things they are doing. This short length of wall is part of the Compound Wall for the new Mission Center Compound. It is moving very fast, compared to what we have observed for the past 3 months. Everything was always moving quite quickly, for African standards. It just didn't look like it to us.

The flat, whitish wall behind them is part of the wall of the Mission Center Compound Guard building. There is a small building inside the gates of most compounds for the guards. By African Standards, this Mission Center Building and Compound are quite substantial. Both the Lagos East Mission and the Lagos West Missions will have their offices in this building. There are two very nice 4 bedroom suites for the two mission presidents and 4 small apartments for Senior Couples. We are the only Senior Couple for the foreseeable future. Maybe one of the small apartments can become an exercise room. That would be nice!