Wednesday, July 3rd - Friday, July 5th - Chatsworth YC meeting-Zulu Day

Wednesday, Brother Rieckhoff and Clive went to the Youth Centre on their own so they could look at the things that needed to be done there that might be a helping hands project. I was working on getting on the Bank of America site to verify or tick off our charges. We have been unable to do that, because we did not have a user name and password. I finally got one and ticked off the charges we made before our card was mistakenly cancelled. Soon after that, we got a message from Clive saying that Brother Rieckhoff (in charge of helping hands for the stake) drilled the director of the youth centre and made it sound like a property inspection. This irritated the director, so we were worried that he might decide to cancel our concert. Since we are not paying for the venue, it would not hurt him to cancel. We worked hard to develop a relationship with this guy and then we get an email suggesting that we look elsewhere, because the director was not cooperating and the electricity was not turned on and he wouldn't say when the place was going to get painted. Yikes. What they didn't realize is that THIS IS THE VENUE. We have posters and flyers already printed and we could not find anywhere else!

So, Elder Kyle immediately contacted the director to see if we could meet with him on Thursday morning. He said okay, so Thursday morning we went back there to talk to him. He was actually very cooperative and told us that there is a local paint store that has offered to paint the place, but he didn't want to push them as to when or they might back out. He also doesn't want us calling the guy. That was his biggest fear that we would get involved and someone was going to say, "Who are they?" Apparently, there are some organizations jockeying for position of ownership or management of the place and the director doesn't want them to think we are trying to get in a position of takeover. Funny, huh? We soothed him and asked if we could at least get it power washed. He said that would be okay, but is checking with the Painting company to see if he can get an idea of when they will do the painting. If we are lucky, it will be before the concert. It's all a waiting game.

While reading our local paper, "Highway Mail", we came across this cute article about one of the schools in the more affluent area having a Zulu Day. Everyone was encouraged to dress up in Zulu attire, even teachers. Elder Kyle cut out the pictures and told me to put it on the blog, so here it is. They also had competitions with Zulu weapons. From the photos, it looks like they had a great time. These outfits are what they sell at the Zulu markets and a lot of the Zulu people actually wear them. I previously posted a photo of Elder Zawackey with Zulu attire on at one of our family home evenings. These boys are wearing basically the same outfit. Cute huh?

There weren't too many black children in the photos, so I am assuming this is mostly a white school, but look how cute the girl in this photo looks. If you go downtown, you will see many grown black women dressed the same. Elder Kyle wants to get our daughter the outfit with the red hat in the other photo. He keeps seeing it at the store and thinking it would look good on Shannon. Of course anything would look good on Shannon, but he is serious...perhaps a Christmas present?

Thursday, we had to go buy a new camera, because the camera repair shop wanted more to fix the camera that what it is worth. So we went to Game and bought a new camera. I am experimenting with taking photos and they will appear from now on.

It seems all our focus is on the David Glen Hatch Concert now.
We are passing out posters to wards and trying to get the word out there. We've put together a list of media and public opinion leaders that we want to invite. We've tried to pin down Lotus FM to see what is going on with the wheelchairs, but they are busy with another project, so are not answering our emails. We set up an appointment with a pressure washer who will come out Monday and give us a bid to wash the mold off all the entry-courtyard walls. We just hope it doesn't wash off the plaster along with it.

Friday night, Solani from next door came over and we finished faces of girls in a book and put on sticker earrings and hair things and colored pencil makeup. She is pretty spoiled, but so cute in her demands...Ha. She is just testing, but I feel bad for her. She never has anyone over that is the same age as here...it's as if she doesn't have any friends. When I asked her why she never had friends over, she said she didn't have any except a girl I met who was 17. It seems odd to me, but TIA.