Three times this week we have had our beauty sleep interrupted, and believe me, that is something you don't want to mess with at our age!  Sunday we took three missionaries to the airport to catch a 2:45am flight,  Wednesday we went to the airport to pick up 3 new missionaries who landed at 1:45am.,  and Saturday we picked up the new mission president, President Thomas and his wife at the cheery hour of 1:30am.

     Sunday was an exciting day.  All 3 branches met together at Branch 1 for a special "conference" meeting to meet the new president.  There was a great spirit of anticipation as people started gathering.  We had hired 3 buses to bring members from branches 2 and 3 over to Branch 1.   We picked up the mission president from his hotel and arrived at the branch about 20 minutes before the meeting began.
It went well, the theme being "Real Growth in Faith, Conversion, Retention, and Activation."

               This is President Thomas greeting Branch President Mabishwa from Uvira.

             This is President Mabingo from Branch 1 and President Dieudonne from Branch 3.

For me, the best part of the meeting was our elders singing "The Spirit of God" in English,  a cappella, with so much feeling it brought tears to my eyes.
     Afterwards, the president did interviews and Gary did his presidents' training meeting.  While this was going on, I sat under the big tree with Sister Thomas, Sister Clawson and Sister Van.  Later we all came to our house and we had dinner for eight.  Wow!  Entertaining in Bujumbura!  We had Gian Franco prepare a delicious grilled chicken, green salad and bread, to which we added rice, fruit, my sour dough bread, brownies and beignets.  Elder Van also brought cassava bread wrapped in banana leaves so we could all taste it.  Thumbs down on the cassava bread!

                            This is cassava bread.  Don't buy it 'cause you won't eat it!

It was fun being with everyone and visiting and laughing.  More white faces in one spot than I have seen in 5 months!