Christmas Letter 2009

Dear Friends and Family,
We are taking this opportunity to send Christmas greeting to everyone. We are enjoying our mission very much and hope through this message we can convey our thoughts and feelings about serving the wonderful people here in Kenya. As some of you may know our main focus is to coordinate the Perpetual Education Fund in the Kenya Nairobi Mission and the Nairobi Kenya Stake. There are about 150 loan participants that we monitor on a daily basis. We have coordinated the addition of 30 new participants since we came here eight and one half months ago. We are thankful for this opportunity to serve these young people, most of them are in their mid to late twenties, they keep us on our toes and we love interacting with them.

We also have responsibilities with the Seminary and Institute programs. We teach one institute class every Wednesday (Presidents of the Church). We started with Joseph Smith and have gone through every President up through George Albert Smith. This week we will begin teaching about the life of David O. McKay. One mission district located about 150 miles southwest of Nairobi has 10 branches where they hold twenty Seminary and Institute classes each week. Our duties in that area is to teach the teachers in monthly in-service. The first Friday and Saturday of each month we drive there and meet with these devoted teachers. It is wonderful to see their dedication to the work and we love sharing techniques with them to assist as they teach the youth and young adults.

We understand some of you are wondering why we haven’t written or emailed you since we came on our mission. We have tried to respond to all correspondence we have received and will continue this practice. Please send your emails to flinders1@earthlink.net. There may be some confusion because for a time our email service was interrupted, but it is back now and we would love to hear from you.

This Christmas season is so different because the weather is so mild. The temperature is in the mid 70 degree range night and day. This is also the rainy season so everything is beautiful and green. It is hard to get in the Christmas spirit with no snow and such beautiful summer time weather. Yes, this is summer here because we are in the southern hemisphere. Our seasons are just the opposite of those back home, but the temperature stays about the same year round and the sun comes up about 6:30 AM and goes down about 6:30 PM every day 365 days a year.

We love serving the Lord and feel his presence every day. We know many of you are praying for us for which we give our sincere thanks. This time of year when we focus on the birth of Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice for us we appreciate all he has done as the savior of the world. We wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and may the Lord bless each of you with his spirit.

Our love and best wishes to everyone,
Elder and Sister Flinders, Leon and Brenda, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa (you choose)