We Are Ready!

If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.
— Doctrine and Covenants 38:30

This has been another incredible, amazing week here in Nepal. We are learning so much that has and will prepare us for the responsibilities of our callings.

For the most exciting news, we got our first project approved!

It’s a project in food security and nutrition, helping poor Nepali families in rural villages improve their food production and farming skills. LDS Charities is funding the project and a local NGO (CHOICE Humanitarian) will implement it. It’s super exciting to have had a small part in getting this off the ground and to the stage now of crafting the cooperation agreement — with the help of our legal team in Hong Kong.

This evening we met with the Rotary Club of Kathmandu. An illustrious group of about 15 businesspeople, including many CEOs of corporations, in their early days they were known as the Wheelchair Club because they were involved in many wheelchair projects. We were able to give our pitch and they are excited about getting into a new project partnering with LDS Charities.

We spent a good chunk of time preparing and gathering documents (there are 17 (!) that are required) to support our application for working visas, so we can have permission to stay here and keep working after our tourist visas expire next month. One of the documents is a report from the local police that we have no criminal record during our stay. It was a tedious online application process, and the Police Clearance Certificate is still “in progress” — but there’s a good chance that when it comes we’ll be pronounced squeaky clean!

We wanted to start music lessons this week, but circumstances dictated that we wait another week. We prepared our materials, and practiced and felt ready, but reality has yet to demonstrate to us just how insane it is to attempt to teach conducting, basic piano, and singing skills to 14 branch members of widely differing ages and abilities!

Other highlights of our week:

Learning to enter payment requests in the church’s finance system.

Celebrating Independence Day with Krishna (our landlord) and his family (and legend Betty, a 90-year-old expat who has lived in Kathmandu for 47 years). Not exactly parade-brunch-and-more at the Neffs, and we surely miss those great times, but this is our social circle now!

We paid a visit to a rural elementary school that LDS Charities paid to rebuild after it was destroyed in the 2015 earthquake. Getting there was pretty harrowing — it’s been raining and the already rough road was muddy as well. Only prayers and extra-skillful driving got us through one spot where we were stuck spinning our wheels for a few minutes!

At the school, we wished we had had the camera ready, as coming up the stairs we met coming down the most adorable pair of 3-year olds, who, really, only our granddaughter could be cuter than! Some of the older kids spend 1.5 hours each way walking to school. The younger kids are accompanied by their parents, who go back and forth twice each school day, for a total of 6 hours a day!

All classes should be Child Friendly!

We enjoyed dinner with Sunila and her family, a 6:30 to 10:00 evening affair. Nepalis eat late in general, but starting with appetizers at 6:30, then more eating and talking practically non-stop, getting to the main courses at 9:00 — it was all delicious but a little hard on our digestive systems that really only wanted to shut down for the night!

All told, whatever this mission is going to throw at us, we say bring it on — we are ready!