An African Wedding!

In Africa, you have to do what you have to do to get the job done. Dissi and Pricilla wanted a temple wedding but in Tanzania you have to be married civilly to have the government recognize it. Then you can travel to South Africa and be married in the temple. That was their plan until Pricilla, a Ugandan, couldn't get a visa from Uganda to travel to South Africa. On Thursday, they called John (our church employee) for help. They wanted him to go to the South African High Commission and apply for a visa for her from Tanzania. John knew that she would need to be a Tanzanian to accomplish the visa in the short time allotted. He told them they would need to get married that morning so he could go apply for the visa. As soon as she is married to a Tanzanian she is recognized as Tanzanian. They came to our house and had an invitation letter written by Elder Jensen then the Branch President was made aware of the situation as well as the witnesses, and they all met at the church to preform the ceremony. With the necessary documents signed, John was off to the city to accomplish his task of getting a visa so they could make it to the temple on their scheduled flight early Tuesday morning. The thing you need to realize, is that in Africa things don't happen in just one or two days. Sometimes it takes many days and many visits. John is amazing, and he knew that he needed to give it his best shot to make it happen, and they had to be married.
The wedding couple carried out the original wedding plans at the church on Saturday afternoon, and I don't know how many of the people knew they were already married when the Branch President married them again for all of the family and guests. They had a cute bridal party and I took some pictures showing them exiting the church after the ceremony and around the church. Notice the darling children! They were so cute and well behaved. I don't really know why, but they always drive a rented car that has ribbons and roses, so I had to take a picture of that too. The Uganda ladies all came in their traditional Ugandan dresses. You won't have a hard time picking them out. (I have video of the Ugandans chanting and dancing, but it won't upload for some reason.) It was really fun to be there. The couple pictured is Tom and Mariam. They got married right after we got here, so they have been married 6 months. We didn't go because we didn't know them and we weren't invited. What we didn't know is that "ya'll come" is how you are invited and welcomed.
Tom and Mariam had a crisis making it to the temple when they got married too, but they made it, and are now happily married and leaders in their branch.
The rest of the story is that John was able to pick up the visa on Monday and the happy couple left for the temple in South Africa as scheduled on Tuesday morning. Heavenly Father wants the young people to make it to the temple, but he wants them to have to work to get there! The temple patron fund helps young people go to the temple; without help from members of the church, they could never afford to go. Check out your donation slip!