Church in Kuwait--and potlucks

Many people have emailed us directly and asked what church is like here so I will try to summarize our experience thus far.

First of all, church is held on Friday. I'm still not used to it. Even those who've been here for years will slip up and talk about church on Sunday. Sunday is regular school/work day here. Saturday is the other weekend day. I think until just recently (I want to say August?) the weekend days were Thursday and Friday but it has now been changed. It has been hard to get used to not having a day before church day to make sure grocery shopping is done, kids are bathed and ready, etc. But it is nice that we seem to have more time as a family on Fridays because we're not worried about making sure homework and things are ready for school the next day. Church days seem much more relaxed.

We have a small branch--well, I don't really know if it is considered a small branch. I just know it is smaller than the ward we were in in UT. We have about 40 come each week. That number tends to fluctuate. One reason is because some come on weeks when their business brings them here to Kuwait. They are not permanent residents of Kuwait but travel frequently enough here that they are considered members of the branch. Usually their home base is somewhere else and their families are not with them.

There are others in the branch who do reside here but their families are not here with them. Some families choose not to come and live together here for various reasons. Other people have come here for work and they cannot afford to bring their families with them. It certainly makes us feel very blessed that all of our family was able to come here and be together.

Numbers were very low at church today because there were Stake Leadership Meetings today in Bahrain. The church buys everyone who needs to go a plane ticket and they fly over for the day. I'm anxious for Todd to get back tonight to let me know what it was like. Bahrain is the stake headquarters for our stake, The Arabian Peninsula Stake.

A couple of weeks ago we had stake conference for our branch. Instead of all the branches meeting together in Bahrain, a member of the Stake Presidency and his wife come to the branch and hold training meetings and sessions of conference with just our branch. They held a couple of training meetings and interviews Thursday night, more training and interviews Friday morning, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. they held an adult session and from 11:30 to 1:00 was a general session. The visiting member of the Stake presidency was the 1st counselor and his wife, President and Sister Shurtlif. They've lived in Saudi for about 23 years. He is from Salt Lake and she is from Ashton, ID. It was nice to meet someone from our neck of the woods.

After the meetings was a potluck. It was the Cummings' family first successful potluck since we've been here and considering we've only been here just over a month, we've had a lot of potlucks. Our first potluck was the day after the kids and I arrived. It was held at a members' house. We bought some fruit to cut up for a fruit salad. Easy. Can't go wrong with that. But we can. The watermelon (the staple of this particular fruit salad) was bad when we cut into it. We put together all the rest of the fruit we had and took that but it was just one little small bowl's worth. Here we were taking 10 people to a potluck (it was while my dad was still in town) with just a small fruit salad to share. Fortunately there was plenty of other food.

The next potluck was at church the next Friday. We found out that every 3rd Friday is a potluck. (The stake conference potluck was just thrown in for good measure.) This was mine and the kids' first time at church. Todd thought he vaguely remembered a potluck being announced but couldn't remember details so we thought nothing of it. He did remember them announcing that for church that instead of the regular meetings, we would be watching a session or two of General Conference. So we arrived at church and found out that we'd be watching a session, having a potluck, then watching another session. This particular day we didn't even bring a small bowl of anything. Fortunately??? Eli was sick. So after watching the first session we were able to excuse ourselves. We were reassured that there was plenty of food--which I'm sure there was. Members are so generous here. But we escaped and vowed to be ready for the next potluck.

We weren't ready. The next potluck was held at our house but it was with Todd's coworkers--not the branch. I made a pot of thick chicken noodle soup. I was still having trouble finding ingredients that I'm used to cooking with, I'm using disposable cookware and cheap pots and pans and so my cooking has been limited. As the guests arrived and we saw what they brought, we realized that we were the only ones who made something other than a dessert. There is a bakery within a 1 minute walk of our house so Todd ran over there to get some rolls to go with dinner. Not a big deal until we started eating and realized that instead of two huge trays of sweet rolls we thought were for dessert were actually two huge trays of various and fancy dinner rolls. I'm sure we made a huge social faux pas by going out and getting more rolls as though the rolls they had brought weren't good enough.

Finally, a successful potluck was achieved the week of Stake Conference. It turned out to be an expensive success though. I decided to make a 7 layer salad--you know, the one with lettuce, frozen peas, celery, green peppers, a mayo/sugar dressing on top, etc. Technically it has bacon in it and I used turkey bacon (since pork products are banned here--except you can still get them if you know someone who has access to the military store). Turns out iceburg lettuce and celery are imported from the states or Australia and are very expensive here--between $4 and $5 for a head of lettuce or a bunch of celery. Who knew that those two foods would be considered luxury foods? At the store I had my little list of ingredients I thought I'd for sure be able to find but I didn't realize it would be so expensive. I did manage to notice that cauliflower too is about that expensive. I decided the 7 layer salad could do without cauliflower.

But I made my salad and it tasted good and it was successful. We had another potluck today (it is the 3rd Friday) and I made an Italian pasta casserole thing. It turned out ok. It was a little burnt because I'm still trying to figure out my oven but overall I think it went well.

So I've gotten sidetracked from church and talked about potlucks. Back to church. We have 10 kids in primary--4 of them are mine. Our primary program is coming up in a couple of weeks so my kids will get to be involved in that. We just missed being there for our program in UT. Our Primary President is a professional musician and has composed for the theatre in London and other places. She really has these kids organized and doing well in their practicing for the program.

Clara is in Young Womens and there are 5 or 6 there. She really likes it so far. The Young Women's president is really helpful and on the ball so Clara has been welcomed in and not slipped through the cracks.

Todd is the YM President. He has about 4 or 5 young men. He's working on getting them used to a regular weekly activity since they haven't had one for quite some time, I guess.

The members come from all over. We have Americans, British, Phillipinos, Indians, Canadians, and I'm sure other I don't know about. It's pretty varied for a group so small. Rose Park prepared us for that.

We're enjoying getting to know the members here. It is a blessing to meet so many people from various parts of the world and hear their stories of what brought them to Kuwait.