Trip to Amboseli National Park

Amboseli National Park has an ongoing elephant research project, the world's longest running study of a wild elephant population. The project has compiled three decades' worth of births, deaths and kinship within a community of 50 elephant families totalling more than 1,000 individuals. Today, much of what is known about elephants is owing to this study, whose work has been recognized through many fascinating documentaries, one of which we were able to see at the lodge. You can see how comfortable the elephants are with the cars...the herd crossed the road in between them with little concern for the people snapping pictures.

This is the lodge where we stayed. Lovely, peaceful setting. One of the nicest things that happened at the lodge was that the staff members saw our badges that said, "Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints." They were very impressed that a group of missionaries had come to visit. They asked us to preach to them. One of the cooks set up a meeting at their quarters, and about 20 staff members joined us. Most of them were Pentacostals. We opened with prayer and a song, "Amazing Grace," which they were familiar with. We talked about the Plan of Salvation then opened it up to questions. We had an open but respectful discussion, after which we invited them to lead us in a closing song and prayer. Their song was much more lively than was ours.

This is one of the many monkeys that populated the grounds of the hotel. One of our sisters left an open truck door while she left for a minute to get something from her husband who was a few feet away. During the couple of minutes she was gone, a monkey scampered down the tree, grabbed a bag of chips that was inside a grocery bag between the front seats, and escaped back into the tree before anyone could stop it. They are completely unafraid of the people. I was walking from the truck with a plastic bag with a few food items in it. A monkey ran up behind me, grabbed the bag from underneath but was chased off by one of the guards in the parking lot. The food was intact, but the bag had a few claw holes in it.