Aug. 29th

Hey Everyone!!
  This week has gone very well!! We had that baptism that I was talking about the guys name is Brother Paul. I was even the person that he wanted to do the baptism. My first time ever! Super cool I loved it! And you are right that we will just do one HUGE lesson thing for all of those people, but the thing is that they are not in Nairobi they are in a place called Kiesumu. That is in western Kenya. See here the city of Nairobi it is like an island, no one really lives here for a long period of time, they come here for work or for school then they go back home to what they call "up country" so that can sometimes make it hard to teach when you go to someone’s house and find out that they went to their up country and won’t be back for a few weeks.

   I’m sorry it has been so hot.  I feel sorry for the missionaries there too, because even here when it’s in the upper 70s almost everyday walking around is hot, but it is rewarding!

   I have had some interesting experiences this week. Mostly about people who think that we are devil worshipers. One person while we were contacting out side the Church thought that we are devil worshipers and that we sacrifice people on the steeple. Can you believe that???????? I mean how far off base can you get?? This guy thought that we killed people on the steeple, in the moment I was kind of flabbergasted. but now that I think about it, it is very sad that the adversary can convince some people that the Church of God is a cult. But I still can’t help but laugh at this guy. I did my best to teach him that we didn’t do that I just hope it got though to him. The next experience is along the same lines and it happened today before I came to email you. and that is that this guy called us and just asked if we are devil worshipers and asked if we drink people’s blood. we told him no that we don’t do that and that the best way for him to find out the truth is for him to come to Church and find out for him self. So it can be really weird out here, not that I didn’t expect that.
   Ok so something supper cool!!!!  Someone from the Riruta ward is going to be in Provo on the 15th of September or somewhere close to that she is going for some training for something. She is a supper cool women and a great singer her attitude kind of makes me think of Tami. So she is a great person and said that if there was anything that I wanted to send home that she would take it with her. :) so I plan on sending the CD with the pics on it with her and some letters that I have wrote for some people, and maybe some other things. But so if you could meet her that would be amazing maybe have her over for dinner or something. I will try and find out more info to give you so that you can get a hold of her when she gets there. I will also give her our address and phone number. I know that you will get along great. and I bet if you wanted to send anything back she would be happy to take it :) lol

Thank you very much for everything :)
I love you all so very much :)
SLY
Your African missionary
Elder Hodges

Aug. 22nd

My favorite part about being in Kenya is being in Kenya :) and serving the Lord I love it all I think I am even getting used to the food :) I am in a ward it is called Riruta ward it is nice to go there on Sundays but a sad thing is that allot of the members are less active a few years ago it almost split into 2 wards because it had so many members but almost all of them have stopped coming to church like this Sunday we had 20 people there before sacrament started.  The area was dead we are trying to bring it back to life and with investigators we are really we have allot of people to teach but the most of the members are less active and we need to do our best to get them back and there is no elders president so that’s hard because for some reason all this responsibly falls on the bishop and us. So that is a sad thing but my comp and I are working on it.

 Things are great! The week has been good well all but the baptism. it

got pushed back to next Sunday because we found out about

homosexuality that our investigator used to have. so he will be

interviewed by President B. But I know he is going to be baptized and

be a good member. He even gave us like over 200 other people that want

to lean about the Church :) because he used to be a pastor and now he

told his congregation that he found a new faith :) so I am saying that

I have 201 people who want to be baptized :) hahahaha

 On another happier note I got the package you sent :) that made

mine and my comps day! in fact we cooked one of the potatoes that very

night :) I also love the pics as well! The only ones that I had of

the fam were the ones you took at the byu basketball game so long ago,

and that is all that I could show people. But these are wonderful and

they turned out great. But I have to say looking at them made me miss

you guys and miss that really really really green grass we all sat on,

:) we don't have that here.  

 I love this family named Caliso's They are so fun and they try to have my comp and me over for FHE every Sunday :) they feed us but that is not the only reason I love them, when ever I am with them in their house I feel like I am at home! it is wonderful I also feel that way about this family whose name is the Munene's. the father of this one is in the Stake Presidency.:)

 Teaching is going great our companionship is strong and is getting stronger everyday so we teach with the Spirit and I know that the people we talk to feel it as well. So it is going very well! You know how the work is you have some investigators who are just golden but then you have others that you have to spend 4 lessons going over one point, but we have alot of them progressing and that is a great thing. And I love to teach anyone who is willing to hear the message even if they don’t know English, even yesterday I walked up to 4 guys who I think were kind of a mix of Christian and Islam who only knew Kiswahili and tried to teach them about the Book of Mormon or “Kitabu cha Moromoni" I gave them one in Kiswahili, I hope they read it, but I have to think that it looked and sounded funny for people watching us. You have this mazungu or white man trying to tell these people that don’t speak the same language about some book. I just think it would have been fun to watch  You know me. I have to have fun with people! and just wait till I send home some pics of our crazy zombie, ninja, cockroach race lol so Ya we have fun :

 Ok, I’m sorry I have forgotten to tell you about the body guards in the past letters, but the answer is yes. We do have guards. They are all really nice people its just kind of scary to walk past a guy holding a AK-47 to get to our flat. I will tell you what, I will get a pic with some of them and then I will send it home to you is that ok? You all have the right to brag about your amazing African missionary :) I mean I think only like 32 parents can say that they have a son/brother in Kenya :) so we can see that not all parents can raise sons as cool as we are :)

Till next week

your super cool African missionary

SLY

Elder Hodges

August 8th, 2011

Talking about the Temple, I have come to appreciate having one so close to our house I can think of many times while I have been here that I wanted to just go sit and ponder because there is just no other place like it. So just never forget how lucky you are to have a Temple of the Lord 5 mins. from the house and how lucky you are to be a worker in that temple. I would give a lot right now to have a temple here and i'm not going to lie I think there will be one soon maybe not in Kenya but close to it, in fact I would guess that in the next two conferences you will hear one if not two new temples in Africa.

I have had a very interesting week :) its been really fun and we have worked hard I am always tired when we come home I bet we walk like 15 to 20 miles a day, it's crazy but I love it! I have found that my favorite parts of the mission are 1: Bearing my testimony of the Atonement of Christ 2: Bearing my testimony about the restoration and the Book of Mormon 3: Emailing the fam :)  in that order. I just love the feeling when you are bearing your testimony to someone and you feel the spirit and you can see that they feel the spirit as well, and I have found that nothing brings the spirit as strong as testifying of the Atonement of our Lord.

This week I have had some cool experiences!!!!!!! like the first one on Tuesday was we ran into this guy and we tried to talk to him but turns out he is deaf and could not hear us but lucky for us I took ASL in high school right :) so I started talking to this guy in sign and he knew ASL too and he said he would read what we gave him and go to mormon.org and all of that it was supper cool!!!! I never ever thought that I would use ASL in Kenya!!!!! Just goes to show that the Lord is in control of everything!!
The next one is that we got a referral from an investigator and we when to teach this lady and this lady is amazing!!!!!! herself and her husband started taking in orphans and paying for everything for them housing, food, school everything she is just so charitable! then her husband died last year, and the money is running out, it is kind of a sad story but she is a wonderful woman and the kids are amazing as well they range from 3 years old to 19 and some of them have told us that they want to be baptized in the Church. So we are teaching them :) its great but I don't know if there is anything we can do to help them at all? I really want to help these kids! I don't know if there is anything you can do? I am sharing with them the gospel and that is the best thing that I can give them but I still want to give more to them.