Sept. 26. 2011

                                                                                               
My week has been great!!!

 I love it here! And I'm sorry that you are all alone in the house, and thank you for telling grandma hi for me :) ya - if dad comes home and the lawns not mowed..... well you know how he is lol : just kidding.
That is really sad that you didn’t get the cd of photos. that was the main part of it. But oh well I will just make another one :) sorry it has taken so long to get pictures to you.

 So I do have a story for you :) it’s about one of our investigators. Hussain, he used to be Muslim but converted to Christianity. He said that he was growing up and being trained to become a leader in the Muslim religion when he became blind and paralyzed and for the 3 days that he was blind he said that Christ came to him and told him of the truth and he said he was paralyzed for 7 months, but when he was well he told his family who then tried to kill him so he had to flee for his life but not after he had been shot in the leg and persecuted by his family.  For safety he came to Kenya because he was living in Ethiopia, so he ran away from his family but not till after being shot and all that mostly by his uncle and father. He has been here for 8 years but he can’t work here because he doesn’t have a working permit, so he doesn’t have a job and he and his family are being kicked out of their house on Friday. But still in the mist of all of this hardship I have never seen so much faith. He has never stopped trusting in the Lord, and now we are teaching him the lessons. So I hope that everything will work out with him, if you could send some prayers his way I know that will help a lot!!

The work is going great! We have a lot of investigators coming to church and 6 have baptismal dates! :) One of them for next week. :) His name is Alan and I have to say he is our best investigator! He is going to be a STRONG member!!! So the work is going really good! :)

No I don’t spend my whole day emailing – ha ha :) we clean the flat we do our laundry. And we also do a lot of activities with other missionaries. Like last week we went and watched some tribal dancing that was cool. It was really neat to see how some of the dances looked like some of the Native American dances.

Don’t worry I am taking care of myself mom :)  we eat healthy things mostly its rice and beans. It makes be laugh because we would joke before how I would get sent to a place where all I would eat would be rice and beans, and in a way it came true :) it’s not all we eat but we have it A LOT!!!!!!

 I am looking forward to conference and I will love to read that talk from Pres.Uchtdorf that you are talking about. But for us we don’t watch it live. We watch the recording at the church like a week or two after it happens for real. So we all watch it there. We could watch it online if we wanted but we would have to stay up all night so that would not be a good idea. So I am looking forward to that and also I am looking forward to seeing Elder Nelson!!!!!!! He is coming here on the 29th of OCT. its going to be GREAT!!!!!

It’s great to hear from all of you. :) It is crazy this month has gone by so fast at least for me I don’t know about you. But it has been a good month for the work here:)

Libby: I am serving in a part of the city of Nairobi named Riruta. I have been in the same place for almost 3 months. and I have had only 1 companion but he is going home on Oct 6 so when he leaves I will get a new one. :)

Logan: what happens is that we get the recording of conference and then we all go to the church to watch it. so we watch it maybe a week or two after it really happens.

Parker: that is supper cool that you are going to be a teenager. Just don’t be a stupid one. :) And yes we get a lot of home work on a mission. We need to find things to help our investigators and plus we get to teach lessons in church all the time because the teacher doesn’t show up or something so we have to be ready. And plus every day we study the scriptures for two hours. :) so ya we have homework :)

KC: Yes, I will send you a post card. I am trying to find  you a really cool one :) and no I don’t have to learn Spanish :) I have to learn another language called Kiswahili :)

Jameson: So the coolest thing that has happened to me on my mission so far? Well I love spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, but I know that’s not what you want to hear. :) There are a lot of things that I could tell you but most of them are not really that cool they are more sad and scary. I can tell you one cool thing - I have eaten fish brain and eyes and the whole head. even the bones :) that was cool even if the bones were really really crunchy. :) and yes I have seen a lot of bows and arrows and spears. A lot of them. and it can get really hot but it can be cold to. But on the coast it can get REALLY REALLY HOT!!!!!!! like you have no idea. I do like my Ward here. They are very nice people!

You will find that where ever you go in the world you will always feel as if you are at home if you find a branch of the Church. And not really anyone has iPods or computers here. People don’t have cars. You need to know that the people here don’t live like you do. Their house is a one room tin shed. Most homes don’t have their own bath room. and they have to go outside to use the toilet. and it’s not like ours it’s a hole in the ground that you have to squat over. You need to know how blessed you are to live like you do.

I am in a part of Nairobi. And Nairobi is the biggest city in east Africa I am in a place called Riruta and that is just to the West of down town about as far out of town as you can get and still be in town if that makes sense. There is one other kind of big city but it’s on the coast called Mombasa. But it is not even close to as big as Nairobi. and those are really the only 2 city's here. The rest are towns, and yes they are like in the movies with the dirt roads, but that is not just out of the city. No, lol that is also in the city. Like where I am at I think we have 4 to 6 paved roads, the rest are dirt/mud/trash/other things that we don’t need to talk about, but when you get to town center it’s like a big city. It has tall buildings and everything. I hope that answered your questions. I love answering questions like that so keep them coming :)

Thank you again :) I love you all!!!! Don’t forget to read your scriptures!!!!!!!!! :)