Another Amazing Week

Another awesome week out here in Mautuma!

This week we got a lot done with the work.  It was awesome this week because EVERY lesson and visit we had, we had a member present to help us to teach! Its pretty amazing how much help we are getting from members.  The members out here really are trying to step up in the work.  They are really starting to see this as their work, and that we as missionaries are just here to assist them in doing the work, just in teaching and baptizing.  But they are the ones who should be doing most of the work, like retention and finding people to teach and giving referrals.  We have a lot more people we are teaching now because the members are more involved.  Even we got an awesome referral from our first councilor, which is a family!! It is super difficult to teach families in Kenya.  A lot of the time the Husband and wife live in different places, like one lives in Nairobi for work while the other stays at their home area.  But now we have a family to teach! The husband is Hudson, and his two sons Brandon and Dixon came to church which was awesome.  Unfortunate the wife didn't come.  That's another common problem.  Its like a cultural thing where someone always has to stay at the house... so they alternate coming to church. Which really isn't that good... but at least we have something to work with! But the work is really picking up right now which is awesome!

But this week we did run into a big problem... my bike is finished! ha just that the front rim like completely broke in half.  it was kind of bad.  Like metal parts were sticking out and stuff but i don't know it was a definite safety hazard.  but nothing bad happened to me.  It made it a lot more difficult to get work done, just because we had to walk a lot more, but every thing seemed to work out pretty well.  Its been a long time since i have walked so much hahah just like back in my days in Rongai! So my legs were sore... but the Lord gave me strength enough to do his will!

But we did have a pretty cool experience this week with visiting on of the less active members, Akman.  He was really active for a long time but within the past 3 months he hadn't been coming.  We have tried to see him for a long time but has always been out, but luckily we were able to find him this week.  So we went out to see him and had a good lesson with him and asked him if he needed any help with anything. He said that he was ok with everything, but then went on to tell us why he had been not coming for a while.  He said that he really got offended by someone in the branch, and that the person really said some bad stuff to him about something that he did out of a good desire to help the branch.  He even got emotional and started to cry, which is something that you hardly EVER see in Kenya, so we could tell that he was really hurt.  It was really sad to see him like this, that he was really hurt.  But he said that he was very grateful that we thought of him and cared enough to visit him, and that he would be able to make is way back to church.  And he did come!! It was just a cool experience, just being there for someone that really needed some help and love.  Really made me think of Mosiah 18: 8-10, kind of the covenants we make at baptism, especially morning with those that morn and comfort those that stand in need of comfort.  Really cool experience and glad that we had the opportunity to help someone in need. 

Other than that nothing else to interesting this week.  I was able to do baptism interviews for 2 people in Kitale, which went well.  Also we saw a really crazy ADC (African divine church) rally/church meeting/ mosh pit/ march thing.  ahahahh i don't even know how to really describe it. All i know is that some of the churches out here in Kenya are super crazy.  Like the people had drums, flags, batons, and all sorts of other crazy stuff.  They were marching down the road singing crazy songs beating the drums and going crazy! Me and my companion were really scared! they weren't going to do anything to us (we think) but it was pretty crazy! People on the side of the road were just jumping in and joining in on the fun! hahah ohhhhhh kenya.

But things are well.  I'm really loving my mission and loving the time i have to share the fullness of the gospel with others!! I love you all!!!

Elder Thomas