Jersey Boys.  Got a fresh Ronoldo jersey- for the low price of 300 shillings.
Elders Turner, Skidmore, Dobard and Daniel.  They got to play soccer,
it got intense!

Daniel and his goat.  Squeeze Please!

Daniel in front of a members house saluting the stars and stripes.

Elder Diodati cut his hair, tried a Mohawk but it didn't look so good.

In front of their prison, I mean apartment.  He said it was actually nice.

Darajani sunset

Daniel found this snake on the side of the road.
Don't worry, he poked it to make sure it was dead.

Daniel frying up some delicious chapatis in his wonderful apartment.
He is wearing the beanie he found in the apartment.

Monkey face.  All the kids wear these....so he got one for the low price of 100 shillings.  Looking fresh as usual!

Githeri- a common food in Kenya.  Members love to give it to them.
Not the best batch he's had so a stray dog passing by got a snack.

Elder Dobard and Dan out in the Bush doing work.

July 29, 2013

Mambo,

so this past week was nice! Darajani is getting better! we had lots of less active people come to church, including one guy who i am pretty sure was drunk and also this midget guy! ha it was good to see them there at church. 

But this past week we were able to have a good lesson with Jack, our white investigator.  It was cool because we got to find out a little bit about him.  So he has lived in Kenya his whole life, but i think comes from British background (his grandfather came to Kenya to help build the big railroad tracks that goes through all of Kenya), he speaks perfect Swahili and kikamba. But we were able to start the Restoration with him.  He really enjoyed it and also talked a lot about how he enjoyed church and how he really enjoys how we carry out our services.  He has already told us that he would like to become a member, even though it takes him an hour to get to church, so we hope that he continues to have that desire and to feel of the spirit! Also met with Cosmas again this week, he is doing super great and has already started living the word of wisdom! he told us he had a problem with tea, but after we talked to him about it, he threw out all his tea and replaced it with drinking chocolate!! ha he is sooo great! hope to have his baptism on the 18 August.

Also this past week i finish the Book of Mormon!! Took me 4 months, but it was awesome to read through it. So much good stuff in there its almost unbelievable, except its not, because its the Book of Mormon, and its true, so yeah its believable!! I challenge all y'all at home to read it, and to pray about it. I really wish i would have read it a lot more before i came on mission, it is truly here to help us come closer to Christ, so READ IT!!!!! 3 Nephi is super awesome!

But Kenya is awesome as usual! This past week there was a lot of campaigning in our area for some position in Parliament here or something like that. People were going crazy!! hahah it was really funny to watch like 30 people hanging on to the side of a car shouting and playing loud kamba music trying to get people to vote for their candidate! haha lots of drunk crazy people running around, so that was interesting for sure!

But mission is great! this will be my last week with elder Dobard!! it has flown by, he goes home this week so i will have a new companion soon! ha elder Dobard was super crazy, but I'm going to miss him a lot. we had a lot of fun!

But i love you all, have a super week!

Elder Daniel Thomas

Lots of Pictures! YEAH!

Elders Goodchild, Thomas, and Gideon in their "sweet" sweaters

Daniel got Poured on in Rongai

Putting on a fresh masai blanket after getting soaked in the rain.

Daniel and Elder Diodati

Animal orphanage

This place was called Carnivore.  It was the nicest food he has eaten there so far-
or maybe he has just been in Kenya too long.

Being Silly!

Gotta LOVE that face!

Internet Issues and the Chicken Trick

hey famalia,

so today the Internet here is going ape on me, so unfortunately i don't have a lot of time to email, but i will share a few of the awesome events that happened this week! yeah yeah yeah

So the highlight of this week was that we got to meet President Hicken on Thursday!! He is already awesome from what i can tell.  He is a former police chief, so from what i can tell he is one of those guys who does not mess around! but he is really cool, he really stressed a lot about being exactly obedient and also not comparing ourselves to others, just to go out there and do what the Lord requires of us to do.  So i am really excited to see what he does around the mission, and I'm super grateful that he is going to be my mission president for the next 1 and a half years.

Also this week we were able to give Cosmas (our super awesome main investigator) a baptismal date on 18 August!!  he is the best. when we asked him if he wanted to be baptized, he said "well yes, its a must to be baptized!" So we will be working really hard with him to help really prepare him to be baptized. He is truly a person that God has prepared to hear the Gospel. He is super humble and loves the gospel. Its awesome because on Sundays he is always the first person to be at church! ha he is soo dedicated and wants to become closer to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Also this week, we met a WHITE GUY, Jack, who came to church. He said that he heard about the church a long time ago, but finally found out where the church was so he decided to come. And whats even crazier than that is that he drove 1 HOUR to come to church from his home ( i guess he lives in this place called Kibwezi, which is super far). So when we got to talk to him, he said "yeah the only reason why i drove so far is because I'm serious about this church. I don't joke around, I'm serious about learning more". so that was like wow. but for real this guy is super cool, but also kind of scary because he is so serious haha. But he speaks perfect Swahili and i also think he speaks Kikamba. but good things are happening here!

CRAZY STORY, THE CHICKEN TRICK STILL WORKS!!!!!!!! haha i don't know if you guys remember this, but me and Elder Dobard tried it at one of the members homes and it worked!! Ben and I used to do it at the Robin Lane house.  Its the trick where you grab a chicken, then put its head on the ground, and then draw a strait line in front of its beak.  After that, you just let go of the chicken and it will just stare at the line and not move... hahahhah and we got our chicken to stay their for a solid 15 seconds!! haha super crazy and the little kids loved it! just reminded me of my great Robin Lane childhood ahaha.

But all is well with me. Good to hear that home is still there and that everyone is well. LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Elder D Thomas

July 15, 2013

So this past week was pretty good!
I was able to go on exchanges with the district leader, elder Skidmore (Utah).  He has been on mission for 16 months and has been in Chyulu for the past 6, so he is like a veteran in this area.  So he was able to come into my area, and elder Dobard went to his area in Nthongoni.  So it was pretty crazy to be the on in charge of the area, just because I'm still getting used to it. But it was really good for me because in 3 weeks i will be the one leading this area, so it was a good opportunity for me.  So while i was with him, we got some good opportunities to meet with some of the less active people in Darajani.  This is something that is a big part of the missionary work here, is just going out to find the less active people here, because there are a ton of them. So we got to visit this guy named Paul, who has been less active for the past year. He has a problem coming to church for a lot of reasons, mainly because he is a piki piki driver and works mostly every day.  But he is a cool guy.  But while we were there, all of the little kids from that area saw us and all decided to come over and join us. And man did it get crazy! haha they thought it was amazing that two white guys here! haha they were climbing all over us and taking all of our stuff just going crazy! haha good thing though was that Paul thought that it was funny, but elder Skidmore did not think so... hahah i don't think he was to happy about it! but the kids here are just super crazy and just run around unsupervised.  But none the less we still had a good meeting with Paul. Later in the day we had a super awesome lesson with Cosmas, our main investigator right now (he is the one that i contacted my first day here).  So we got to talk with him about the Plan of Salvation.  He was super into the lesson and had great questions.  Its awesome to see how focused he is during our lessons and how much he takes to heart the teachings we  share with him.  So after the lesson, he started asking us a lot about baptism, something that we haven't even talked about with him yet.  He was interested about how we do it (because in Kenya there are many ways to baptize), so we shared Matthew 3:13-16 and talked about how it is by immersion the way Christ was baptized. So he really liked that. And then he asked when he could become a member!! ha i was soooooo excited to hear him say that!!! it was super awesome, so we hope to have him baptized sometime in early August.  He is truly someone who the Lord has prepared to hear and accept the gospel. I love him soooo much he is so POWERFUL! i just hope and pray that all goes well with him.

But it was also cool this week because we got to spend some time with the couples that are serving here, the Schwabs.  They have been serving in Chyulu for 2 YEARS. And they live the same way as us missionaries do here, so they are super legit people.  But we got to hang out with them at night and got to play UNO with them!! hahah i haven't played that game in forever and it was soo much fun to play with them.  They are awesome couples, and it will be sad to see them go next week.  We probably wont have anymore couple missionaries in this area for a long time which is sad.

P day was awesome today! we had a zone activity were we got to play sports and have CHICKEN ENCHILADAS!!!!!! First time I've had that in 5 months... but we got to play soccer(of course), basketball, and water volley ball.  Soccer was the best though, all of the little kids from around saw us and wanted to play, so they got to join in with us. And man they were freaking good! way better than me.... hahah.

But all is good with me. hope all is well back home! We will get to meet President and Sister Hicken, our new mission president, this week. so I'm excited for that.

But i love you all!!!

Elder Thomas