April 14, 2014

SO this week was not bad.  But days are flying by now its crazy!!

Main highlight of this week was doing street boarding in Kitale town to find some more people to teach.  The past few weeks have been a little frustrating in Kitale with our investigators, many of them are dropping us and just not keeping commitments.  Sad to see people not wanting to change, but hey its all about agency.  But the street boarding went pretty well.  We had the help of our branch president, Pres Kwendo, and the branch mission leader Bro Silah.  We were able to contact 200 people in about two hours, which was great.  Had some interesting conversations with some people.  I started talking to some guy, but then he said "hey i dont have time for Jehovah Witnesses"... we are not Jehovah's witness!! I hate when people say that hahah.  Also, some drunk guy came up to me and put up the dukes and was ready to fight me! I was like hmm, i dont have time for this, so i just walked away, but that guy wanted to tussle! And then some other people legitimately ran away from us as we tried to talk to them ha. But somehow along the way we contacted some good people and got some phone numbers.  So we really hope to visit with and teach some of these people and help them to learn of the truth!

Mostly this week though we visited a lot with less actives in Kitale.  Its difficult for a lot of the less active members here because the church is so far away from them, more than a 45 minute walk for most.  Its weird because the church is in a weird spot in Kitale, not even in town but outside of town so its far for most people.  Its really crazy how many trials that members here have.  With distance and lack of resources and also persecution from others, its amazing that members here still come to church.  But its all because of that testimony that this is the true church of Christ! And i have really come to see that here in Kenya on my mission.  We are so blessed to have the full understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the things of God. 

But in Sikhendu this week, unfortunately we did not have the baptism for our investigator Maricle.  She has all the sudden stopped coming to church and we dont know whats wrong.  We have tried to visit her at her home but she is always in the shamba now because of the rains ha.  But hopefully we will be able to get back on track with her and help her to be baptized.  Also, we are teaching two awesome girls that really want to be baptized, Mercy and Flora.  We hope to have them be baptized sometime next month, and they are really progressing well so im excited for them.!! Also in Sikhendu we were visiting with a less active member when all the sudden this little kid comes  in from out side, sits on the ground right in front of all of us, and starts peeing.... haha kids here have no shame!! but ya.

Other than that things are going on ok.  We hope to find some more new investigators this week and more people to teach!! We will find out transfer news tonight, and i think that elder Maduna might leave, he has been in Kitale for 10 months now haha.  But love you all!!

Elder Thomas

April 7, 2014

SO really this week not much missionary work got done in Kitale. That's because we were only in Kitale for 2 days this entire week.

So this past week me and elder Maduna we suppose to go to MLC (missionary leadership training) in Eldoret for just Tuesday and Wednesday.  That's what we thought. So all us Western zone leaders were waiting in Eldoret for president Hicken to arrive, by plane.  But then we got a call from the assistants saying that they missed their flight in the morning... and that we would have to get a matatu to take us all the way to Nairobi!! we were all like what the heck.... but hey non of us complained we were going to Nairobi!!!!  So after going to 5 different matatu stages and walking around for one and a half hours we finally found someone who could take all of us to Nairobi. Slowest driver in the world tho, old mzee haha.  He would not go over 80 kms....took us forever to get to Nairobi! But it was ok because on the way i saw plenty of zebras and impalas. YA!

But the MLC in Nairobi was really awesome.  President Hicken is definitely the right man for this mission and is super inspired.  One of the big things that he talked about was becoming a consecrated missionary, using the talk from Elder Tad R. Callister "Becoming a Consecrated Missionary". Powerful Talk wow!! After reading and discussing the talk, i was sufficiently humbled haha. I really thought that i was doing good as a missionary, but after reading this talk i still got a long way to go!! But its ok, there is always room for reproof and improvement.  It just talked about a lot of things that we can do as missionaries to become more focused and sincere to the work.  Putting on the alter of sacrifice anything that might keep us from becoming the best we can be as missionaries. Humbling, but good!  Also we talked a lot about dealing with problems that arise in the mission, and how to deal with problems, especially among missionaries.  President Hicken said that basically we are like the bishops of the mission, and he is the stake president haah.  Just that we need to do our best with dealing with problems in the mission, handling them by ourselves, and then going to him if the problem is not resolved or if it is something beyond us.  I can really tell that president Hicken is trying his best to prepare us for the future, beyond being missionaries, serving in wards and branches back home.  He understands that especially the African elders will go home and really be the leaders of the church in their homes, as the church still is growing.  Pretty cool.  President Hicken is so awesome and i really admire his desire to not just make us good for mission, but for life. 

After MLC, we got to walk around Nairobi a little bit. And i want to go back and serve there again!  i love Nairobi. We were able to go to Java House, which is like one of the nicest cafes in Nairobi, and Kenya. Got a MILKSHAKE!!! wow first time in 24 months!!!! it was nice to say the least.  Also it was cool, i did see a few people from Rongai, which was really awesome! Cool seeing old people from past areas. They all said that i have grown a lot... so i guess that's a good thing.

But finally we were able to get back to Kitale on Saturday! But we mostly worked in Sikhendu.  Its been rough in Sikhendu lately, haven been receiving as much help from the branch as we used to, and many of our investigators are falling out.  Its been discouraging lately, but that's how things go.  Just we will have to do more contacting and tracking, and that's one of our big goals going into this week is to be better with contacting and tracking, talking to more people. 

Church was good in Kitale Sunday, had 6 investigators come to church, which was good.  Its weird because a lot of the time random people show up to church, which is awesome, but then they just go missing because there is no way to get a hold of them because most of them don't have phones.  But its ok.  Just gotta work with what you got!

Also saw part of General Conference!! The Flakes invited us to watch it on their laptop, really liked Elder Nelsons, about faith. YEAH for living prophets and apostles!!

But things are getting along good. LOVE YOU ALL!!

Mzee Thomas

Daniel and his companion Elder Maduna
Sisi ni safi sana

Sikhendu



Bushy Kitale

 

March 30, 2014

Sasa wiki hii ulikuwa si mbaya. Sawa tu. Lakini Shida wengi!

Another interesting week in Kitale, full of wonderful and weird things. Some guy called me a devil this week, many times actually. It was quite interesting, but hey i just brushed off my shoulders! Also, our Ugandan investigators told us that if they came to church and took the sacrament, then their first born child would just die. Spontaneously com-bust.  There are some very interesting beliefs that people in Kenya have about our church, and its sad to see.  And what makes it worst is that most of the rumors come from pastors of other churches...  they don't like it when their members start coming to our church, mostly because those members aren't paying them anymore.

But ya! Unfortunately, we had to drop a few of our investigators.  They were just having a really hard time to keep commitments and come to church.  Frustrating to see, but everyone has their agency and others just need time.  So this next week we will be doing a lot more finding, really trying to find those who God has prepared to receive the Restored Gospel. 

This past week most of our lessons were with less active members. And there are lots of less active members in Kitale and Sikhendu! But they are all really cool people, but are just struggling with some commandments which makes them feel like they are not worthy to come.  Like Mama Daisy! This mama is awesome! But coming to church is a problem for her, and she wont tell us why.  But me and elder Maduna had a great lesson with here about being obedient to Gods commandments.  We kind of blasted her hah but she understood.  We really talked to her about being a good example to her small kids and also her husband, who is not a member.  We told her that he would never join if she was not setting the good example for him. It was really nice lesson and the spirit was there kabisa.  Hope we helped her to get back on track.  Also we have this Less active guy named Anthony who is super funny haha not sure if he is all there up top but hey he thinks that i am a red Indian, so that's pretty cool i guess.   Just thought i would throw that out there. 

Sunday was good.  Elder Maduna gave a 30 minute talk,  first two speakers spoke for 7 minutes combined so he had to take the rest of the time.  Also got a awesome new investigator, Pamela.  She was brought by her friend who is a member and is new to the branch.  We had a super great lesson with her about the restoration! She had lots of good questions and really wanted to know more about the church! So we are really excited to continue to teach her. 

Also saw President Edward (from Mautuma branch) this week! it was really cool to see him.  He had to go to Sikhendu for a meeting and we saw him and got to talk to him for a while.  He was mad that i hadn't gone on exchanges with the elders in Mautuma  i was like umm I'm not sure if i can do that but ya ill try haah.  It was really nice to see him, one of the most genuine guys I've meet in Kenya.

But the work is going well, still looking for those prepared by the Lord. But i love you all!! ALSO HAPPY LATE BDAY TO MY LIL SISTER EMMY!!!!!!!!!! LOVE YOU!

Elder Thomas

Daniel's old zone before transfers

Daniel and Elder Simcock

Looking swag-tastic at zone conference in Eldoret and
No that is not their car, they have bikes:(

March 24, 2014

Familia yangu,

Really nice week! Lots of gooood stuff.

So this week i got packed with stuff i had to plan for!! last Sunday i had to prepare a 15 minute talk, Tuesday i had to give a training for our district meeting, then on Wednesday me and elder Maduna had to prepare a training on Diligence for zone conference!  pretty overwhelmed but i learned a lot of things from preparing all this stuff.

But really the big highlight of this week was zone conference in Eldoret! Super spiritually uplifting.  President Hicken is sooo awesome! He is really trying to make this mission the best, by really focusing on Diligence and Obedience, 2 of the biggest aspects that make a missionary truly effective.  So me and elder Maduna were assigned to speak and talk about diligence.  I really focused on 3 attributes of diligence, being steady and consistent, earnest with the efforts, and begin energetic.  One scripture that i really liked that i came across and shared was D&C 127: 4.  Really felt like it applied to missionary work (even though its referring to temple work), and was just an awesome scripture.  But it was cool and me and elder Maduna did a good job, at least i felt like.  The rest of the trainings were focused on how to become better more effective missionaries.  President Hicken is a powerful teacher! really gets us motivated as missionaries to work harder and to do better.  I really respect him.  Also it was cool to see some guys i haven't seen in a long time, like Elder Nyambita, Ndaba, Simcock, and just some other missionaries that i am good friends with.  But it was a great conference and i really enjoyed it!

The work this week was ok.  A lot of appointments that got bounced, but also we had many good appointments as well.  Found an awesome new investigator named Kilpax! weird name but its ok because he is awesome.  We randomly got a text Tuesday night asking all sorts of questions about the book of Mormon and what it is.  So we called him and he said he was interested to meet with us and see what our church is all about. Had an awesome lesson with him the next day and he was super interested! He also came to church and said that it was really great.  Such a blessing that the Lord has blessed us with! We have a lot of investigators here in Kitale, but its awesome to really have one now who is so interested and energetic about the church.  Such a blessing!  Also had a baptism for one of our investigators, Derrick.  He is a cool 14 yr old kid who i got to help teach the final lessons to.  Both of his parents are members, so they really helped with the teaching.  He was really prepared and it was cool to see him get baptized.  We are also hoping to have some more baptisms by the end of this transfer, really working towards that. 

Two interesting stories.  On Friday we were in the Kitale market visiting some less active members at their veggie stands.  So we were just visiting, when we hear this guy making this big fuss off to the side.  At first i just thought it was just some drunk or crazy guy, because its such a common thing. But then we looked over and this guy selling some other things was trying to get our attention, so we started to walk over to him to see what was up, and as we got closer, we saw a Book of Mormon in his hands! So we speed up our pace towards him hahaah.  The guy told us that he had been given the book of Mormon 6 years ago and wanted to learn more about the church! so we talked to him for a while and talked a little bit about it and he asked some good questions.  BUT as we were about to leave, he started laughing, ha it was kind of weird so we just kind of looked at him, but then he said "haha I'm a pastor"...... what?? haha he said he was a pastor for some crazy name church i have never heard of before. Ya it was weird. Not sure if he was serious or just trying to make us say something bad  but hey at least he knows what the Book of Mormon is now!

Also. Some random guy showed up at church in Sikhendu.  Didn't speak a lick of English.  So when we went to visit with him after church, he told us why he came. He was told by his employer that our church could help him overcome some of his difficulties.  Which is true, we have the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it will fix anything! Except for his concern... I'm not sure what could fix this.  He said that his problem was that while he was living in Uganda, a witch came to his family and bewitched all of them so he was wondering if our church could pray for him and un-bewitch him..... ummmm yeah.  I had no idea what to say to him.Ha wow! But don't worry this is a very common thing here in Kenya! People no joke believe this stuff. Its crazy!

Other than that all is good!

But a great week! I love you all!