Be Grateful

Be grateful! If nothing else be grateful. Hello family! Its good to hear life is busy and blessings are coming. You should see this place! It has its beauty but man it has ugly. The area im in is called Lakoni. So we actually live on Mombasa island. everyday we take the ferri across the channel to our proselyting area. Its pretty cool. We see giant oil tankers coming in everyday. Oh did i mention its the Indian ocean? Well it is. I honestly never thought i would see it before i got this call. So Elder Baylejusa and I have three baptisms on the 24th. George, Mark, and Leonard. They are young humble men looking for a better life. Everyone here knows the bible so well. Its humbling cause i dont know what i should yet. There are so many Muslims here!!! Which is kinda hard because even if they accept what we are teaching and want to convert it is a huge process. They have to have a meeting with the mission pres on top of the baptismal interview. It is also very difficult because of how serious their religion is. They can be killed for forsaking their previous beliefs. So its rather intense. We are discouraged from teaching them but if it works out they are the strongest members. Oh tell the metcalfs i met the callahans. they are the doctors of africa. So driving to mombasa from nairobi we saw elephants, baboons, and zebras just off the road. There is a tribal people here called the messiah. They are the most fearsome people in africa. Lions are said to even stay clear of them cause they kill anything that stands against them. To keep their strength they go a week on just a drink mixture of blood and milk. Yuck! That doesnt even sound half good cause the milk here is disgusting. They put so many preservatives in it it just tastes nasty. I would rather drink skim. Crazy right! So most of the people have a really hard time saying haynes for some reason its always hayness or aynes. Everyday all the little kids yell muzungu which means light skinned. I turn some heads here. I have never been stared at so much. All the kids love me though. Their parents send them out to touch me because it brings good luck to their family to touch a white person. I am learning a lot of the language. The members are teaching me alot. The branch here is kinda struggling cause the branch pres isnt very serious about his calling. Only a few people have callings and lack of planning on their part means when in doubt have the missionaries speak, teach, bless, uh frustrating. We will steer them in the right direction though. So kenya is the lowest baptizing mission in africa, but we have a 99% retention rate. This is good for me because i am a firm believer that true conversion takes time. We never push of harp for baptism. it is always their choice. in uganda they are baptizing thousands but most never come back and some never get confirmed so i think we are doing just fine. I have lost a few pounds but nothing big. It is only like 80 degrees here everyday but the humidity is awful. I sweat and sweat and sweat. This mission only calls men to serve because boys wont last. We walk like soliders. we easily walk 15-20 miles a day. These shoes are going down fast! I washed my first batch of laundry today by hand. Once again be grateful. My forearms will be massive when i get home. I am sleeping better but i am afraid i will be tired for two years but thats okay. My feet are fine. A nice member in SA cut my hair and its just how i like it, but i need to really find someone here with some really talent. Soda here is so cheap and every where you go there is coke. Which makes it hard not to drink. Not to mention its only 25 cents for a bottle so i dink a lot. Water is just so sketching and must be filtered for us americans to even consider it and even it can give you diarrhea. My mission pres is probably the coolest man in the church im my opinion next to holland. His theory is work hard play hard which is just so nice. You need fun times to stay sane here. I hope everyone is doing good. Im getting so addicted to the spirit in our lessons. The joy i feel makes me want to have more and more. Lets just say if it was in liquid form i would shoot it up. They have cyber shops all over so i will always have internet access. Tell everyone to send mail too cause its better that christmas! I love it here. This new training program is hard but good. We study two hours of comp study every morning so we dont get to start proselyting till 11 everyday. We also have a portable dvd play as part of training to watch PMG videos. I cant believe they trust us to have these things. The lord has really been raising the bar for missionaries. I love this work and my testimony is reaffirmed daily. So something thats pretty cool is crime isnt very high here and its not cause there is a lot of law enforcement cause i haven't even seen a cop since Ive been here. Its called mob justice.Theft is taken very seriously and if you are seen stealing someone will yell theif! Then everyone around beats him down bad. I have seen it twice already. Its kinda cool but scary at the same time. Anyway i love all of you and hope all is well. I am sending some stuff today so look for it in the next few weeks.
love elder sephers