So thanks for continuing to write me! I know how busy you guys are with school and work and everything in betwixt. Its been a good week. We have been teaching a guy referred to us by a muzungu from Sandy, Ut. She is here teaching school and has been sharing the gospel with her security guard. He is very knowledgeable of the bible and received a book of mormon in 1999. So we have taught him the first two lessons and he just understands! He has come to church twice and we got to watch conference in sacrament meeting this week and he loved the talks. He is a diligent scripture reader and the other day and had a question. We forgot to answer it in our lesson so he decided "well i have the same scriptures they do, why dont i see if i can find the answer." so yeah he found like ten scriptures in the book of mormon that answered his question. Yeah he was teaching us. So he accepted the baptismal challenge but said there is one problem, he is a chain smoker. So we are praying our buts off that he will have the spirit enough to stop this addictive habit. He said if i can kick the habit i will be baptized the Lord God has never given me reason to Doubt. Pretty powerful. The Maasai missed church again after our joy was full when he came last week. You have read of our spiritual lessons but people arent following through with what they have come to know. I think we need to continue to plead with the Lord and teach the law of sacrifice. They are doing everything else but coming to church. They are reading more than we ask of them they know its true but they wont come to church!!!!! Please if you have any advice or suggestions i am in need. They know what they must do and they can. The smoker in ukunda (Samwell) which is a 45 minute drive comes without fail. but someone just a 20 minute walk doesnt show. So we have three investigators with baptisms on Nov 19th but if they are missing church we have to push the dates back again. Another thing we have been really working on is strengthening the branch. Gordan B Hinkley said new converts need three things to be retained in the chruch, A calling, Friends they can go to with Q's, and to be nourished by the good word. We have visited many inactives and they love the missionaries, but they say what we teach and what goes on at the church are two very different things. This is heart breaking. We pray man we pray for the work here. It is very tough when everyone in the branch is a convert. We are holding a missionary fireside in the next few weeks that hopefully help people to see the importance of fellow-shipping. Its kinda point less to keep baptizing unless the branch can retain who we bring in. So thats kinda where we are at. The investigators we have are learning so much and teach me, but the church factor is holding them from true progression. Russel M. Neilson is coming this week to Nairobi to do a leadership training so hopefully our branch pres will be ready to kick butt. Oh did i mention... its MANGO season!!! Oh man 5 mangos for a dollar, you cant beat that with a stick. Oh so we have a member family who feeds us every sunday night and heard i could bake. So they said "I have heard of this thing called cake that is so sweet( anything good they call sweet), could you make for us?" hahaha they are the coolest people ever. So yes i baked a chocolate cake. Our chapel has a oven, but not a cake pan. So i hope God will forgive me cause i actually baked it in one of the metal sacrament trays. Oh and it turned out good to. hahaha it was awesome i will have to send pictures of it. Their name is the Mwamberes and if every family was like theres the chruch would be zion! Man i love it here! There is a lot of work to do but the Lord is doing it in time.
Oh so we found a B-ball court!!! Oh it was so nice to play soccer. Man these Africans can school you in soccer but b-ball they look like special. Hahaha you should see them dribble. Im glad you guys talked in church. I best that was a good experience. And oh man you better send me pictures of Owen if he is going to be Gpa mendal for halloween, gap and all. But yeah we dont celebrate anything here besides their independence and christmas. Its pretty sad so i hope us elders can be creative and do something fun! My favorite discussion is Lesson 1 the restoration. It just makes sense to these bible readers. They understand that there are so many churches teaching form the same book but they are all so different. I love the first vision cause the spirit is so strong when you recite in joe smiths own words. I am not getting sick of beans surprisingly. I actually crave them every meal. I am losing weight on this diet though. I have lost ten pounds now since i've been here.(i bought a scale) Tell porter i like both black and white people the same. Did i tell you i met a little boy named obama the other day. hahaha these people mock the US cause they say a kenyan is ruling our country. They all say he was born here. Kisumu actually. Keaton and jordan are doing well we write just about every week. Keaton hasnt had much success yet in his area but he is loving it. Jordan just got transferred to the hardest area in the mish so we will see how that goes. I do not have an oven but there is one at our chapel a few miles away. we have a fridge a toaster and a two burner cook top. I actually havent worn my suit yet. It is so hot and humid your not required to. Plus if you did wear it you would have to get it dry cleaned every week for how much we sweat. You wear it in nairobi though. I havent seen the callahans again since the mtc. i hear they are coming to our mission soon though. Well i love you guys and im doing well. Everyone is really writing me well. I actually am having a really hard time replying to all of them. Welp pray for me!
-Elder Haynes
No comments:
Post a Comment