Week 7

tell everyone thanks for the birthday wishes!!! and thanks for putting my email address up on facebook. i love getting emails every week! i love being able to answer questions and hearing about everything! the elder missionaries that made me the cake were elder and sister nevins (elderandsisternevin.blogspot.com) and the zone leader is smedley (rigleyfamily.com/kirkinkenya) and kazozo. and yes i have run into elder hodges (missionaryvswild.blogspot.com) and patten (elderpatten.blogspot.com) they are pretty kool. hodges is a stud hes funny. and yes mom i know all about smeddles and hays they actually tell it to me. my teaching is getting a lot better i think. idk i dont hear myself teach other people, but Elder Hays says im doing pretty good. im sure ill be a pro in like a month or two or twelve hah. ya sis matwale is awesome! i would definitely consider her a missionary grandma. she gives us treats and investigators and right now all of our progressing investigators come from her! This week at church we had two investigators come, but the real story is that the meeting house was full of members which was surprising because they dont usually ever come to church. there are 190 members that are a part of the branch but only like 60 come regularly.what we are working on is to get members back to church so we can get a bigger building and hopefully they will help us with missionary work. our teaching pool has pretty much fell away so this week we are trying to reactivate people so they will give us referrals. It will probably be a tough week, lots of work but itll be good. ive learned a bit of swahili words like: habari = hello / how are youmizuri (sounds like missouri) = im fine, sante or santesana= thank you/ thank you very much.theres a little bit of my language lesson for ya ha. its funny cause i eat a lot of rice at peoples houses but when i eat dinner at my flat i usually eat ramen noodles or a pb&j haha. everyday for lunch we go to a supermarket and get a hotdog and a drink. i usually get two hotdogs and a coke and then a candy bar haha. i have been eating some crazy stuff there is this stuff called ugali you have to eat it with your hands. i actually eat with my hands a bunch hah. the fries or chips are weak here they are all floppy its like they half cook them but its better than eating goat head or fish brains and i am definitely not eating that hah. yes african animals!! ill try and send some pics a little later today when i get to a cyber cafe that has faster internet ha and maybe even a shift key so i can capitalize hah. i go to a cyber cafe to email and yes its ok for us to come to Nairobi every week. we meet with all the missionaries and play b ball or soccer. today we played b ball with some people that come practice at the church and we kicked their butt because they are not very aggressive and i like to get some aggression out. and no i didnt hurt anyone i just fouled a little bit. i miss football so much i just want to hit some one hah. we get home like every night at 9 so i guess its not really a rule. i dont like it but hays like to stay out late to teach but when we get home he stays up forever like last night we didnt go to sleep until 1130 cause we have to go to bed at the same time. no we dont have anyone with AKs in front of our flat but we do have a guard. yes i have had to use the tums because i have gotten the runs and my stomach has been hurting just cause i have to get used to the food. hays says that he got it too when he came. the weather is nice its only rained twice in athi but its pretty hot so when we see people i come in like sweating so im going to get like a bandana to keep in my bag to wipe off sweat or something. and yes i sleep with a mosquito net and its way weird. its pretty hot where i am but not as hot as st george so im greatful for that.
sammy is so funny! make sure that you tell her i love her everyday. and im glad that she is going to school pretty easy. im glad that you had a good time at the conference thing. and yes i miss cafe rio but it will always be there so i can have it in two years so its all good. and i dont think that they have that new rs book here because as you know its africa.... i think thats all i have to say hah. well im glad jay went to the priesthood session. i wont be able to even see conference for a month or two because it takes them awhile to send all the talks to africa so ill let you know how i like it when i actually see it hah. and im sorry the house seems to be falling apart but im sure you will get it taken care of in no time. anyways thanks for the email. i love you guys and miss you guys.
love Reese

Week 5

so on wednesdays and saturdays we go to a place called Kitengela which is another part of my area but its kinda far away so we take a matatu there. all of our progressing investigators are from there, its really good part of our area. there is this lady named sister matwale (ma-twal-le) and she gives us a referral to someone and she lets us teach them in her house and every time she feeds us so i love going over there cause she gives us soda, dinner or snacks and stuff. its awesome hah. we had stake conference on sunday and we stayed at elder smedleys flat. and funny enough his name is kirk. so i had to tell him that you have been stalking his missionary blog. he thought that it was way funny tho so it was all good. when we meet people, me and my companion like to ask people where they think im from and most will say south africa, kenya and zimbabwe but if i talk people know immediately that im from the US my accent gives it away bad ha. most people accept the things we tell them but the hardest thing with investigators here is that they wont come to church. they say they will but when it comes time for church they say that they are busy (which they are not) or they are up country which means they are going to see family that lives where they were born but most of the time they arent. i am teaching pretty well i think, but my companion is awesome and he knows his stuff. hes way smart and knows the book of mormon like the back of his hand. when we come up to people to start teaching we ask them why they think there are so many churches and should they have to pay. cause here some churches make people pay before they come in and depending on how they pay determines the seats that they get which is crazy. anyways we didnt have a baptism we just committed people to be baptized but soon we will have one and i will let you know when we do. last week we had a pretty good week. we taught a bunch of lessons. im having a good time its crazy to think that i am in africa! i really still cant believe it. its awesome tho. one really kool thing we did this week is on the outskirts of Athi River and Kitengela there is an animal reserve that you can go to without paying money and it doesnt have a gate. so this week i saw wild giraffes, zebras, wildebeests and gazelles!! i was like 40 or 50 yards away from them! you hardly see animals in the US only like pigeons and you can see those here too ha. its crazy to think that i am like a 30 min walk away from wild AFRICAN animals hah. took a ton of pictures too. it was fun! i tried to have someone make my pictures smaller so i can email almost all of them at once but it didnt work so i will try and send some next week as many as i can it will probably take a long time to send 2 or 3 but i will, i promise. but i have not gotten your pictures sorry but if you can just send some of you jay sam and everyone else.
so thats my update for this week. just let people know that i would love getting emails and questions from everyone cause we can email anyone. so when you send emails ask questions because its easier to write things when im answering questions. also can you send me recipes of zatarans yellow rice seasoning from online somewhere and dirty rice and french fries from a pan, taco meat seasoning, spaghetti and marinara sauce, and stuff for garlic noodles.
i love you guys and i will keep you in my prayers.
love Reese p.s i ate this stuff called casava it is freakin nasty. its a root that they love here so i took a bite and spit it out when no one was looking ha.

Update

i would definitely have to agree that it has gone by fast like last week blew by. i think its because a friend of mine, from the mtc, serves with me in my area so we get to have a party like every night. its so much fun. on my last p day it was awesome cause there was a kfc that was at a mall close to where we went to play sports. it was so good i got like 5 pieces of chicken and an oreo milkshake it was so good! this p day i got to go bowling, it was fun! i miss the good old US candy a lot like my Reeses cause i ate my last one this week it was good and bad but mostly bad cause i wanted to eat more ha.
ya i had to just jump in it! its crazy cause i never thought i would be doing this. every one here speaks like 15 different languages. i can only say like the basic greetings like hello too haha. on thursday it sucked cause everyone i talked to or tried to talk to, would say," sorry your english is too deep" and i would just have to sit there shake my head yes. and we had to give possibly the slowest lesson to some one cause they couldnt even understand my comp who speaks with a pretty good accent. it was terrible and it took like and hour and a half to teach parts of the first lesson. it is definitely a culture shock! this week i taught a guy named john hes a teacher for one of the 800 schools that are here (like really theres a ton of schools and its tiny here) and i asked him to be baptized when he comes to know that those things were true. and he said yes. ive met so many people here that love the gospel so much i never thought that i would ever see people that love it so much. anyways the one thing that was crazy this week was the guy who i gave the blessing about him being worthy to get blessings, committted adultery and kicked his wife out and made the girl get an abortion so im pretty sure he is getting ex'ed. it made me sad be cause i wanted him to live up to it so badly! Athi River is crazy. theres a lot of cute little kids hah.i want to just pick them up and hold them ha. they call my comp a 'Mazungu' or white/British person and then they see me and im not that dark so they start calling me it too after a couple of minutes. they also ask how are you and its freakin cute youd love it. the fruit here is so dang good i love it. they are so fresh cause people grow them and stuff. i think that i will be most likely riding another piku piku sooner or later so i will most definitely send you a pic hah. my meetinghouse looks like a small house except theres one room that can fit like 100 people if you smash them in there hah. anyways i had my first stake conference sunday and it was crazy cause it was mostly black people with a dozen or so white people which reminded me about my ward cause it was totally opposite which was way funny hah.

Elder Maxwell's first apartment in Nairobi

Week 4

hey mom

kenya is awesome! i am loving it! i flew and it was about 5 hours! i cant believe im actually here its crazy. the cityis nice but im in a place called athi river. its about 45 mins awayfrom nairobi. im actually in shock here. its a real eye opener. thepeople here are really poor they dont have anything (besides cellphones and tvs everyone has them and like nice ones too) but for themost part they seem happy but just want more. it stinks here too. mostpeople dont have basic plumbing so their ... stuff.. just goes outsidesomewhere and their garbage they throw outside and when you walk pastthose it stinks like sewer a lot of places dont stink just the peoplethat live in shacks. anyways my apartment is....nice. it feels like ilive in the ghetto but we have a pretty big place we have 3 rooms abig front room and a tiny kitchen area. athi river is a really dustyplace and theres always dust in our apartment. the town has only like3 main roads and the rest are dirt roads. we walk a lot and my comp(who is elder hays and is a white guy that is 6 7 and is pretty kool)walks really fast... and you know me, i hate walking fast like a lot ha. driving here is insane too. since they have really bad roads the taxidrivers drive all over the road, on the sides where people walk andeverything i cant even watch . the taxis here are called mutatu's.they are vans and they fill them up. they are probably smaller thanmost vans and they fit like 18 people in there its ridiculous. theyalso have piki piki's they are motorcyle taxi. and you just jump onthe back and hold on for dear life hah. both me and my companion goton one to get somewhere and we are both big so you can imagine threeguys on a bike haha it would have been a little bit more funny if iwasnt on it ha. this week has been crazy me and my companion have given a bunch oflessons like 20 of them. but he does most of the talking right now butim still working on it. ive done a ton of things this week. on fridaywe gave a lesson to a couple david and ruth. at the end of the lessoni invited them to be baptized!! and they said yes! i was freakin out! i was so nervous that i was shaking. but it was kool. and onsunday i gave a guy a blessing of comfort ! that was the one that was more nerveracking than anything! i was so nervous and i thought that i had likeno idea what i was doing. but my comp keeps telling me that it was areally good blessing but i still dont know if it was that good ha. the food here is pretty good its mostlyrice and vegetables which is good but you know me i like meat! and ive eaten at members houses like every nightbesides two.ha but they have this thing called ugali its like mashed potatoes butits like sticky rice and you squish it and use it like aspoon and pick up meat and vegetables and stuff its kool.
everyone one here speaks like 7 different languages so i hardly everknow what people are saying all i know is habarri = hello / how areyou, mizuri ( sounds like missouri hah) = im fine, sante or santesana= thank you/ thank you very much. and thats pretty much it hah.but when i talk to people they use english swahili and a lot othersmixed in so lucky my comp speaks a little swahili so ill probablyknow a lot more soon. im sure that jay will start getting more time. just tell him tomake sure that he works harder than everyone else and im sureeverything will work out. it sucks that dixie isnt doing too good. imsure they will start doing better soon. i think moneywould be a lot better than a package anyways hah and it would becheaper. anyways i will be able to email every monday and i geta full p day so i can write big emails ha. but i love you guys and imiss you a lot
loveReese

The area of Johannesburg

MTC memories