hey mom

well yes you heard right, two missionaries did get robbed but it wasn't at gunpoint. the guy i know is elder ....., hes a kool guy from cali, he and his comp got robbed. all the guy did was pull up his shirt and there was a gun in his pants and they handed over all their stuff. ya it wasnt me cause if someone tried to rob me.....haha it would suck.....cause his scriptures were in his bag and they got stolen too along with the watch his girlfriend gave him.

yes i did talk to sister hall.  i love that lady. she is awesome. i think that they are the koolest couple in our entire mission. i want her to make me a banana cake (banana bread with chocolate frosting on top best cake ever!!!) we helped her find the church in athi and we met a guy named thomas kasue who was an early pioneer of the church in kenya. we listened to him for like two hours. elder hall thinks that i will go to tanzania next transfer and then go to the kilungu hills (their area) after awhile.i want to go to tanzania so bad so that when i get back home i can know another language. i'm still trying to learn it here but its freakin tough. in tanzania they teach it to you. right now im working on learning to roll my r's.  im not too good at it right now. also kilungu is the freakin bush. im kinda scared to go there cause you and me both know that im a city boy. i can do camping once in awhile but im nervous to go there for an extended period haha.

well this week was ok. we spent most of our week with our zone leader elder sarlo (he came with me) and elder kazomba from zimbabwe. we were there with them until friday morning. we had exchanges and they were pretty good. it was fun to be with more than one person for most of the week. it was kinda like we got to hang out for the week. it was funny cause almost every night from wednesday to sunday we have DA's or dinner appointments with members. so on wednesday night when they came to athi we had a DA and it was sarlo's first DA since he has been in nairobi.  The best part of the week was that i got two packages!! one from kellie and one from grandma! so i have some american candy which is a billion times better than kenyan candy. oh i did go to kfc this week and it was freakin good. i got some chicken and a coke and some chips (or fries) and a milkshake thing. best meal ive had in kenya!!

this week i have been reading Jesus the Christ. its such a long book but wow there is so much info in it. the guy that wrote it, wrote it in the upper rooms of the temple and it has been said that once he finished he saw Jesus Christ and he told him that it was the most accurate book about him. so its pretty dang kool.

well i dont want you to panic but i busted my leg up just a little and no its not broken but it freakin hurt hah. anyways, i was walking to get into a bus and i was following right behind someone. he stepped over the manhole and i stepped in it. and my right leg fell in it and my other knee hit the lip of the hole so i cut it pretty good and it bled pretty good too. i went and got it cleaned out and got some bandages on it so now its good so no need to worry. its all good. haha . ill send a pic of it too its pretty gnarly ( idk if i spelled it right haha)  it will be my first mission scar yay!! haha.

 love elder maxwell or reese or maurice or moe 

 

 

ps     i hope that everyone has a great week and i hope that something exciting happens this week. well something that is exciting and good haha. i love you guys and remember dont forget to read (the book of mormon)! im sure jay will learn sooner or later that he cant do whatever he wants. im surprised that he stayed home when you grounded him. i dont even know how many times ive been grounded. maybe like once with you and like three times with my dad hah. so not to many times in my life hah.

Wanted you to see what one of the couple missionaries had to say about Elder Maxwell!


Our part of the mission tour was only one day in Nairobi.  It was held at the Upper Hills Chapel from 9:30- 3:00. I didn't take any pictures but there was one taken after of the whole group and I will send you that.  Elder Maxwell is growing into a man.    I sat behind him at the conference and was so impressed with him. His shoulders are broad his stature is large and his image is more like a man. He has filled out both physically and spiritually.  When Elder Cook asked for comments or answers to his questions, Elder Maxwell had wonderful responses.  You would have got goosebumps!  We love him and hope that he will someday soon be assigned to work with our area.      Best wishes, love Sister Hall

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 3:18 AM

hey mom,

it sounds like you guys did have a good week. by the way i wanted to thank you for sending the recipes and the music. grandmas package just got here too. i havent gone to get it yet but im excited! i am yet to take a picture of me in my new sweats but when i do i will send it too you for sure.  the people in the matatu are all missionaries. all the people in the picture and least. hah 

 

right now, i am reading jesus the christ. the book is huge. but it has a ton of info in it so i like it a lot. im yet to finish the book that bro bulloch had me get. but its pretty good. its so weird for me to talk about reading cause at home...........i hated reading with a passion but now i do it all the time. hopefully it doesnt become too big of a habit haha.

well our week wasnt too exciting but it ended off way good! this week we taught one of our investigators named alfonce (ya i know weird name huh) well we know that he is a smoker and most likely a drinker so we taught him about the word of wisdom. i was kinda nervous because the last time i taught someone the word of wisdom who was a smoker and drinker, he stopped coming to church and stuff. but he accepted and was good about it.

 

another thing that happened was we were teaching my favorite investigator named david. hes an old guy but he is very bright and thats hard to find here ha. but we asked him to read and pray about the book of mormon and ask if its true. and he was like," ya know you guys are the ones that put doubt in my mind about it. when i read it i accept that it is true." it was way kool.

 

on sunday we had a weird experience. so one of our investigators has a quad so we asked her where she got it and stuff . she told us that she got it from a friend in america and that she was coming here some time. so this week her friend came and we went to meet her because i figured that she was lds. when we get there we find out that............. she is definitely not lds. she asked what church we are from and i said the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. and she smiled and said oh thats nice and then i said other wise known as mormons. and the smile instantly turned off... into total surprise. it was kinda funny, and then she started talking about god and church and stuff. it was crazy. she sounded smart when she wasnt talking about religion but when she did, she sounded like a complete retard. it opened my eyes to how dumb even americans are about church and stuff.

now the kool part. so yesterday we had a zone conference with elder cook. he talked about how we can become better missionaries and how we can establish the church here. it was really kool. and it wasnt just us listening to him but we shared and stuff and we discussed things. now the best part was when he finished and everyone was hanging out and stuff. i went and talked to him and thanked him. and he asked me how long have you been out? i told him almost 6 months. he was so happy. he said that i was a very good missionary. i thought it was kool. and just like elder hays, he gave me an assignment to read numbers 13 and 14 and he told me that i was like caleb. i thought it was kool to hear from a general authority (GA) also when he shook my hand he told me that he could feel the strength i had. at first i thought that he was just talking about how strong i was but i guess he meant my spirit. so it was an awesome experience.

but that was my week. i hope you guys have an awesome week and dont forget to read or CTR (choose to read) love ya guys

elder maxwell

2012 Jan 23 Letter from Elder David Hays

Hey mom
     I don't know what else to say. I am in love with missionary work. I could do it all day. I do do it all day. We had a mission tour this week and Elder Cook from the 70 came. It was so good. He tried to work us to understand the white handbook and how we need to follow it more perfectly. I was as always called to repentance. He talked to me afterwards and told me to read Numbers 13-14. He said that I was like Caleb and the missionaries were going to be like the 10 who brought the bad report. I needed to be the one who brings a good report. Which of course is hard to hear that I need to rise in front of a zone that will as I know disregard the corrections saying that they are too hard. They aren't possible, he was telling me that I need to bring a good report that I needed to show that we are going to follow up on this and do it that it is not impossible -- which meant that I had to live it.

 

One of the things that we were corrected about was going to visit sisters alone without another adult. Which it nearly impossible here since the only people that are home during the day are women. We won't be able to see the husbands home for a while maybe not till 9 o'clock. Most of our investigators right now are single women or women whose husbands are not home till late at night. What do we do. I mean, what. Well we decided regardless we are going to follow it. I felt nervous seems how our first lesson that very next day was to a single sister. Yay! I had no idea what we were going to do. So we went out and said that we need to keep the rule no matter what even if it meant our entire day falling apart due to no one we were allowed to visit. I felt strongly that the lord would provide. We went to this sister having no idea how we were going to visit her. As we went I felt nervous. We knocked on her door, "Karibu" she said, we asked if her husband was home she said no, we asked if she had any male neighbors she repeated no, we told her that we needed a man to be there and that we were going to go find a member and come back shortly with him. Now this is like saying to someone in the country that we are going to go get a member from off the streets and be right back there is no way that it is going to happen that way. I mean what is the chance that you find a member just floating around not where he normally is and he being a male and free and in the near vicinity. But regardless of logic we were going to hope.

 

We began to walk aimlessly for the first member that we could see, as we rounded the street we came to another investigators house (all women) but miraculously there he was Brother Robert the EQP just sitting and chatting, he said that he had a free thirty minutes and would be glad to join us. WOW, miracle, we went back member in hand and that was that. We haven't had a problem since. We are going to be as obedient as possible. I love it. Obedience brings blessings. Exact obedience brings miracles.

Well mom I am proud to say I love being a missionary. There is nowhere on earth I would rather be. I love it out here.

hey mom 

sorry that this email is so short. we had our mission tour / zone conference so i dont really have much time to email today. we are getting tomorrow as a pday also so i will email you more tomorrow. our meeting today was awesome! elder carl b cook from the quorum of the 70 came and gave us our teaching for the meeting. it was so kool to meet him and i think that i impressed him pretty well but i will tell you about it more about it tomorrow when i finish emailing you. will you tell me who the broncos lost to at least and maybe like the score which round they lost in, was it a good game and stuff like that. well hope to hear more from you tomorrow.

love reese

   *****Googled Carl B Cook:

 was a speaker at last general conference "Its better to look up".

born in ogden, ut. 

went on a mission to hamburg, germany.

raised 5 kids.

mission president in aukland, new zealand.

sustained a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 2, 2011, at age 53.******

http://lds.org/ensign/2011/05/elder-carl-b-cook?lang=eng******

hey mom,

 jay is getting recruited by dsc? that pretty kool. does he have anymore offers or is that the only one?
anyways this week wasnt too exciting. we had a good time tho. me and my comp elder vilakati are getting along pretty well sometimes he bugs me but i guess i probably bug him sometimes too. but this week we had some pretty kool experiences. we finally met with a guy who we gave a book of mormon to like 6 weeks ago and he says that he has been reading it every night. he also thinks that its like the new testament which means he thinks it  is holy -which is good. then on saturday we had an activity with the elders quorum. its was pretty good we had a choma or bbg is what they really call it here. it was ok but people here dont know how to cook or prepare the meat. what they do is the cook the meat with like salt and sometimes garlic and throw it on the choma. then once it gets done they cut it into little pieces and eat it. the meat is so hard to chew! because they dont cut off the fat from off the meat. and they dont know what a cut of meat is. like a filet or something they just know cut it into pieces. and like the only utensils that people use are knife and spoons and hands haha. but it was still fun. also i spent $20 at nakumatt (it should be nakumart but people here dont know how to say "r"'s so instead of mart they say matt) i bought some sweats that said kenya on it and some chocolate cause i miss it haha. but that was pretty much my week. also i forgot to let you know that on the 2nd or 3rd i finished the entire quad scriptures! the old and new testament, book of mormon, doctrine and covenants and pearl of great price including the bible dictionary and joseph smith translation! it took forever haha.

well i hope you guys have a good week! i love you guys!

Love elder maxwell

ps could you send me some music from sarah mclachlan, norah jones and celine dion haha i know it sound wierd but that kind of music is calming to me and thats the kind of music that is good here ha

From President Broadbent to Maurice:

 

Your understanding and ability to find and love truth is wonderful.  We look forward to mission tour soon with you.  Conversion and the Book of Mormon go hand in hand and your hand is secure.  Be good and enjoy. Pres B

hey mom

this week was a pretty good one. i'm having a blast here! we had a baptism on saturday. his name is eric. i baptized him and it was a really good baptismal service. there was a good amount of people or members there to support him. i also got to put some use to the white tie that i bought! ha. hopefully we will be able to get the wife baptized too. the only reason she wasnt there was because she went up country (the place where their family is) giving birth to their first child! so hopefully she will be the next baptism for me ha.  on wednesday i met up with elder will lewis. me and him went to high school together at olympus. he just got here to kenya so it was way kool to see him. it was funny because when i saw him he yelled, "Moe!". it was kinda weird to hear that from him especially since i havent been called that in like 7 months haha. it was kinda kool to meet someone who knew me before i was a missionary. we went around at this park called uhuru (freedom) park and i taught him how to contact people and talk with them about who we are and what we do. it was kool because him and some of the other missionaries were like, wow dude your good at this. it was kinda kool to see how much ive grown to being a missionary cause i used to be exactly like that when i got here haha. that park is also where i took that picture of me on top of the fountain.

 

mom the fruit here is freakin good. like the bananas here are like 100 times better than the ones at home. its weird too cause they are always bruised but they are still good inside and they are freakin bomb! but the corn is not sweet at all like at home.

 

yes i have received grandma stines package of shoes. please let her know that i got them and that i say thank you very much!! i havent yet gotten grandma jo's package but as soon as i get it i will let you know. also i got dave and tiffani's package and make sure to tell them thank you so much and i loved the reeses!! kellie said that she sent one but it hasnt gotten here yet either. well i had a missionary who was going home send kellie just something small. but i havent sent any packages from here yet besides letters (wink, wink).

 

yes my next transfer will be around valentines and yes i might get sent to the bush and yes sending me another supply of reeses and other treats would be a genius idea.

 

yes i can take those pictures for you of the cyber we go to this week i guess..... we usually go to the same one unless its closed and stuff. there are usually just kenyans here but sometimes there are some muslims/ indians that are here....but the girl that works there is really kool. she doesnt want to talk about the gospel though, i think that one of her relatives is a pastor and she goes to that church. but hopefully one day she will listen to missionaries.  

 

yes last week i got my glasses re sized cause they kept falling off my face when i would look down for a while. so now they fit pretty well. yes i have been working out and been doing some stuff. its so funny because i had no idea what song you were talking about but at the same time i thinkin about it the song came on here hahah. its a pretty good one too i think you should get it ha. i usually get up at 6:30 and go to bed at around 9:30 to 10:30.

 

i guess soon we are having a mission tour. but i have no idea what it is but ill let you know what it is when it happens haha. i saw smedley when he broke his leg but i havent seen him of late. and no i havent gotten any recipes from people but i did get milee's christmas card. tell her thank you and i hope she has a great new years!

well i hope you guys have a good week and i love you guys a ton!

love reese

ps     my dad is keeping me posted on the broncos to let me know when they go to the super bowl! haha

 

pps   hey this week i want you guys to have a family home evening with kurt and his family. make sure jay is there.

January 1st

hey mom

well this week was a pretty good week. we taught a lot of people and hopefully if everything works out we will have a baptism or two this week.  i learned how to make my favorite food called Chapati or Chopos. they are freakin hard to make you have to knead them, then oil them, then knead them again and then roll them out and cook em. sounds easy but way hard. they were really good tho. and ive been showing people how to make mexican food, or tacos, and people are amazed at it. when you put the food in the chapati they start busting up laughing because that's not what they normally do with them. but its a lot of fun. i went to my first kenyan wedding on saturday too.  it was like a regular wedding but it was at one of the lds churches in nairobi. it was pretty fun. there was kenyan dancing and they dance alot with their knees haha.  but i didnt join in..... im kinda mad that i didnt but they dance weird. they will get sealed this week in south africa so that was pretty kool. so the end of my third transfer happened this week well yesterday. so my fourth transfer starts today. i am staying in athi river with elder vilakati for i think at least 6 more weeks then i will go to my next area. elder smedley is coming back to nairobi so im excited to be able to hang out with him again.

well im glad that you guys had a good New years! here in kenya they cant celebrate with fireworks and stuff mostly because they are fighting a war right now so they will probably think that they are gun shots haha. but what they do is eat a lot and drink and party like most of the world.  we, on the other hand stayed up til 12 yelled happy new years, i ate my last reeses and went to bed hahah. sounds pretty exciting huh? then on Sunday we only went to church for one hour too and we didnt fast. which was awesome. we will fast this next week.

so, some of my new year resolutions are:

1)read all the books in the missionary library

2)go through the book of mormon and take notes about all the chapters that have a lot of importance

3)become EXACTLY obedient

4)get 20 baptisms

5)get some way kool African things

well i hope you guys have a happy new year and a great week. love ya guys!

elder maxwell