hey mom

you dont know how happy i am that we have a 7-11 close by now! i shouted for joy in the cyber like no joke way loud haha. that was one thing i missed at college and in high school we had to go forever away to get a slurpee! well im glad that jay is finally at school for football. i think that he will be doing some real time growing now that he is on his own. its really weird to say that too cause i dont think that im on my own yet either haha.  well make sure to tell taylor happy birthday for me and tell max that when he turns 12 i will be out for a year.

as for me we had a good time this week. the big highlite of the week is that we had a baptism. the guy was really good he had been coming to church for a few weeks which was nice. he is a good guy too he is like 23.

so the transfer just ended. today is the first day of the new one and i will be staying with my current comp. we get along ok but at times it gets tough because he thinks whatever he thinks is right and that he knows everything which is clearly not true but i will put up with it because the Lord wants me too i guess. anyways i do get to see patten a lot every pday and every wednesday for district meetings. so thats really nice. i was on exchanges with a guy named elder mulondo from uganda. he is kool. we went to the beach on p day which was nice. 

one crazy thing happened this week. so we were walking through this crazy bus stop type of thing and some beggar lady saw us walking and she asked my comp and he just walked away and she ignored it like most do. so when i came up behind him i thought she would do the same. so i walked past and the next thing i know she grabbed on to my arm like she was about to die. and no swahili was coming to my head so i just said sorry, sorry! and pried her hands off of me cause we trying to get some where. and she kept grabbing on to me so i just kept prying her hand off and when we found the bus or daladala that we wanted to get on i tore off her hands and i jumped into the bus she followed me and SMACK!! smacked my back way hard. she totally gave me a turkey on my back. the most aggressive beggar i have ever met. so that was crazy. other than that it was just a normal missionary week. its hard to write about my weeks now because im just doing the same thing every day haha.

oh and to answer your questions, we live in mbezi beach. we have a big house like no joke its huge. it has 4 bedrooms and i think it woud be safe to say that it is bigger than our house but not nicer. swahili is coming very slow. i can write some sentences but speaking to someone and listen to their response is a totally different thing. but if they keep me here longer that would be tough but i dont really have any power over it. all the sister missionaries here are from africa. mostly from south africa, uganda and zambia. some of the beaches i have been to are coco beach, bagamoyo and kunduchi beach.

 well i love ya and i hope you are doing well.

love reese

hey mom

this week has been pretty good. i went on exchanges with a really kool missionary. he is awesome. and it was really good because me and my comp arent really getting along too well. so its getting tough and it was really nice to get a break. this week we had a couple of dinner appointments. they were really good too. tanzanians know how to make food better than those who are in kenya for sure. the food was really good except for one thing one of the members made for us. it is called matoke (ma-toe-kay) it is pretty much unripe bananas made like cooked potatoes but not as good. i really dont understand how people even like it when potatoes are way better. one thing that really sucked is that me and my comp kinda got in an argument. it was about dumb stuff but i guess we are both pretty prideful so that doesnt help either. anyways i am really glad that we have sister missionaries here in mbezi beach also. they are really kool and they help me out a lot here in this area. i am very happy that you have home teachers now! thats one thing we could really use here in this mission, people that are faithful enough to do home teaching!

 

we have an investigator who should be getting baptized this sunday so that is pretty exciting. but that is pretty much it. swahili is coming along. i still dont understand it fully but i know that it will come. 

 

i dont think that the package will be here before hump day. it will most likely be awhile after because the packages and letters go to kenya still and when the people in the office come to TZ then they bring the packages, but idk when that will be.

well i hope you guys are doing very well and i love you guys a bunch. 

love reese

hey mom

first of all sorry about emailing late. we went to a historical site and beach but it was really far away so we got back at 8 and the internet was down. also i wont be able to send any pics today either but hopefully next week. well for the beaches they are really nice. very kool. its weird though to be by the beach and there not be a lot of traffic and stuff. i really like it. we didnt see any camels on the beach yet but if they are there i will ride it for sure. tell grandma we are allowed to go into the water but not above our knees haha. so not very far haha. but its nice. i hope you told grandma happy birthday for me. i think you should send me the dates for everyones birthday so that i can send them an email saying happy birthday at least.

this week was nice. on monday everyone in the zone or all the missionaries in dar came to our house to make tacos. it was really fun and everyone enjoyed themselves. i like making tacos for the people who have never tried them because then they get to see what its like to try different food. the people that like it i call "converts" haha and i always get a couple everytime. then other than that nothing really exciting happened. i mean we worked and stuff. we have swahili class but we learn so slow. so it will take a long time for me to understand all the grammar for swahili. its hard cause i dont really talk to very many people during the day because they cant really understand me and my comp is a man of very little words so i can say im bored a lot hah. but we did have a couple of dinner appointments this week. it has been the first time to have one here in tanzania. but hopefully there will be more soon. tracting here is hard because the people with houses here have house girls (like maids) that answer the door so we are not able to teach the family very much.

 

also if you are sending a package anytime soon, i would kindly request lemon heads and any other type of them and trail mix. i really love that stuff. well thats pretty much it for me so i love you guys and i hope you are having a good one. and also tell sami i love her and give her a hug for me!!

love reese

hey mom

 

it is supposed to be the coolest part of the year here in dar but its still hot for me ha but im hoping that i get used to it pretty soon now. well for now i will apologize because today i have even a shorter time to email so i wasnt able to bring my camera and stuff. so next week for sure haha.  the couples that are here are the nolls and the worthens. they are both pretty weird but they are ok. they are really uptight so i call them nazis but its just a joke haha. im glad that you guys had a good 4th of july and i am happy you had a good birthday. and im also glad that you guys didnt go to six flags cause then i would have been home sick haha. but but im glad that jay did some good things for you on your birthday. that was nice of him. and i think that you can only show him that wickedness never was happiness by your example. and thats it. but tell grandma and tina thanks for giving me some money. i really appreciate it cause i really enjoy food and its expensive here haha.

well for me this week was good. we had zone conference. it was nice. this year we are all reading the triple combination. we will be reading it to help it help us to understand the atonement better. i am going to start when i finish the book or mormon here soon. but im excited for it. we had burgers and fries which was nice but like usual it didnt fill me up but then we had some cake and i took a good amount and then i was pretty good. haha but the next day we came to be interviewed by the mission president. my interview was good. on sunday also we had a baptism of a guy name sylvester. he has been taught by missionaries for awhile but he has been moving so he hasnt been able to be baptized but we did it haha. a guy from the branch baptized him and on this sunday he will be confirmed. but other than that just been sweating here doing missionary work. its been good but a little tough with things i cant control but i guess thats what happens here.

 

so i have a request...will you find out for me when football camp starts for next year? i talked to pres broadbent and he said that i can adjust some things with coming home and stuff like that. so i would really appreciate if you can do that for me. well i love you and i hope everything is going well there.

love reese

hey mom

im glad that there is money on there! tell tina thanks a ton for me. ya i probably wont need all of it for shoes so i will definitely be using a good amount of it for food because life is expensive here. ya so im glad that you were able to meet elder smedley and were able to get a bunch of those pics. so was there about 1000 pics or what cause if not i think i will just send my sd card so that you can have all of them and ill just buy another one. but i still have a good amount of space on it. like i think it says that i can still take like a couple more thousand pics haha. wow he had an accent cause i didnt think that he really had one but i guess he does so we will find out if i have one bad or not. i think it would be kool anyways. smedley asked me for your number because he knew that they would be going through LV. but i think that president broadbent is an awesome mission president. i can say that he is a very powerful man. but he is super nice. he is awkward sometimes just because he will ask you a question and youll answer it but then thats like the end of the conversation and he is still just looking at you haha like he wants it to continue so just sometimes he a little awkward. so with the pics i am glad that you enjoyed them. so will you send a copy to kellie for me cause i know that she would love it. im glad that jay will be going to dixie to work out and stuff cause he is going to need it if his shoulder is doing ok. ya i think that college will be a big thing for him but i know that he will be able to make good choices. after all most of the people he will come in contact with will be good kids. well im glad that you were able to have like a girls night out. im sure throughout sami's life you guys will be having a ton of those. so im glad that i will be getting a package soon cause it kinda been awhile since i have gotten one.  but with the package i dont think that i will be getting it anytime soon. because our zone conference will be this week. dar is pretty nice it has a bunch of beaches which is were we are all going today. but the people here are very nice and kind like way more than the people in kenya. people are very chirstlike i could say, well most people hah. what i like the best is fanta passion!! it is so dang good. i wish they had it in the US because i like have to drink one like every single day haha. and they sell chips myeye. it is actually really good. i can say that it is a lot like florida. a lot haha.

well for me this week was alright. on monday we went to the beach in our area and it was pretty fun. i was able to take a couple of good pics too. we saw a music video being made which was kinda weird but kool. theres no way that it was as kool as a music video of a kool artists tho haha. this week i had my first 2 swahili classes. the second one was really kool. i actually learned a bunch from it too and i think that i will be able to learn the language now well maybe haha. we learned about the tenses of verbs in swahili. it was kool like i will read is nitasoma. so i think i can learn it now haha. on saturday we had a kool day we went to a wedding. it was nice but it was weird i mean i havent been to too many weddings but i know that this one was pretty weird. we only went because of the food but it wasnt too good either. i know that at least at my wedding it is going to be fun for everyone and there will be nice food cause i wouldnt want to eat bad food haha. i dont know if you knew this but the church service is in swahili so pretty much during church i just read my scriptures the whole time because if not i would fall asleep haha. the members are really nice but i havent been to anyones home yet. but hopefully soon. with our investigators they are good but i dont really get to talk to anyone because they mostly dont know english that well or not at all. so i hope that i learn the language fast so that i can teach. but so far it sucks cause i have to just listen in the lessons while my comp teaches. but im still having fun.

well thats pretty much it from my end but i am doing well. i hope that you guys have a good week. and i hope you have a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! go do something fun but not six flags cause then i will really be sad haha jk. but do something fun and exciting. well i love you

love reese