hey mom,

are you sure that everyone in utah went to brigham city to go to the temple? cause i think that would be a lot of people in brigham city and like way too much for the town to hold hah.. well so with people coming to church its still tough because even getting members to come is tough. that one guy who was supposed to be baptized left all of a sudden and we havent seen him since, which really sucks. we cant even get a hold of him. anyways, thats missionary work for ya. my comp is really good. i think i will be learning a good amount of swahili now hopefully hah. but i would like to finish my misison in a place called westlands, in nairobi. and no other americans are in the zone besides us but there are some kool people now. i miss kenya but i like TZ. the food is better here. but in kenya life is cheaper.

anyways this week was nice. i was on exchanges for a few days with a guy named elder mhkungo from south africa. he is a really kool guy!
we had a lesson with people who only spoke swahili and he knows less swahili than me! but they were ok lessons, but not the best. i think that they have kinda showed me how my swahili is. i think that it is getting much better but i still need to work on it more. other than that i havent really been doing much other than the same stuff everyday. hah. sorry theres not very much.

 

 well for my birthday i didnt really do very much. i had a nice cheeseburger. it was really good. and i looked for some shoes but they were a little too much for me. they were selling them for like 70000 which is like $40 and they are worth $42 brand spankin new. they think im a white guy here and they think that all white people have a ton of money so they gave us a bad price. i can definitely say that it is weird to be old now. i dont feel like i am 21 i still feel like im 18 or 19...

well i will be send some pics very soon so i hope you like them. but not today haha. maybe a few weeks hah. well i love you and i hope everything is going well

love reese 

hey mom,

well this week was nice. i finally have a new companion. his name is elder sigauke and he is from zimbabwe. he is a kool guy. score.  anyways mostly what we did this week was show him around the area and do some mish stuff. and the week before that with my last comp, we just went and did some goodbye things with him.

this transfer im going to work a lot harder with learning swahili. we didnt really have a good teacher and he wasnt teaching us anything besides new words that he knew. so that never did help much. so im going to work really hard at it this transfer. sigauke knows it really well so he can help me a lot better than my last comp could. so that is pretty much what happened this week. sorry this is so short the internet went out yesterday so we dont really have too much time to finish emailing today. when elder baldwin goes home i will for sure send something with him for you guys. i will let you know when i get your package for my birthday. and i cant believe im going to be 21 now!! now i can drink...............................fanta hahah jk.

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

love reese

hey mom

well first off i will tell you the transfer news. my comp is leaving and my new comp is elder sigauke (c-gou-kay) from zimbabwe. im excited to have a change, but this guy had a little bit of drama last transfer with elder b so i hope that it doesnt come along with him. and i hope i will be happy for you mom, haha. well the package was awesome! i loved everything about it especially the ties. that purple one was gorgeous like the best purple tie ever.

 

we had a district taco night yesterday which was nice and we used pretty much all the taco stuff from the package hah. i do have a hankering for trail mix and some reeses fast break and hard candy that will last awhile haha. ps that would be the halloween stuff i would like - since you asked, haha along with other types of chocolate bars that i have forgotten about.

 

they most likely wont do anything for sept. 11th because it doesnt really affect them at all. also i dont think that i want to vote absentee.  i dont think we are allowed to do it so i wont. im glad that dixie won against w. oregon thats really kool. i hope that i will play when i get back because i really miss it. anyways it sucks that the car is broke down. im hoping that it can come back to life cause i loved that car well besides the fact that it was broken down most of the time haha.

well this week was pretty good. we had a new thing this week called a ztm or a zone training meeting instead of a ddm or district development meeting. it was pretty nice but there was a lot of arguing because some elders just dont want to change (my new comp was one of them) and i dont understand why. i mean they came here to help people to change but they dont want to. its pretty dumb to me. anyways, we have been helping the sisters teach a guy that has been difficult. i think he is in love with them and also he has the attention span of a toddler and he is my age. as we are teaching him we ask him questions and then we will ask a different question so its kind of difficult but with us there he kinda knows that he cant get away with stuff because i will beat him haha. jk. we found out on satuday that elder m is leaving but he is just going up the street to kinondoni hah. we all thought that was pretty funny. my old comp elder m is the new ap so ya...

 

anyways yesterday was really fun. all the people in the district came over to our house and we made tacos. we used the soft taco shells with the chicken and we got ground beef and made chapatis too. i love making tacos with people who have never had them because they make the best faces expressing how awesome tacos are. its funny. when they do that i call them converts; baptized and confirmed haha. i had four of them yesterday haha. when we finished we played scatergories. that was a lot of fun. then they all went home. it was really nice. i enjoyed it.

well i have a request if you could get some new scriptures would you like them in burgandy and gold sided paper or the original black and gold? cause they are really cheep here like a quad is about 7,000 shillings and 1,600 shillings is one dollar so i will let you do the math hah. so let me know. well  thats pretty much it for me. love ya

love elder maxwell

hey mom

well first off..... i got my package. i got my package. i got my package. hey hey hey hey!!! we went to the beach today and the zone leaders came with it. i actually have it on my lap right now. i havent opened it yet but im excited! thank you so much!!! thanks for telling ryan to send me an email. he sent me one so i will be able to email him now. im glad that you are doing the write me thing. i got like 20 emails today which was really nice. its kool to see and hear how everyone is doing. so i think that i am getting out of touch with technology because when i was trying to get money last monday i didnt know which one to get money out of so i was kind of stressing about it but thank you for putting money on it. and oh my gosh so freakin funny. i cant believe that you asked if african money comes out of the atm HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!! of course it does!! i laughed my butt of when i read that just so you know haha. anyways i can take a pic of the money because i have been collecting it here because they recently changed what their bills look like so they have old ones and new ones out so i have all of them. they are pretty kool. they look different from the ones in kenya tho. when i go back there i will start collecting those ones too. so i actually didnt know that pumbaa means to be relaxed but i will tell you some pretty kool things. the word taco, the food that i love, in swahili or mataco is butt cheeks haha. and also jamba, like jamba juice, means to fart haha so i love fart juice haha. here in dar i havent really worked out too much because it is super hot here and we can only have the air conditioning on at night.  but i think that i will start to do it soon. yes we walk a ton! all day everyday. i have been doing all my washing lately, im trying to not be lazy hah. ya elder baldwin is from vegas but i didnt really know that you wanted to know so much about it ha.

well for me this week was ok. i was pretty much sick for most of the week. i just had the flu with the coughing and being congested and that kind of stuff. it pretty much sucked but we still worked and stuff. i usually dont like to sit around when im sick. whenever i think of times i was sick i always think about the time when i played a football game with swine flu hah. that was really fun ha.

 

we had a few dinner appts this week which was really nice. we have been doing a good amount of service in the area with members which is always nice. so we were able to be in regular clothes a few times this week. there is a food here that my comp really loves called matoke. pretty much what it is, is green unripe bananas boiled and stuff like potatoes. its like exactly like potatoes but not as good but my comp loves it and he always tells people to make it for them. so one of the d.a's or dinner appts, some one made it. it was ok but i like potatoes better.

 

anyways this week we have a few people we have been teaching but they are not really progressing. our main guy is coming back this week so we werent able to meet with him this week so he is no longer progressing. a lot of the people we have we teach them multiple times a week and then they dont come to church and stuff so that is always discouraging but thats mission here. thats pretty much what happened this week. nothing too exciting.

well im glad that everything is going well there and that sami is going to school now that is kool to hear. i hope she loves it and makes a lot of new friends so that she wont miss me so much. make sure you tell her i love her. oh and by the way at one of the da's the member looked at my blog and its pretty much just all my emails home. is that what everyone else does. cause thats weird you should but more pics on it haha. but im sure that means i have to send more pictures right! haha. well i love you and i hope that you are having a great week.

love reese