hey mom

well this week was pretty nice. first off i talked to you and everyone which was nice. it was good to hear your guys voices. also we did a lot of teaching this week. we started teaching a guy who came to church last week. he is awesome. this week we invited him to be baptized after a baptism that the other elders had on saturday. it was really nice. and the best thing is..... he speaks really good english because he is from kenya. so we can teach him powerfully. its really sweet. anyways, ya thats pretty much what we did haha. but this week the mission pres. is coming to arusha to interview some people so he will most likely be bringing me my christmas packages so if you see money being drawn out dont get worried haha. well i hope everything is going well. and i cant wait to hear from you next year.... haha. oh ya HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!! i hope you have a good one and i hope you make some good new year resolutions. i love you!!

love reese

all of the first ones were of the orphanage with the missionaries here in arusha. and the last one is what i call TZ donuts. i put nutella on these things called mandazi and it tastes exactly like a krispy kreme donut. i love it hah merry christmas

hey mom

today im doing good. yes im a zone leader again. yes we took the bus to dar and back this week. we watched battleship with no sound. on the way back we watched a movie called prey and the ghost and the darkness. well the elements in the movies here are hard to explain but i will buy some movies and bring them home hah. you will love them. ya i was able to see a lot of the people that were transferred to dar and the guys that stayed there like elder patten. the meeting was good. it was super long tho. it lasted four hours. but we talked about some good things. and yes president was there. the new couple missionaries are really nice. they are very spontaneous and they have a lot of energy. so it kinda kool. they are the gotchers from arizona. ya i miss sister n. she was awesome. 

anyways, this week we really didnt do very much. just went to dar es salaam. the bus ride there took like 13 hours because the bus broke down and we had to wait while they could fix it to start going again. in dar we stayed with elder patten and elder barney and had a good time. we stayed there from wednesday to saturday. we had the zlc or zone leader council. it was alright. they told us about the stuff that we will be doing for christmas and things that we need to help our zones with. pretty basic stuff like teaching father led families and curfew and obedience type of stuff. it was a good meeting. we had to stay in dar for an extra day because the bus that we bought tickets for broke down or wasnt available or something so we stayed an extra day. it was actually good that we did that because elder patten and i were sick. patten was a lot sicker than i was tho thats for sure. i just had a cold cause i wasnt used to the weather in arusha hah. but that night the aps came over and they slept there and we had a party hah. we called this guy who came and sold us ties. we bought each tie for 1500 so the guy made like 30000 in like less than an hour. then we came back to arusha. we had a really nice bus on the way back. i even had leg room which is a pretty impressive thing. but that was pretty much my week. 

well i hope you have a good week love ya a lot. excited for next week. ps i dont think i will email you next week i might just send you pics hah

love maurice

hey mom

arusha is beautiful! i love it. i was able to see mt kilimanjaro. it is huge and it looks like it comes outta no where. it is super nice almost all the time except in the middle of the day. thats when it starts getting hot. even in the morning i can wear a sweater because its so cool in the morning. i love not feeling sticky all the time, like in dar.

 

i havent gotten my package other yet but i will find out if it came this week. because i am going to dar again on wednesday because i have to go to a zone leader meeting. im hoping i get it soon but i wont hope too much because im really used to getting dissappointed now. anyways my new companion is elder diodati from canada. he is awesome. he was trained by elder patten and they had a good time. i will most likely go back to Kenya again in like 4 months maybe... but you never know.. well im sorry that your stitches were super painful. i know tho that they will get better. and omg a cavity. mother you are a dental hygienist!! have you not been flossing???? or brushing your teeth??? haha but i think i will have a ton of cavities when i get home. but im hoping that i will have been protected and will have zero cavities. that would be a miracle big time hah. 

 

well im glad that sami liked the cheerleading camp. all girls love that kinda stuff tho. i think it would be good for her to do gymnastics cause then it would help her in anything athletic that she would want to do. 

 

well this week was alright. before i left dar, i pretty much washed ALL of my clothes. it took forever. washing sucks. i really miss a washer and dryer. but on tuesday i said goodbye to all the guys in dar and on wednesday i got on the bus in the morning for 11 hours.  the ride was ok but i was super squished cause i was sitting next to a big dude. but it was alright, really boring but alright. i had the right amount of snacks for it haha. i didnt have anyone to talk to or do anything with so i was just quiet watching crappy tanzanian movies. they are all really bad by the way. they are made like home videos and they all have the same elements to them. anyways, so then i got to arusha and its awesome. oh ya and on the way i was able to take pictures of mt kilimanjaro. its super cool and nice here. but the branch is ok but its small. like pretty small and its pretty weak but hopefully we will be able to make it stronger. then on sunday i bore my testimony again in swahili. i also found out that we have a good swahili teacher so that is nice. he knows his stuff and he knows how to teach it which is nice. one thing that is weird that there is 8 missionaries here in this branch. 4 elders 2 sisters and one senior couple. and its a small branch so i have a bad feeling. and my bad feeling is that we are not going to get DAs ever....... it would be too hard for the people who are members here to feed all 6 of us so i will most likely not have a single DA in this area so that will suck a lot. oh and dio my comp knows less swahili than i do.... and i dont know very much hah. so by the time i come home i will know another language most likely hah. thats if i learn it nicely. well thats pretty much what happened this week.

and this next week we are going back to dar for a zone leader meeting so this week i will have been in a bus for 24 hours. more or less. and that means that i wont even spend a week in my area until week 3 of the 6 week transfer hah. anyways i hope you have a better week than you had this week. i hope you know that i love you so much and i miss you a lot. im really grateful that you have helped me while ive been on mission here with everything. i love you!!!

love reese

hey mom

well im thankful that i am here on a mission and am having great time. i am thankful for the scriptures and the understanding that i have of them now and i am thankful for the people that i have been able to meet and teach and also the people i will meet. 

 

anyways, im glad that you guys had a good thanksgiving. wow im proud that sammy was able to go into the the bowl with a scooter. i have never been down it ever with anything hah. i dont know about any package yet but it is most likely here but in nairobi. i dont get told until they bring it to me.

anyways this week was pretty nice. our investigators are doing alright. we didnt have any dinner appointments tho but this coming week we have been planning for like 3 so that will be nice. also on thanksgiving we had a zone party kinda. everyone came over to our place cause its the nicest and the biggest and we made tacos!!! probably the first and last time i will have tacos for thanksgiving but it was really nice. we ate and had a good time. we all shared what we were thankful for and then we played some cards. a game called idiot. it is awesome. i will teach it to you guys.

 

Also we had some good news on sunday.  we found out that one of our investigators can be baptized so we will be having a baptism some time soon. i probably wont be here for it though, unfortunately because i will most likely be leaving next week because this week is the last week of the transfer. his parents are ok with him being baptized so we are excited, but i guess i already told you that haha. well we have been doing bunch of stuff with the sisters because sister n is going home soon so we have been hanging out with them. but that is pretty much it for the week.

well i love ya guys have a good one

reese

hey mom

um thanks for the birthday present. it was awesome. the shoes are like the most comfortable things ever, i love them. tell grandma thank you! my dad got me this awesome football for my birthday too! well im excited for the halloween package, i hope its nice. well with the christmas package maybe some gatorade mix or something. im not really good at this kinda of stuff just be creative. hah. im excited for the brazilian package from Lucianne. i think i want to go to Brazil. that would be awesome. i mean the hottest girls on the planet live there i hear haha. and i want to try the food. ya i was able to find a good sd card and we found a pretty good place for that kinda stuff. so i will try to send some more pics hopefully soon. trust me you are not missing out on too much. i mean you are supposed to miss me right hahah. jk. anyways sami is getting huge. i dont remember her being taller than the table and chairs so that was kinda weird hah. well that ragnar race kurtis and tina did sounds pretty kool. im not a big running type to tell you the truth hah.

this week for me was really nice. we had a lot of good things happen. we went and did a lot of contacting this week so that we could help our area and it was really awesome. we found a bunch of people. we had a few lessons with some people that were really good. usually we teach people on the street. but this was nice. a guy even came to the church after just meeting him one day on the road. it was kool. one thing that was awesome was that we went to teach a recent convert that we knew and when we were walking back to the church we walked back and this random guy stopped us. his own words were,"hey do you guys have book of mormon? i used to have one when i was in zimbabwe (ps where my comp is from). i loved it soo much. and i need it." it was really kool. i havent had anything like that happen before so it was really nice. we also went to a DA and they fed us pork and stuff. it was so good. i havent had that much meat in forever. and then on sunday she brought us a bunch more so we went to the sisters flat to share it and had a feast. it was awesome. so that was pretty much my week. oh ya one more thing it was super hot too haha.

hey so i have a favor to ask on thursday. will you send a message to sister ndiwalana because that will be her birthday. her email address is rosillah.ndiwalana@myldsmail.net. and also i have been getting money out to get her a present. and if you look at the pic of our fridge you will know what i used it on haha! anyways it will be good i will send you a pic of it later. well i love ya and i hope you have a good week.

love reese

hey mom

 

so first off yes i got my packages! they are awesome! i got one from my dad and one from you and grandma for my birthday (almost 3 months ago!).  i had to get some money out for the packages for customs because some one was really honest and put how much things cost and left price tags on stuff...... haha. anyways, i have been buying some stuff to take home because there might be a chance that i leave tanzania next month.  thats awesome that allie is going to argentina. i have a friend named dan who is there right now. he is the one who who sent the email too with the email address. so do they leave the same time or what? that would be really weird to go to the same mission as your sister for sure haah.

 

 our investigators are doing ok. with transfers ya i was ok with it because i knew i was going to stay anyways. ya with the status of how many people are members, its true, less than 1000 members are here but like less than half are active or maybe like 60%, which really sucks. if more people were active and were being good members the work would progress a ton faster. ya ive kinda seen how the hurricane has been effecting the east coast. im glad that dixie is doing better hopefully when i get there we will be awesome. thanks for send that stuff to dan and kellie. i hope she gets it soon... anyways i will remember those dates and make sure you tell Macy and Laytin happy birthday for me. well im excited to hear about the election.  

well this week was nice for me. we had zone conference this week and it was pretty awesome. we had elder hartman come again and teach us about the colors again. it was nice and i really know that i am a Red Yellow. but he says that it should be when you were younger. so i think you should do the test for me and figure out what i was like then. because he says after time you can change your color because of growing up and stuff. anyways it was nice too see all the people from tanzania. my old companion elder madubanya is the new ap with elder pocock so it was nice to see them also. it feels like a long time since i have seen president broadbent. it has been like 4 months almost and when i started i used to see him like once a week so it definitely feels like a different mission here. i wasnt able to meet with elder hartman which kinda sucked but i guess at the same time was a good thing. on friday i opened my packages and they were awesome!! my dad sent me a football (nike one by the way) and some olympus shirts and candy which was pretty awesome.  by the way the new memory foam flip flops are FREAKIN awesome!! i love them so much. thank you. its nice to have some thing new on my feet instead of the ones that are four years old haha. but on saturday we cleaned the church because no one came to do it so that was kinda fun. also zone conference was nice because president broadbent did some blasting. it was nice because a few people in this zone are being super bogus.

anyways that was pretty much my week. we will be doing a lot of finding this coming week because we only have kidogo a small amount of investigators. well i love ya and i hope you have a good week

love reese