hey mom,

im glad that sami was the student of the week. i remember when i was student of the week in first grade. but one question.... why is it that im in like one of her pictures and jay is in like all of them??? its like people are forgetting about me haah jk......well thats too bad about milee's son but hopefully everything will be alright. also im glad that helen cruz got married and came back to vegas. maybe you can get some tips from her haha. well i will pray and stuff so that you can find a different job. its really too bad that people really suck.

anyways, for me this week was just there but we had some pretty kool things happen. so we sent my companion and elder sarlo's companion to nairobi and to dar. so we had a sweet day just the two of us. we went to get some things done for our house and to get ready for our next comps. then we picked up my new companion elder chimkuzi from zimbabwe. he is a good guy but i kinda wish i would have gotten someone who knows less swahili. but i guess its all God's plan right, hopefully. wellon thursday elder sarlo's companion, elder jimu from zimbabwe came and we picked him up. but then the sisters who are here in arusha with us told us that some one who was from mbezi beach in my last branch was here in arusha and wanted us to come and meet her. so all six of us went to her hotel and met with her. she bought us drinks and dinner at an expensive restaurant (well expensive for us missionaries). it was nice. i had chinese food. it was awesome. i got sizzling beef. and it came on a plate that was sizzling. it was sweet. then she bought us all dessert. she like no joke spent like 200000 shillings on us for this meal. which is like $60 for all of us. it was great. we had a few people show up to church which was really nice. we had 2 investigators there. it was pretty sweet. one was james and the other was a new guy. we might be teaching him with the couples in like two weeks. but other than that, thats what i did this week. next week will be nice we are going to dar for zone conference on wednesday.

well i love you and i hope you have a great week.

 

love reese

hey mom

well this week has been pretty good. im really sad that i didnt get to do anything with the halls before they left the mission. i really loved them. and she made banana cake which is freakin genius! man..... 9 am church! that sucks. thats like the worst time. i like going at 11. but i think that it will be easy for me to adjust to. well im glad that people said that they were going to write me. that will be nice i guess. i mean i havent had a letter for like 2 months. so it would be pretty kool. ((maurice.maxwell@myldsmail.net ))

anyways, this week was pretty good. on wednesday we had this new thing called ZTM or zone training meeting. so my comp and i trained and stuff. we went to teach one of our investigators but he wasnt there so we met with his wife. so we talked to her and we found out that they arent married but have kids and live together but she really wants to get married like right now but he doesnt really want to. so i think we might be having a wedding. haha. anyways that night my comp made chili because the couple here gave us like a kg or like 1.5 lbs of minced meat or ground beef. it was sooooooo good but it gave me diarrhea or runny stomach as they call it here. then on thursday we went to a Masai wedding. it was pretty kool but we had to wait for forever because the couples wanted to be there early but they are new and dont really know about african time yet. haha it was pretty kool. we had to get up an introduce ourselves in front of a crowd of like 200 people. so i have pretty much gotten over my stage fright, but its a totally different thing when its in a different language. so i pretty much said who i was and where i come from hah. then on friday my comp and i went to this pizza place that was freakin awesome. it was so GOOD! it looked small but it was dang good. i got chicken, beef, ham, cheese and olives ya thats right i said olives for only like 10500 which is like $6.50 i was so happy and after that for dinner we went to the couples and they made cheese burgers so its pretty much been an awesome eating week. then saturday we got transfer news.... pretty much the worst part of the week. im getting a new comp another zimbabwean but he has been in tanzania longer than me and knows more swahili. so i was super mad about it. its just maddening because when you have to struggle with swahili then thats how you learn but if someone is next to you who knows what the people are saying then you dont struggle. so im not happy. but one things that was nice as on sunday. we had 3 people show up at church and the couples washed our clothes with there washing machine so that was kool. first time we've ever had use of a washing machine!

anyways i hope you have a great week love ya. 

love reese

hey mom

well here on p days we havent done much besides service and going to the orphanage to paint. we also had to buy all the food storage for all the missionaries here in arusha. so that pretty much took our whole day. but also i found some thing amazing................ RANCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i know that might seem really weird for me to be so excited about but i miss ranch kabisa. its good too!

 

we really didnt do very much for new years. my comp elder diodati made us shepherds pie. it was aw3esome. so we had a nice meal and ate it and then stayed up until 12. we banged pots and pans together and made a lot of noise, as much as possible! the koolest thing was that we were able to see some fire works. its was sweet. i miss them for sure. last year in kenya no one could do fireworks because of the war and stuff. it was kinda funny. we have a bar right next to our house and all the people were drunk and being pretty funny. anyways some random places also had fire works going so that was kool to see. 

 

i think i love your new years resolution. that would definitely be weird to see when i get home.... no diet coke.... weird hah. i cant believe that kurt went without chocolate and the kids without soda. i dont think that i could do either one of those especially when i get back cause i want to remember what they all taste like.

 

anyways we had a good lesson with our only progressing investigator. he is a really good guy. we gave him a baptismal invitation so hopefully some time next month we will be having a good baptism.  we have been doing a lot of reactivating, but it sucks because when people get baptized they pretty much know what they are getting into. so its kinda annoying but i guess its good.

 

this week the mission president came with some of his family to church. it was nice. he did some interviews for some people in the branch to get the mel. priesthood. so we had a ton of people come to church. it was pretty sweet and we had 3 investigators at church which was very unexpected. the mission president leaves in july and we will be getting a new one but soon after i will go home. 

 

well i still havent gotten your package yet but hopefully i will get it here in two weeks. anyways i love you guys and i hope that you have a good week.

 

love reese

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