After the first year on a mission letters, packages, emails really taper off so I know Maurice would LOVE to hear from you directly on occasion!

EMAILS ARE HIS FAVORITE! Maurice can be emailed at: mailto:maurice.maxwell@myldsmail.net.

 

Of course every missionary loves packages and letters from home but those get expensive and take a long time to receive, especially now that he is in Tanzania! But if you decide to, Letters are approx .98 cents to mail, flat rate small envelope $14, medium and large flat rate boxes $40-60 at the post office.

 

His address is: Elder Maurice Maxwell

Kenya Nairobi Mission

Upper Hill Road Next to CitiGroup

PO Box 46162-00100

Nairobi, Kenya

 

hey mom

im glad that morgan curriden is going on a mish now. thats really kool. and equador! the curridens are awesome. i really loved it when claire sang at my farewell. that girl has some pipes!! thats just an awesome family even tho they have no athletic ablility as sister curriden would say haha. make sure that you tell them i said hello back or habari ha.

so im glad that kurt gave you guys blessings. i cant believe that sami is going to school now. she is getting so big. and im glad that youre planning on going to 6 flags for the family reunion when i get home cause i would love to go too. tell grandpa thanks for looking to see if we are related to orson hyde. also the guy that was going to get baptized hasnt been baptized yet but he will soon.

well to tell you the story about why we were late for mormon helping hands, the person who was supposed to pick us up, well his wife got sick and he took her to the hospital so we had to take public transport. so it took forever after we waited for like 3 hours to get picked up. oh and i will most likely be getting a new comp when transfers come but i dont know when exactly.

anyways this week was a lot better than last week. on monday we went to the worthens and had a nice fhe. we watched a movie called legacy and we had popcorn during it and cake and ice cream after. we have been teaching a few people but most of them are not coming to church. one of the guys that has a baptism date left for a week so we dont know when his baptism will be ha. on thursday we had a really nice dinner appointment with a member. we did some service at their home and then we had a bomb dinner. with pork and chicken and fish. it was nice. we have been having swahili class twice a week but the normal teacher who is really kool named okanda went to nairobi. so we have had some guy come but all he does is give us words in swahili not teach us how to use it, so i havent really progressed.... but i have been starting to understand what people are saying now. i am good at ordering food in swahili though! haha i think that after i have been here for awhile i will be able to speak a lot more. we had a service project this week with the YSAs or young single adults. we went the the beach in mbezi and picked up trash. it was good and i think that it looks a little better even tho we didnt pick up very much. but that was pretty much my week. we have been doing some good work but things are kinda complicated here especially with those i work with so hopefully soon i will be having happier emails.

well i hope that everything is going well and that you are happy and stuff haha. well i love you lots

love elder maxwell

hey mom

i hope some one comes soon to give me my packages too cause i dont even know if they are here yet. so im still waiting for them. there should be a leadership meeting coming soon so maybe they will be sent here to Tanzania.  im glad that sammy is going to be starting school soon i think that she will like it a lot. i think that she will make a lot of new friends now. and you might make some more friends that are sammy's friends mothers haha. and i love my mission pres he is a kool guy.

well this week wasnt very fun. a bunch of things happened. my comp and i had a big argument but we got that dealt with. but the thing that was really bad was on saturday. on saturday we had the mormon helping hands big service project. so we were really late to this thing because of something that was out of our control so we had to take public transport to get there. so everyone pretty much insulted us about being late. people were even saying things like "arent these people missionaries? why are they so late?" that and some people insulted us about it. and the whole time i was trying to be calm and not get angry because im supposed to be a missionary. but i was super mad. you could have seen steam coming off of my head. but once we left i was a lot better. anyways we have a guy who should be baptized at the start of next month so it should be nice. but for the good news, we have been teaching english classes for free here and people have been coming. the guy who has a baptismal date was found through english class. so i think this should help us a lot with things. so other than that not much happened this week. 

so were you able to do check if we are related to orson hyde from the pioneer days? and what about sending a message to my coach?

well i hope everything is going well. and have fun this week. go get some chinese/mexican/italian food for me haha. love you.

love reese

hey mom

sorry for not emailing last week. we were really busy. i will do my best to get you some pics soon but this cyber is not very good and the computers are very slow so i dont think that it will be able to get all the pics on the computer. well theres not really anyone to play sports with and here i dont really want to play because it is just too hot and it doesnt get cool until night and to get around here sucks too. we tract a little but i really dont like it much cause i cant talk to people and when my comp does he.... he just bugs me when he does it because he talks down to people. dinner appts are starting to come along now but my comp isnt very nice to people cause all he wants to do is eat and leave not talk to people and get to know them and stuff and thats the thing i like the most. but i have to admit the food is a lot better here than in kenya for sure. they have this stuff called fanta passion. its so dang good i love it. i have like two everyday haha. i have flossed this week a couple times..... i think haha. but tell sami that i am glad that she is starting to swim and is not so scared of the water now and when i get back we can go swimming hah. tell jay i love him and hope he does well on his own at college.

so this week was nice. we went to the beach in our area and it was pretty good. we kind of went exploring. here the beaches dont angle down they drop and are flat, its really weird. so we found this corral reef and some sea life. it was pretty nice. this week we have had english classes. we teach people english here and they love it. a guy came to church from class and i think that he will be very good. we had a dinner appointment at a members house who has lived in the states for a few years so she made us really nice food. her friend who lives in england was there and her accent was really kool. not gonna lie, i wish i had it! hah. so one kool thing about being here is that every wednesday when we have meetings the couples come and they make desserts and stuff. so the worthens made us chocolate cake and it was so dang good i loved it. i miss cake a lot. on saturday which is my real hump day because that is when mission started cause thats when i came to the mtc. we went to this place that i love a lot called...... SUBWAY!!!!! theres one here it was really good but they were a little stingy with the meat but i still loved it. ill send the pic soon. and i bought me a chocolate bar and that was pretty much all i did but it was nice. well thats pretty much what i did this week.

so i have a few requests. 1 will you find out if we are related to orson hyde from the doctrine and covenants. 2 will you tell my coach who is coaching at hawaii (coach roucher) that he should email me.  

 

well i love you guys so much and i hope you have a good week.

love reese

hey sammie

sammie you are my favoritist little sister! i miss you a ton!! today i went to the beach and walked in the water. its was really warm too. we made a big pyramid with all the people there. it was kool. well sammie i love you sooo much!! i cant wait until i get to see you again!! i love you a lot! have a good day
love reese

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