6/17
We got up super early this morning and finished packing. Headed over to the Airport, and caught a (delayed) flight to Nairobi. It was an hour long, then we passed through immigration. From there, we loaded up in a van and were dropped off at our various areas. I was the last one to be dropped off, and got to meet my companion: Elder Kanda. He's from DRC, and he turned 26 in February.
We then emailed home, and I spent the rest of my little remaining time unpacking.
6/18
Today was busy. From the second we woke up it was go-go-go. Being used to my old area, I'm not used to actually doing work. We got to teach a few lessons, meet some members, did some impromptu contacting, and spent the entire day wearing me out. I'm mostly recovered from being sick, but I still have low energy, low appatite, and a low desire to move. Still pushing through it without complaining, I have no other choice. I will say that it was nice to have a full day of work, but I can't keep all the names strait.
6/19
Today was service. It's a little different from my old area. In Chang'ombe, service was held in the form of English Class. Here, we do volunteer work at an orphanage once a week.
It was a pretty far walk over there, but I had fun chatting with two other Elders on the way there. My two new buddies names are: E. Saunders, and E. Cole. The interesting thing about E. Saunders is that he was with E. Phokane in Chang'ombe 2 before I replaced him, E. Cole came in with E.Bailey's group.
Speaking about E.Phokane, I got news about him today: he's been moved to Mombasa to be a Zone Leader. I don't know anything beyond that, but I hope he has fun.
We had two lessons today, one was with a teacher who was a bit hard to understand. Level of difficulty: combine Donald Duck and Sid the Sloth, and that gives you an idea. Nice enough guy.
The second lesson was the more interesting one, the woman was named: S.Lynette, and she's the sister of a member. We taught her with help from her sister in law, the wife of her brother. It was a good lesson, but I had a hard time focusing. We'll teach her again later.
We had a bit of time after that, so we went contacting, and somehow ended up running into an Orphanage, who sorta invited us back again later. It was a unique experince having a crowd of children respond to stuff we were saying like we were a Baptist Preacher.
6/20
We started today off with DDM. It was interesting to see how differently it was run from how I was used to.
S.Nyembe is in my new district, and she's training now too. It'll probably take a bit for me to remember her daughter's (trainee's) name, but she's from Zimbabwe like my last companion.
After DDM we went with most of the District to get lunch, then E.Kanda and I went to teach some lessons.
The first one we met with was a Recent Convert named Docine, we had to dispel some beliefs she had about reincarnation, but aside from that it was a good visit.
After her, we went and visited another Sister named Lydia, and we read a chapter of the BoM with her: Alma 12. We also kinda gave her a bit of fire for not doing her her reading. Pretty much: are you still interested? Hopfully we'll see some improvement with her.
Aside from that, we did contacting wherever we could.
6/21
Either my companion realizes the importance of contacting, or he likes it, because we spend a lot of time contacting. E.Kanda firmly plans for every spare second to be used for contacting.
Anyway, we had a few appointments today, and then we ate dinner at a members. We were at their house for a while, but it was worth it because of the free chapate, oh and the rest of the food. In all seriousness, it was excellent, I'm just sad I was too slow getting to the chapate. I only got three.
We did some contacting after that, and I told off a kid as we were entering a house because he suddenly reached up to touch my hair. The kids here are a much bigger pain than the Tanzanian ones, the ones in Tanzania were all shy, not so here. I spend most of my day ignoring children because I don't want to deal with them. Sometimes I play nice and wave, but there's too many for me to greet them all.
6/22
I stand more firmly by what I said yesterday, but with a bit more indifference. I feel absolutely no motivation in responding to the children when none of them are greeting me for any other reason than to say hi to a mzungu. They're happy enough when I don't respond, it doesn't make them anyless annoying, but it saves me effort.
Today, we tried to teach a lesson at the rented chapel, but got bounced. This is after we'd spent a good chunk of the morning doing weekly planning. The person in question showed up three hours later, long after we were gone. Fun.
We were able to get a few nice lessons taught today, but they took us back and forth across the area, like someone with poor planning skills getting the ice cream first when shopping. While we didn't have the little white drips, we were fairly easy to track by the chorus of "mzungu" coming from the little heath- *ahem* I mean children.
We also had a correlation meeting today, which was a fast enough thing, quite unlike the several hour affair of chang'ombe, and nobody wasted any time. It was nice. That's pretty much it for what we did today, but I did get a bit of fire for not wearing a jacket or a coat.
It isn't cold here, not at all. It's colder in early fall back home. Heck, some days in the summer might be worse, but I see people in coats all over the place. You'd think they were all doing a shooting of some kind of Christmas special, and someone just hasn't edited in the snow yet. I dunno. It's kinda funny, but it isn't cold here. I hope I don't adjust to the weather enough that it does become cold. That'll be a sad day indeed.
6/23
3 for 3 (+1). That is how many of my companions have bashed Alex Boyee for one reason or another. It's really funny how unanimous they are. The "+1" is just E.Bailey. He doesn't even need a reason to bash Alex. It's funny how they are.
Anyway, we had to drop an investigator today. We went by his place said hello, asked how his Book of Mormon reading was going, and he plunked it down on the table and told us that it was a false book. We ended up walking away with the Book of Mormon, and one less investigator. He was very stubborn.
We visited a few other people today. The other visits were actually nice. We met with an investigator named Lynette. Her brother is a member, has referred her to us, and he helped us teach her today. It was really nice to see the care and concern he had for her, and I felt pretty touched.
We also gave some low-key fire to some RCs for not coming to church today, and I taught some children about the Priesthood. Overall, a pretty good Sunday.
"Adieu"
E. Kanda is from DRC, and he speaks french. That pretty much makes me his de facto English teacher.
Anyway, he was reading in the BoM this evening (book of Jacob), and sudden asks me what the word "Adieu" means in English. I responded that the word was actually French, and verified that it meant "good-bye." I told him I wasn't sure why adieu was used, but that I assumed that it was the best word for the translation. My companion then taught me something interesting about the word adieu: it doesn't just mean good-bye, but it's more like a deathbed farewell. He said: "someone who is tired and ready to die will use it." So there's my interesting fun fact for the day.
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