6/24
Today marks my first five months in the mission field. I'm celebrating with the retrieval of my other suitcase, with the several kilos of candy that I left in it to be under weight when I flew to Tanzania. I also celebrated by ordering a full, 3-piece, suit. It was $52. I'm rather happy about it, and I'll be picking it up in two weeks.
That's really all that happened today. Aside from that, it was just emailing home. Oh, by the by: 100KSh is $1. There's the handy little conversion that I know. I try not to convert too often because I'll become wasteful. I think in terms of my allotment, and I think in terms of the value of money here. $0.50 is a lot of money here. I can buy a loaf of bread, 1/2 kilo of sugar, a bottle of 300ml Soda, or two avocados. The value of money is kinda weird, just know that I consider 50 bob (what they call the money under 100 Shillings) a lot of money. My companion told me that between the two of us we'd spend about 1000 on credit for the phone in a fortnight. My jaw hit the floor at how expensive it was. In Tanzania, we spent 10,000 TSh per month on our phone, that's 500KSh. We spend more in a week here, than I did in a month there. Something else to miss I suppose.
6/26
Ahhh...mmmmm...well...this is kinda awkward. I kinda went to bed early last night, and forgot to update. It was worth it because I got 10 hours of sleep, but it wasn't worth it, because I got 10 hours of sleep. I'm way too used to functioning on too little sleep, so getting that much was actually a big detriment.
Anyway, yesterday was actually pretty interesting. We spent all day yesterday working with a member named Alan. He's preparing for a mission, and says that he'll be going on it in a year. I'm kinda: "you haven't set a date." By that, I mean that I have learned (through long hours of experience) that people don't keep commitments unless they're properly time bound, so my instinct is to set a date for him to go, but whatever.
B. Alan was powerful, and a huge help. He actually has a pretty good idea already about how to teach. I'm firmly of the opinion that he just needs to put in his papers, but we'll be making use of him every week until he leaves, or we leave, or the area is white-washed and he's forgotten. He'll probably be hunted down to help again anyway, this guy is good.
Anyway, we got to teach a few lessons, and we did A LOT of contacting. Because we had B.Alan with us, we were able to contact at the Govt. Housing. There were some (see many) there who didn't really speak English, so we had Alan do all the contacting in Swahili, and we took care of the rest. I happily threw him to the dogs several times in English as well: "This pamphlet will help you understand more about our church, and my companion Brother Alan will explain a little of what's in it." I'm very used to E.Kanda doing this to me, so I happily did it to B.Alan.
We ended the day, and I tried Avocado for the very first time. I figured that starting with one so big that it was 3x bigger than my palm was a good place to start. I also had my companion help me pick out a good one. Conclusion? Meh. I wasn't missing out on anything. It was pretty much just salty mush. I didn't find anything in it to like, and I didn't find anything in it to hate.
I'm also very certain that it was a good avocado because of how happy my companion was when I gave him the half of it that I didn't eat. Also, I gave avocado a PROPER chance. I ate half of one, and my conclusion was unchanged from the first bite to the last.
Today was rather boring. We had DDM, had lunch, got bounced 3 times, I gave fire to an investigator that may or may not have involved the spirit (I really haven't figured out if it was with the spirit or not), and we had a new investigator. All that, plus A LOT of contacting after we got bounced for the third time. We got quite a few numbers, so hopefully we'll have some good (serious) investigators from the pile we met today.
There was one funny guy who refused to give us his name so that we "didn't do anything with it," but that was the most interesting thing.
"A new Enemy"
Well, I think some of you might be familiar with the few different types of mosquitoes that I listed out in a previous update. Unfortunately, there's a new type.
I have yet to come up with a good name for the new type, but I'm playing around with "Immortal."
There's no other way to explain what I've seen with this new type. I have literally smacked them, there was no doubt in my accuracy or the lethality of my blow, but they still get up and fly away like I'd done nothing. This has happened a few times, so either there's one Immortal one, or a new type that I should fear beyond all logic. Fuuuuuuuunnnnnn.
6/27
"Pride, in a bad thing."
Elder Benson: "...you sure? Yours would be easier because I could actually see it."
Elder Kanda: *nervous chuckle* "No, I'm good."
Well, I gave myself my first bad hair cut of my mission, the first of many. How bad is it? Bad enough to get my companion laughing. The top is fine, I can see that part in the mirror, and the sides are mostly fine, just a little uneven, but it's the back that's bad. My companion's ministrations couldn't save the back. Am I gonna get it fixed?
HECK NO!!! I'm super proud of my bad hair cut. I'll let it grow out, and give it another bad hair cut later. I knew going into the process that it would be a bad hair cut, but that was something I accepted for the price point: free.
The saddest part of it all: I probably gave myself a better hair cut than I'd get at a Kenyan barber. I've heard some rather...nasty...stories of Kenyan barbers. So I'll stick to my own atrocious skill. FUN!!!
Still proud of it.
Anyway, today was interesting. We started the day doing service at an Orphanage, I loved up the cat there since I need my fluffy. It is the only cat I've been willing to touch since I came out on mission, and considering the dogs here, I won't be touching a dog - ever. Anyway, it felt nice, I needed some fluffy in my life. The fact that it was a friendly cat helped everything.
After service we returned to the flat, after being lied to of course. We tried to get on a Matatu (what they call Daladala here) to a place near the flat, but the conductor lied to us. The bus we got on was going to inner city Nairobi, not near the flat. Fortunately, we caught it pretty early, so we only had to walk a hundred or so extra meters instead of kilometers if we hadn't caught it early.
My companion and I went out to a few different appointments after that: a Less Active whose child is getting Baptized on Sunday, and a Woman whose husband is a member.
With the first one, I could see the influence false Doctrine had on her, they watch a lot of preachers here in Kenya, and they don't always differentiate between the teachings of the Church, and the assumptions and mistakes of man, so we occasionally have to perform clean-up. The lesson did go well though.
With the Part-Member family, I'm rather proud of this woman. I gave her what pretty much amounted to a pop quiz to see what she'd remembered, and she was able to answer every question except the trick question I threw at her Q: Who is the greatest prophet who ever live? A: Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It's a trick question because we all have a tendency to rank him above a "mere" prophet, so a lot of people don't consider him one. We taught some of the Plan of Salvation after that, and she accepted Baptism. I'm very happy with her so far, and I see great hope in an Eternal Family coming out of this in the end.
"Elder Kanda vs the Supermarket"
There is a "Supermarket" near the flat that we frequent enough to know the clerk there extremely well. E. Kanda likes to tease and mess with her, and she likes to tease and mess with him. I just watch on in amusement, and for some reason she considers me an ally. It's funny, and weird, but that's how it goes.
They often end up arguing about "chupa," "bottles," since the Supermarket has a Milk ATM, and E. Kanda likes the Milk. I honestly don't get why they argue at this point, it's almost like an old married couple fighting just to fight, but with no actual hard feelings coming into play. Funny, weird, and of course, I'm always amused. Every. Single. Day.
6/28
Welp, we started out day right: Comp Study, then two new investigators. We met with a B.Joseph at the church, and he brought his friend: Peter. I was rather amused and excited to have these two new investigators, especially since 4 of the 5 we planned on having bounced us for one reason or another. One of them told us a different time when we called from the meeting point, so we bounced her, and went to another appointment.
I did have an interesting experience with Kenyan hospitality today though. We finished a lesson with S.Lynette (who accepted Baptism, only to tell us that she'd be traveling right afterwards), got up to leave, and the head of the household grabbed my arm and sat me back down. They refused to let us leave until they'd fed us. Fortunately, we were bounced for an appointment that we had tried to leave for, so we could stick around without issue, but it was still interesting.
Later today, we taught an 8 year old who will be Baptized later this week. We taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ (see Preach my Gospel Ch.3), and then we read 2 Nephi 31:5-12 with him. His mother was very supportive during the whole lesson, and we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon for his very own. I went through and highlighted a few verses, and so did my companion, then I cheerfully handed him a pen, with a big grin on my face, and told him to write his name in it. It was a good lesson, but it took a very long time.
Because of how long the previous lesson was, we were staring at the clock as we rushed to our last appointment with an RC named Tracy. Because of how short the time was, we read a few verses with her, and assigned her to read Mosiah 5, her older brother may have commented on my hair cut, then we ran out, and sped walked back to the flat to make it before Home Safe. We made it, barely. By ten minutes, which is cutting it way too close.
6/29
"How was your day?"
"..."
"???"
"It's a mixed bag."
"Whai?"
"Well, we started this morning with Weekly Planning, then we got bounced by our first appointment of the day, then the second. I also blew up at a shop owner. So we didn't start out too well."
"Well, if the beginning was pretty bad, then was the rest of the day good? Also, what was that about blowing up at a shop keeper?"
"Well, things actually got nice toward the end of the day, we have two new investigators, and one of them may be serious. As far as the shop keeper...I blew up on behalf of my companion. He tried to check the price of a jacket, and they quoted a mzungu price to him. This is the third time this has happened this week, so I kinda lost it and cut into their conversation to call the guy out on it: "You mean a mzungu price! Well, I'm not buying it, he is!" I then stood outside the shop and grumpily stared at the ground."
"Mzungu?"
"White guy."
"Ahh. So, what's a mzungu price."
"Well, when people here see someone white, they think that they are/I am rich, so some of them will jack the prices up super high, regardless of who's actually doing the buying, if they see me. It's completely deplorable, and I hate to see them do it to my companion. He tried to check the price of some shoes later, and I hid around the corner for his sake. Oh yeah, I also did laundry today, and I hate doing laundry."
"Well, so far this day doesn't seem really good."
"No, no! It ended well. That pretty much improves the quality of the rest of the day. We had a really good lesson with Mama and Baba Blessings. We went over the Restoration, and started re-teaching the Plan of Salvation. We did get stuck early on because they were both kinda confused by false doctrine. That blasted Trinity again. I mean no disrespect to God, but I really hate how a simple and plain truth has been so warped, and confuses people so much - to the point that it even makes more sense to some of the people here. After about 10 minutes of explaining doctrine, my companion whipped out Hebrews 1:1-4, and they got it."
"Anything else good happen?"
"Yes, during the same lesson, I got to wear my pride, and the experiences of my Mother, on my sleeve. Mama and Baba Blessings are having a hard time with church attendance because of their two children. They don't like coming to church (the children). I used some of what I've heard my Mother share of her experiences in Nursery to teach them. I explained that yes, the children would have a hard time at first since it would be a change, but it was important that the parents bring them so that they could learn to love the Lord, and to make friends. I used a few different examples of my Mother's experiences to talk them through it, and they eventually agreed to come tomorrow.
I had a lot of support this lesson from the Lord, my Companion, and my Mother. So it was a very nice lesson."
"That's cool! Have you ever used your Father as an example before?"
"Yeah."
"When?"
"Tithing."
"..."
"It always works."
"*ahem* Why do you call your investigators: Mama and Baba Blessings?"
"Ahh, that's just something about the culture here. Mama means mother, and Baba means Father. So when you're talking to parents, you sometimes call them after the names of their children. In the case of these investigators, their eldest child's name is Blessings, so we call them Mama and Baba Blessings. It works for some reason here."
"Cool, my interview is done. Go to bed you idiot. It's past 10:30."
"Yup, on it. Night. Tutuou nana kesho - Oyasumi'nasai."
6/30
Well, today was nice enough. We started the day off (after church) with 6 baptisms - primary children. There were supposed to be 4 more, of 11 year old children, but they hadn't finished the lessons yet, so they'll have to wait till next week.
Anyway, it was a nice service, and it was weird having baptismal services in English, instead of Swahili. It was almost confusing to me after having spent almost 5 months in Tanzania. "Where's the Swahili?" I will say that it was REALLY nice to understand, just felt weird.
After the services, E.Saunders came by to interview the other 4 kids for their baptism NEXT week, instead of this week. They had me keep the kids company before they went into the interview, so I taught them how to play "Rock, Paper, Scissors" in Japanese. I don't want to know how many rounds we played. I really don't know. We had a few children who were just passing by join in at one point, so I was watching a very large group of smiling children. Well, large for Kenya - about 6 or 7.
They thought it was funny when I said "Aikoudesho" (Let's do it again), so it probably means something in Swahili, or their Mother Tongues. Fun.
Anyway, after that we got bounced, visited a Recent Convert and his Wife (not a member) and had a nice discussion about Families. We left them with a My Family: A Proclamation to the World pamphlet.
After that, we headed over to S.Linda and her husband B.Michael's home. We're teaching S.Linda right now, and she accepted baptism during our last visit to her, so we gave her her date today: July 28. She's very excited for it, so I'm betting that she'll meet it. That was it for the day. The few visits we had were very long, and the baptism took a while.
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