May 19, 2014 Some weeks are busy...

Subject: Some weeks are busy but then you don't feel you did much...

Well hello there everyone, so this week has gone by quickly, it’s had some interesting twists and turns so that has been cool. This week has been kinda just focused on preparing our baptismal candidates for baptism, so that has been fun and exciting to see them advance to that last step where they are ready to enter into a covenant with God.

This is a picture of the slums/ghetto.  Homes are made of mud and sticks.

The toxic river we must cross to get to the slums.

Tuesday morning and afternoon we just went and taught Lucy and her sister Paris preparing them for their baptism. They understand well; however, Paris only knows Kiswahili, so we had to do our best to teach that way. Afterwards, we went for a farewell party/meeting at the church for two missionaries leaving from the branch, their names are Vicky and Steven.  They were assigned to the Cape Town South Africa mission, but no Kenyans are able to get their visas to SA, so later that night we were informed that they have been reassigned to serve their missions in the one and only Kenya Nairobi Mission. We are getting filled with Kenyans (because missionaries from outside the country are still unable to get visas to Kenya), but it’s nice because we are able to progress the work because they are fluent with the cultures and the language so that really helps. That would be hard though thinking your getting sent to a far away land only to know that you got reassigned to Kenya. They are currently in the Ghana MTC and don’t know yet that they have been reassigned. At the Farewell, they had a bunch of food. The Sosiani Elders came hoping it would be a great opportunity to get referrals.  When it was time for the food, after all the goodbyes and such over the pulpit by family and friends, we all had a first plate then went back for seconds. Elder Harding came back with his plate full of rice and beans... President Jeremiah did it on purpose cause there was tons of it. Elder Harding was struggling to even make a dent in it when I said Elder Harding you can’t finish that... Well just so that you know Elder Harding, when you say he can’t do something, he will almost always prove you wrong and totally show you up. So this was the case for this monster plate of food. It took him a long long time to finish and he was walking around trying to let the food settle and really you could just see he was having a hard time, but his stubborn determination kept him going and he ended up finishing the whole entire plate. He could hardly walk afterwards, so that wasn’t good, but that’s how we learn not to challenge Elder Harding to do anything. They had to stay at our flat because his stomach was giving him problems after and he was having to hit the toilet alot so yeah, we won’t do that again. But I totally give him props for his determination.

Rushton and Elder Nyirenda with girls to be baptized.

So Wednesday we had our DDM on the topic of “Lock your heart”.  It was led by our District leader, Elder Harding and he did a nice job. It was a really good meeting and everyone learned a lot. The talk Lock your Heart is by Spencer W. Kimball from the 60s so it’s old but still very applicable to our day now. It was assigned for preparation for Mission tour that we were supposed to have today. After DDM, we went to lunch as there was a wedding being prepared for. We all got stuffed at lunch just to come back to the church and find there was tons of food from the wedding. We had thought that it was being cooked for the farewell to be held later that night, but nope. We then had to eat food because that’s pretty much the culture here, when there is food, you must eat so we eat. Then there was the Farewell for Rueben from the Sosiani branch. He was assigned to the Johannesburg mission, but I would make the presumption that he is re-assigned to the Kenya Nairobi Mission as well. The farewell was good but mainly in super fast kiswahili so it was pretty tough to understand. Just to think that when I first got here my trainer told me that those who speak kiswahili speak very slow...false. They speak fast and everything blurs together, just like we speak our english super quickly. Another funny thing about Wednesday is that I wore my gumboots. The previous day it had rained a ton, so it was kinda muddy in Langas, and I like the boots haha. So everyone in Sosiani is like "your the one chasing away the rain..." woops.. haters gonna hate I guess.

Thursday was moving day. We were moving from our flat to a new flat one floor down in the same complex. The new flat is nice and in some ways feels slightly bigger, so that’s good.  Plus it is much safer because we are on the very end so no one should be walking by our flat. (The other flat had people walking by all the time to do their laundry or to get to the roof .)  So moving took most of the day. That was what we did for zone service this week. The Senior couple came at 10 to help us replaster all the holes in our walls, so that was a huge help. Then the other missionaries arrived at 11:20 to assist with moving all the stuff. The Sisters did lots of cleaning of the kitchen and stuff as we moved the larger stuff down the stairs to the new flat. Let’s just say geometry sure came in handy as we moved our bed frames down without taking them apart. We took like 20 minutes to do so, but hey that’s what we get for unwavering determination!. At 2:30 we all stopped and had a lunch of PB&J sandwiches, my comp wanted to do chicken and rice, but the day before I explained that would take time and lots of money, so we made it quick and easy for everyone. After the other missionaries left, we went and had a lesson with a new investigator named Alfred, he is a piki piki driver and is a really cool guy. After the lesson, we went back to the flat and continued to get things situated for the night. We found out that the main living room light doesn’t work, so my companion being a electrician totally went to work on it and tried to figure out the problem. He redid everything and made sure all things  were working, but then for whatever reason it still didn’t work.

Friday morning we were waiting for the electrician.  The land agent came to have us sign the contracts and stuff but then the office elders in Nairobi said the church has a specific contract that the housing complex must sign to meet the needed standards for missionaries, so that made things easy. Then we waited and talked about the changing world around us as  we waited for the electrician. When the electrician arrived he walks in the door and the first thing he does is turn on the switch next to the door (we didn’t try this switch, we didn’t even know it existed..) Boom the light turns on... so that was funny and a bit embarrassing, but we are just glad we have working light in that room.  We then went around and prepared our baptismal candidates for Baptism. While at the church we taught Andrew and we committed him to baptism for the 25th. He is really a smart guy and really ponders things out in his mind when we teach him. It’s so great to see the work flourish here. We then cleaned the Baptismal font so that it would all be ready and we could start to fill it because it takes a long time to fill!  After which we headed to go give Sister Elizabeth a blessing, she has been sick for 3 weeks now and we felt prompted to go give her a blessing. Sure am glad I followed the prompting to carry consecrated oil that day. It was good to go and see her. She has diabetes so it has been causing problems, so she hasn’t had the energy to come to church. She’s really a nice lady, but was not herself due to the medications. I love being able to go and bless the lives of others around here and help people come closer to Christ.  It truly is such a great opportunity.

On Friday there was a bombing in Nairobi that I am sure most of you heard about.  It killed 10 people and wounded close to 100 more. It was blown up in a market that is packed in Nairobi, the one that I went to with my trianer and he told me to watch my pockets, that one, so I have been to that market. The mission is taking every precaution necessary at this time, meaning in by dark, stay away from crowded places, markets, malls, etc. And also Mombasa is on lock down (meaning the missionaries have to stay in their apartments til told otherwise) and Nairobi  has 6pm curfew, so everything is being watched closely so don’t worry. For Friday and Saturday the whole mission was not allowed to use public transport, so we had to use private vehicles, Taxis and such so that we are the only passengers in the vehicle. As of right now it is only Nairobi and Mombasa that are not able to use public transport. Everything is okay though and Kenya is doing a very good job at tightening up the security to provide an increased sense of security. I’m in western Kenya so nothing big happens over here, so no need to worry. 

Saturday was filled with Baptismal interviews and wow using private taxis and such is so expensive, I can only imagine what it’s like to live in New york where they use them all the time. We first went to Sosiani and interviewed their investigator, Peter. The interview went super well. Their investigator is a scientist and has a whole bunch of degrees, so he is super smart. The interview was 2 hours long, but it felt really short.  We helped to answer some of his concerns and some things that he was wondering. We also discovered that we have the same beliefs on science and religion and how they go hand in hand. One without the other doesn’t make sense, but rather they both support one another.  After the interview we took pictures, then rushed to the Jerusalem chapel and Elder Harding had an interview with the Sisters’ investigator. It’s way awesome because the entire zone had Baptisms this week. After that interview we took our private taxi to Langas to have our candidates interviewed and finalized for baptism. As we were walking back to the chapel, I made sure to take some pictures of the slums/ghettos. I rarely take my camera there because it is super sketchy but I made sure to take some pictures this time to help you know about the housing, the ghetto rivers and the living status there. At the church while Elder Harding did Joshua’s interview, we taught the cousin of our Branch President, Steven. He is scheduled for baptism next week, so that will be great.  He is a super smart kid and is really excited for his baptism and really understands the doctrines of the church. That was pretty much it for Saturday, getting in before dark each day makes the days much shorter, so we are always rushing to and from doing things.

Sunday was the day of Baptisms. It was an interesting sacrament meeting.  We had lots of investigators and there was just a lot of people getting up and coming in and such, but all the talks were given by kids and they really did a great job. It’s amazing to see a little 10 year old get up and give a powerful talk on the family and the blessings of the gospel in their lives.  The younger generations will really add needed strength to the church here in Africa. Afterwards, I was asked to teach the gospel principles class on the sacrament, so that went pretty well. After church we had the Baptisms of Joshua, Lucy and Paris. Everything went perfectly, all their families were there, so that was really special.  My companion performed the baptisms because none of the baptismal clothing would fit me. I’m a lot taller and have thicker thighs than most the people here so yeah next time I’ll wear the stuff I brought. I’ve gained some weight the last 2 weeks, so yeah I need to start exercising in the mornings again. Who would have thought that one could come to Africa and gain weight...well it happens.

So that was pretty much it for the week, like i said it was busy but there wasn’t a whole bunch of stuff throughout it. I sent some pictures, so hope you enjoy them.
Well love you all, thanks for your prayers, love and support.
love always,
Elder Rushton Jay Hiltbrand