This Christmas was wonderful, incredibly fun, uniting and spiritual all in one. It may have been without gifts and decorations and mom's Christmas cookies, but it allowed for us as missionaries to truly remember the real meaning of Christmas, that of Christ's birth. Christmas time is sure different here in Kenya though, where we cyber each week it is a large mall and they actually decorated with lights and things here, they even had a Kenyan Santa Claus with a big square pillow stuffed under his coat and he would run up and down the stairs with the children singing "Santa Claus is coming to town" stopping to stomp and dance periodically. Really pretty funny to see, it's just a whole different celebration here, it's hardly called Christmas at all here, but rather it is X-mas. Everyone goes around telling each other happy X-mas and all the signs say that. It's a time of eating and getting work off, not really remembering the birth of our Savior. So it sure is interesting here, but overall I had a wonderful Christmas, my last on mission.
We had a really productive teaching week beginning with Tuesday. We had a busy busy day, we have been trying to find ways to improve our teaching pool, so we went through the "finding ideas" section of our planner and found a few to implement, such as put your name on lists at hospitals or funeral homes as clergy who will talk to people in crisis. So that's what we did! We went to one of the hospitals which we thought we could find kingdom builders at and talked to the executive secretary, turns out they don't have a list.. but it was still a cool experience trying to do so. In the afternoon after teaching around town, we went out to Manyatta and taught Pres. Okath and he went with us to visit John who hasn't been coming the last couple weeks. So to provide an image of the situation, I am sitting on a wood bench next to Bernard our Branch Mission Leader then my companion kind of in the corner sitting on a stone step. There were also John and two others close over to me in a sort of horseshoe set up. We were having a really great discussion about the Christmas story and the importance of Christs birth, when all of a sudden this girl walks up, who is kinda mentally unstable, (not to be mean or anything), but she is a bit disturbed, well she asks "are you talking about the word of God?" and sits down in the small space between John and I. She took over the lesson from there and was showing us these intense scars on her cheeks that had been caused by a pastor the week before trying to cast out Satan or something, by grabbing her cheeks with his sharp finger nails to force her mouth open and somehow release an evil spirit.. so she was going off about all the other churches and how people could do something like that to her. Well Bernard did a great job answering her and she committed to come to church this last week. So it was a situation that jumped out of nowhere, but hey everyone is able to hear the gospel, for the Atonement of Christ is able to Heal all of our infirmities. Later we taught David about Baptism, we thought that he would be a bit against the teachings or be a bit more defensive, but it went really well. He was totally humble and eager to learn the truth. I asked him if he feels he has gained a testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and he told us of course, how could he keep coming back and trying to leave tea, and read the Book of Mormon if he hadn't gained a testimony that it is true and had the desire to continue to grow in truth. It was really awesome to hear him testify like that.
Wednesday was also a really nice teaching day, we went out to Mbeme to Grace's to drop off a few more gifts for the twelve days of Christmas, then went and had an awesome visit with a less-active named Fred Okoth who works at one of the local courier services. He hasn't been to church in years, but the Horners have been strengthening him every time they go down there to pick stuff up. It was our first time meeting him, and he was really glad to see us. He said that he has made a commitment to himself and his family that he will try to make it to church every Sunday in the New Year. So we are planning to have him at church on the 4th, which will be really awesome because we also have a baptism planned for that day.
Christmas Day was great. The Horners had put on a really nice program for all of us. Busia had come down so we had the whole zone together. They based it on the three levels of Christmas, going from the Santa Claus level, to the Silent Night level and then ending with the Adult Jesus level. Each becoming more spiritual as we progressed through the day. It was really cool and made it for a really great day. We had Fish, Mash Potatoes, Squash, Cabbage Salad and Rolls for dinner. It was great, but there is nothing like Mom's Christmas dinner! Later in the evening we got to call home, that was really nice. While sitting outside our apartment but still within the compound, I was in this back little section where it is a bit more quiet, then all of a sudden I see this big black German Shepherd coming down the entrance of where I was at.. That was intense! Had to hang up and turned the stool I was sitting on into a shield. I tried to have my comp and the Busia Elders help me, but they opened the door and saw the metal screen door was wide open and the other two guard dogs were right there.. so I was left on my own with the dogs! God closed the mouths of the lions with Daniel, so I figured he could do the same for me, the dogs actually stayed away because the tapping of the stool would scare them, so I had the guard put them back till I finished.. It was pretty crazy! That's really my only scary dog situation on mission where I've almost been munched! Christmas came so quick and then in the blink of an eye it was over.
Friday after Christmas it was back to normal missionary work, we had a really powerful weekly planning session in which we counseled about how to best help the branch leadership instead of always hounding on them for what is being done wrong, we both felt that we need to build stronger friendships with them, that way we can lovingly encourage them as the savior would do. We had our final visit to Grace's for the twelve days of Christmas and gave her a small nativity to help her remember the true meaning of Christmas. She was really thankful. We then rushed to MegaCity and met two of our investigators, Alex and Kevin and we taught them about the Book of Mormon. Alex is powerful! really a kingdom builder, Kevin is a lot more hesitant about the church and in the Restoration booklet we had given him, he had written many things expressing his confusion and doubt. Mainly because he didn't understand what the Book of Mormon was and such. But we gave both of them a book of Mormon and commited them to read it, Alex testified to Kevin about the potential truth of the Book of Mormon, he told him "you cant judge a book before you read it and the Book of Mormon claims to be another Testament of Jesus Christ, so read it and you will see the truth" Some times Investigators just make you so happy!
Saturday was less busy than our normal Saturdays because tons of people are still out of town for the holidays. We Visited with brother Jehu who currently has malaria. It's ironic because he actually studies Malaria as his profession. We taught him using the 15 nails object lesson in which you have to stack 14 nails on top of one without those 14 touching the ground or being held by any other thing. We used it to teach about Prophets and Apostles then gave him a recent Conference issue of the Liahona. We had lunch at the Restaurant in Mega City with the really aggressive advertisers, actually both places had nice food. Then in the Evening we met with Sister Catherine and her family. It's been long since being with them together. We gave them the Book of Mormon Challenge for the new year, for each of them to read it from cover to cover in this next year. They are really excited about it. I know that if they will be diligent in doing so, Brother Wafula will see the necessity of Baptism and join the church so that they may be able to be an eternal family in the near future.
Sunday was good, very few people at the church due to the holidays, but a good time. Elizabeth did show up and she asked a question in Gospel Principles about why God loves America more than Africa. This is a common ideology of many here, but we answered by teaching them the doctrine that God is no respector of persons and loves us all equally. We each must go through different challenges and experiences in life, but that does not mean that God loves a certain people more than another. When we live the Gospel and keep the commandments we are blessed, that promise is open to everyone, regardless of color, nationality, or status. After church we saw sister Helen and brother Alias. We had a great lesson with them discussing many different doctrines of the church and then challenged them with the Book of Mormon reading challenge as well as gave them a Book of Mormon to give to a friend so that they can begin the New Year with a missionary experience in inviting a friend to receive the Gospel.
Well there you have it for the week, In just a few days will be New Years, 2015 will be a very interesting year, filled with all sorts of new experiences. I hope you all have a Good New Years day, and set some attainable resolutions, then stick to them.
Love Always,
Elder Rushton Jay Hiltbrand
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