10/29/13

Hey everyone! This email will probably be pretty short because my week was not very exciting! On Thursday night I woke up with super bad stomach problems, so I was bed ridden Friday and Saturday. That was no fun, but I am doing a lot better now. My stomach still hurts a little, but I am able to go out so that is all that matters. The mission doctor says it was probably food poisoning, most likely from some cabbage I ate. Unfortunately, because I was sick we had to cancel the baptisms we had planned for Saturday and reschedule them for this month. On Sunday I was luckily feeling well enough to go to church. We were supposed to start watching conference at church this Sunday, but that didn’t happen because there was no power. When we have power we will be watching a session every Sunday, until we finish. On the way home on Sunday I passed one of the sisters in our area, carrying a big bundle of firewood. I helped her carry it to her home, but that thing was heavy! I will include a picture of that.Sunday night my companion and I made some chapattis, which is like a thick tortilla. They turned out pretty good, so that was nice! On Monday we decided to go to Kikoko, instead of Matua, for our service day. The first house we went to was Brother Kivikivis. A few months ago he got in an accident where he was hit by a big truck, and has been stuck at home since then. During the day his wife goes and works in the farm, so he is stuck alone with his one year old son. We asked if we could help with anything, but he just wanted us to stay and talk to him because he was so lonely, so we sat and talked to him for quite a while. That was a lot of fun, and it was really cool getting to know him better. After that we went to one of our investigators, the Maquimas. We went and helped dig out weeds in there Shamba (farm). That was hard work but it was a lot of fun. They are super nice and afterwards they gave us some sugarcane to chew on, and a lot of beans from there shamba. I have some blisters now from all that digging but it was good! This week is the first week of my second transfer, so tonight we will find out exactly what that means. I should still be with my trainer because the training program is 12 weeks, but we will find out if our other companion will stay in the hills with a new companion, or if he will leave and two new elders will come into this area. It should be exciting either way! Well like I said, this week was short, so I am sorry the email isn’t as exciting, but I love you all and will hopefully send a longer email next week! Elder Janda How far away is water creek? I am assuming water creek is referring to where I go fetch water for people. It is about half a mile or so from there house. But it is steep downhill and then uphill with water. Do you have to boil your water? We have a filter and the water we get is pretty clean so we don’t need to boil water to drink. We do have to boil water in order to take a shower, because there is often no power, because the water is freezing otherwise. How do you cook your food? We have a tiny camping type stove that we cook all of our food on. I wish we had an oven so I could make some better foods but not very many areas have an oven. Do the spiders/bugs bite? Some spiders and bugs bite, some don’t. The ones I have to watch out for are ticks, because those are somewhat common in one of our areas, and banana tree spiders. I haven’t seen any banana tree spiders, but I guess they are huge and are pretty dangerous, but luckily they are rare. Do you see lots of scary animals/bugs? There aren’t really any scary animals or bugs in my areas. There are a lot of stray dogs that run around, but they are pretty friendly. What is your bed like? ground, board, mattress? I have a mattress on a frame. It is just a normal bed. Do you have nightmares about bugs? I don’t really worry about bugs too much because they aren’t a big problem. Do you feel skinny? do you workout? is the service physically demanding? (John) I definitely have lost a lot of weight. I have had to cut some new holes in my belt already, so that was good. I lift weights in the morning sometimes, but the area I am in is pretty physically demanding so we haven’t been working out too much. We are going to start running every morning though now that we are more used to the area. Who cuts your hair? There is a barber in our town so we just go there. It only costs fifty cents, but all they can really do is shave your head. I was actually the first American that one of the barbers ever gave a haircut so that was cool. Where'd you get our shoes? I brought my shoes from home. They work well where I am, and they have super cheap shoes everywhere here so when these ones wear out I will get some more easily. Have you thought about eating spiders for protein? (Eric) No, the meat here isn’t that bad. Have you seen a lion? I haven’t really seen any wildlife yet, because the area I am in is a lot higher up, where they don’t go. Are there chances to hunt? We don’t go hunting, but in some areas you can go on safaris on P-days. What's your transportation? My transportation is mostly my feet. To get to the main town on P-day I take a matatu. It is a 12 seater van, that they usually shove 20 or more people inside.

Weeks 10/15 and 10/22/13

10/22/13 Hey Everyone! This week was great! I learned a lot! On Wednesday, we had DDM, which is a district development meeting. I was asked to train for it, which was a little scary considering I haven’t even been out for a full transfer yet, but I was excited for the opportunity to teach what little I have learned so far on my mission. I discussed the importance of having the love of Christ as missionaries. I focused my lesson on Elder Uchtdorf’s talk, “You are my Hands”. It went super well, and the spirit was super strong during the lesson. Here in the hills people struggle with a lot of things, but especially the Word of Wisdom. A lot of times, missionaries will yell and get angry at them, and because of this they continue to break commandments and people hide from us when we come to teach them. I have learned that it is so important to love people through their trials and sins, the way the Savior has for me through the times in which I have sinned. On Thursday I was able to go on exchanges with the Zone leader, who will be finishing his mission next week. He was able to give me a lot of advice! It was way nice to go out and teach with someone who has had so much experience. While we were out, I went to meet a Sister who I had not yet been able to teach since I have gotten here. She was pretty quiet throughout the lesson, but at the end, she asked Elder Mulondo where she could get a Swahili copy of the Book of Mormon like the one we had been using during the lesson. I gave her that one, because I knew she could use it a lot more then I could. She got so happy it was unbelievable. It was inspiring to think how much it meant to her to be able to read the Book of Mormon, and receive guidance from Heavenly Father. It made me think how I take that kind of thing for advantage way too often. On Friday we had an Elder’s Quorum activity at the church. The Branch President asked me to teach them about the Word of Wisdom, and more specifically Pombe, or beer. I had them compare the benefits of drinking with following the Word of Wisdom, and how any benefit of drinking lasted a few hours, while the benefits of following the Word of Wisdom lasted forever. I felt the spirit strongly as I taught and I hope that it helped someone with their problem or drinking. On Sunday, I decided to attend Primary, because I love being with the kids of the ward, and I missed my days as a primary teacher before I came. It was amazing! Things are somewhat similar to in America but there are a lot of differences. One thing I thought was super cool was that whenever the teacher asked a question all the kids would stand up and yell “Teacher! Teacher!” while snapping there fingers to answer the question. Even though it got loud it was awesome to see how eager they were to learn and to answer questions. During Sacrament Meeting it hit me how much I really love this place, and I got a little sad thinking I will have to leave one day. Luckily I still have at least 5 months probably. :P Well those were the highlights from my week. I hope everyone is doing well. If you have any questions for me feel free to email me and I will answer them! Elder Janda Hey mom, It is always super tough to get back into a schedule after having a break, but it is nice to have a schedule as well. That is one thing I really love about my mission is keeping a planner for each day and having my day scheduled out. I am glad you and dad are doing better cause I don’t like to hear you are sick. Tell Sister Dawson if she is grossed out by that kind of stuff I will bring her a giant spider home. I will send a picture of it.  That is super nice of Dalee to drop Courtney off. She is definitely a super generous girl. It would be great if she is still around when I am back, but if not then all is good. I don’t really worry about it, I know that God has a plan. The goat was a lot of fun, but it was way gross watching it get killed. I am looking forward to cook for everyone when I get back though. Even though you will probably prefer something else. Ugali na ndengu is a really good dish I make. Ugali is just the corn flour and water that I made that one time, but the flour is a lot better for it here. And ndengu are these small green beans. I add onions and tomatoes and some spices to it. It is way good. It is a lot of fun learning Swahili but it is difficult for sure. I feel bad though, because I feel like I know more then my trainer sometimes and he seems to get frustrated by that but oh well. It is just because I study a lot, because I really want to learn a lot more by the time I am done training. There really aren’t any icky stories of bugs yet. There are flies and spiders all over our bathroom which is gross but that is it. We had quite a few meeting but it was good. We have not had any apostles yet, but I am hoping one will come eventually. They have before. Tell John I said congratulations! I love you mom, and am so grateful for everything you have done for me in my life! Elder Janda 10/15/13 Hey everyone! Another great week here in the hills. It was very short though, because we had ZTM, and there were Elders staying at our flat Monday through Friday. ZTM was super good though. We went over the Standards of Excellence for the mission, and it turns out that we are exceeding all of them! President emailed us and let us know that our companionship is leading the mission in numbers. And we are in one of the areas where it is most difficult to do so! We slaughtered our goat this week. Well we didnt slaughter it, we paid a member to do so. By paid I mean we gave him the intestines, head, and legs. It was good to have some fresh meat, and a nice meal. But I have started to make some new stuff every day. I make either rice or Ugali na Ndengu every night. The Ugali na ndengu is way good! Although this week was short we had a lot of great experiences. On Friday we taught the doctor in Kalongo. She is the one that speaks English super well. The spirit was super strong, and I committed her to baptism! She was the first person I have done so with. On Saturday we taught a lesson entirely in Swahili! Our native companion was on splits in another area, so it was rough! But I was impressed by how much I knew after only a few weeks of teaching myself. Yesterday was a super short day because someone from the mission came to give us pots and water filters, but we went to one of the members houses and they made us boiled potatoes and bananas. They were a weird kind of banana you had to cook, but it was way good. It was way filling too though. I was the only one to finish an entire bowl. We think the mama was trying to defeat us, and I will not be defeated haha. Here, a lot of the kids are scared of white people. Partly because elders in the past have chased them away and now they are scared. It made me mad at first because I love kids, but this week I was sitting outside, and this big group of kids came along, I went down and they were scared of me at first but eventually they were all coming up and giving me fistbumps and stuff. IT was awesome. It would be even better if I could understand what they were saying but oh well. And for my spiritual thought of the week, we had just finished emailing and gone back to the flat. I was sitting inside reading my bible, and I heard a goat yelling. We still had our goat at this point, so i went out to make sure it wasnt getting attacked by dogs. It was fine so I went inside, and a few seconds later I heard a goat yelling again, but it seemed closer. It was fine so I went back inside and for a third time I heard a goat yelling, but this time I was sure that it had to be the goat. So, I went outside and just stood there to wait to see if it yelled again. As I was standing up there a man ran up to me and told me that he was taught by a missionary a long time ago, but when that missionary left, the missionaries stopped coming. He told me that he wanted to be taught again. I realized that the sound of the goat was the spirit prompting me to go outside, as weird as that sounds. Had the spirit said, go stand outside, it would have been difficult for me to do, becuase it wouldnt really make sense. But because we had a goat, the spirit knew that I would go outside if I heard it yelling, and I would be there for that man to walk by and see me. Sorry if it doesnt make sense but it was definitely a cool experience. Well I hope everyone is doing great and I will talk to you next week! Elder Janda Hey mom! The cruise sounds like it was a lot of fun! we will definitely have to go on one when I get back! That is awesome that you have been listening to conference! I am really looking forward to being able to hear all of the talks and receive lots of spiritual revelation! That's hilarious that Clark called up Morgan! I knew they were going to be close to each other, so I was curious if they would ever see each other. Don't worry about me not having money, I was taken care of. My companion fed me and everything, it is just nice to be able to choose what I eat now. And no I don't really need anything. They have everything here I need to survive. I can eat the meat it is just super gamey so I don't really like that. In my other areas I will probably have more meat, and whenever I go to zone conference. There aren't really any problems with bugs. Dalee told me you were worried about the ticks but I was clean. They stay away from me, because they don't like my arm hair. It is kind of funny. And there are no mosquito's at this altitude so we are good. :) It was good to have all those elders here, but I was surprised. They talked a lot about movies back home, and a lot of them weren't appropriate movies. I usually just went into the other room though. It was a lot of fun having that many people to do stuff with though. Definitely stay healthy mom! I don't want you to get sick while I am all the way over here. I love you mom! Thanks for being so amazing! Love, Elder Janda

Oct. 9th, 2013

Hey mom! Another great week in Kilungu hills. I am going to stop writing the day by day emails unless that is what you guys want. The days are pretty similar each week so it would be repetitive. I am getting a lot more comfortable with everything each week and I am having more and more fun everyday. So, some cool experiences this week. We were able to give two blessings this week. I annointed them with the oil and then Elder Utonga gave them the blessing in Swahili. We gave one lady a blessing because she couldn't walk, and then we went back two days later and she was walking fine! The faith of the people here is amazing! The amazing thing is that neither of the people we gave blessings are members. They trust in God so much, it is truly a humbling thing to see. So I finally got money this week, so that is good. I can now buy my own food. I don't eat anything exciting though because I don't eat the meat, because it hangs at the butcher for a few days, and I would rather not get worms. So I usually eat eggs and toast for breakfast, and a big bowl of rice and guacamole for dinner. Avocados are super cheap here. You can get a huge one for like 20 cents. Yesterday we had one of the members make a ton of chapatis. They are just like thick tortillas. We gave them the flour and the oil and they made the food, so that was nice. Today I will do a lot of shopping, so from now on things should be real nice. Right now there are five elders at our flat and tomorrow there will be 8. Our zone leader Mulondo will be going home at the end of this transfer, so we bought a goat name supper and are going to slaughter it and cook it up for a goodbye feast. It should be a lot of fun. Right now it just chills outside our flat, and we feed it our leftovers and everything. Its gonna be kind of hard killing it now that we got so close. I struggled the first few weeks with being guided by the spirit, but an amazing thing happened this week. We were sitting in a lesson and it wasn't going too well. I was starting to feel like we should end it and have her review the stuff we were teaching and then go back later. Because I am so young I was nervous to make an executive decision like that, so I just went with it, but then my companion did exactly what I was prompted to do shortly after. It built my confidence that I can receive guidance from the spirit and be a better missionary because of that. Well, that is about it for this week. I am growing stronger and stronger every day, and I cant wait until I am done with my training and finally an official missionary. I love you all, and thanks for all the emails. Feel free to email me! It is great to hear from you all! Hey mom! I don't know how conference was, I won't listen to it until next week! but I am sure it was awesome! I hope your cruise was fun, and you got that break you needed! That is awesome that Emma got her call and to Africa pretty much! That is what I am talking about. It is really crazy how many sisters there are going into the field! It is good though because they can be better at it then men! So I got your letter last Wednesday! It got to Kenya sometime between when I first got here, so Sept. 18th, and last Tuesday, so Oct. 1. Sorry it doesnt really tell you how long it takes, but it does give a rough estimate. I am supposed to teach piano every week, but no one has shown up yet, so we will see if I ever end up actually teaching it. I love you mom! Thanks for always being so amazing! Elder Janda

Pictures Kyle has posted from MTC and visiting the Johannasburg Temple. Eric also created this map that shows the areas Kyle has already talked about in his emails.

Mailing Information

Hey I wanted to let you know how the letters and packages work here. So post this on Facebook as well. Anyone feel free to email me at: kyle.janda@myldsmail.net All letters should be sent to the following address KENYA NAIROBI MISSION Elder Janda PO Box 46162-00100 Upper Hill Road next to Citigroup NAIROBI, KENYA +254-20-4985-220 Send all letters through USPS and write air mail on the envelope by the stamps. If you dont I wont get it for like 4 months and if you send it through pouch mail I will get it in about 4 months as well. If anyone wants to send packages then this is how that works. I do have to pay a tax on whatever is sent to me, based on an estimated value of what is inside, therefore the cheaper it is the less I will pay. I have extra money each month that can pay for things like that however. I know it is very expensive for you to send things so I understand if I dont get any packages. Also I dont have to pay for anything sent inside one of those yellow envelopes, but obviously there is not much room to put anything in there, and if you don send anything in there there is a chance it will not get to me

10/1/13

Hi everyone! It has been a great week here in Kilungu Hills! Definitely better than the first, and the time is literally flying by! Every day I am getting along better with my companions and I am getting less tired as I climb the hills. Anyways, I will start on Wednesday of last week. On Wednesdays we go into Mitini where the branch building is located. There we are supposed to hold Priesthood class, English class, and piano class. I am supposed to teach the piano class, but no one showed up. Only one person showed up to the English class, which is frustrating because almost everyone here needs it. Anyways after the classes we have our District Development meeting. There are six elders in our district and that is just where we talk about how we can do better as missionaries. After that we went to a hotel, or a restaurant as you wazungu call it. and had some soup and chapatis. The soup is just broth and mystery meat, probably goat or donkey, and chapatis is like a thick tortilla made from oil and flour. It is really good and I hope to learn how to make it soon. After that we went to New Zion which is a very steep hike down into a canyon. The sad thing was our investigator wasn’t even there! We were able to teach one of the members though. On Thursday we got a call from a man who wanted a Book of Mormon, so he came to Kalongo where we live and gave him a book of Mormon. He was leaving town for a while so we will meet with him when he gets back. About an hour after we gave him the Book of Mormon he called us and had a ton of questions and said he wanted a copy of the doctrine and covenants as well. It turns out he is a pastor for one of the other churches so we are not sure if he just wants to argue with us or learn but I really hope he is serious about learning. We also went to our second area for the first time. It is about a five mile walk there and once we get there we hike up and down some steep hills! I was worn out! And once again our investigator wasn’t home, so we met with all the members who were home. On Friday we were back in Matua and were able to teach three investigators. The first investigator runs a health clinic in Kalongo and she actually speaks really good English so it was good to be able to meet with her and understand what was going on. In Matua we met with members, and one of them fed us some gideri. It is very uncommon to be fed here so that was exciting. Gideri is maize and beans. It doesn’t really have much flavor but it is filling so that is good. We met with a lady who owns a hotel and she was in a hurry so we were only able to share a short message, as well as the other investigator. That investigator speaks zero English though so that is difficult. Luckily one of my companions speaks Swahili so he just took over for us. On Saturday we were in Kikoko. There was a wedding going on so very few people were home but one of the members fed us! She gave us ugali and sukuma wiki and avocado. Avocados are very common here. They are about ten cents each and are huge! It makes me happy because I love avocados. We also met with a lady who just started breast feeding as we were sitting there. I guess that is common here as well. It is surprising at first but you just keep teaching and look away! Sunday we were back in Mitini for church! There were so many people that we had to sit outside which is awesome! And this time I didn’t have to give the lesson in elder’s quorum so that was good. They tried to get me to teach again next week but we told them one of the members needs to teach. After church everyone runs to the market or the hotel so we need to work on that. On Sunday I was studying my scriptures and I realized something interesting. The Lord has commanded men to love two people with all their hearts. The Lord and their wives. There is no one else that we are commanded to love with all our hearts. Obviously I do not have a wife right now, but my companions are kind of preparing me for that so I feel like I need to love them with all my heart. That is probably one of my biggest struggles because I am so proud and easily annoyed. I am working on it though. The second great commandment given to us is to love our neighbors as ourselves. I was thinking about this and this means there is literally no one on this earth that I should love less than myself. That is definitely something I need to work on, but I know that as we all do that we will soon see the good in others and our lives will be much better! Yesterday we were in Matua again doing service. Not very many people were home, but we were able to carry water again. This week I took a wrong turn and ended up half way up the hill and looked over and realized I was on the wrong hill. I looked for a way to just cross to the other hill but there wasn’t one, so I had to hike down and back up. It makes me think of our own journeys in life. We often take a wrong turn and eventually realize we are on the wrong path. There is no shortcut back to the path. We have to backtrack through repentance and undo the wrongs that we have done. When all is said and done we realize we made a lot more work for ourselves then necessary so it is just better not to sin! We also chopped some wood, but the only ax they had for me was tiny so it was like I was chopping wood with a tomahawk. And that leads us to today! I woke up this morning and travelled to town to email. After this I will go and buy some bread and then we will go back home and I will do laundry. That takes a while because we have to do it by hand. Then I will write letters, study Swahili, read the book of Mormon and go to bed! The weeks go by so fast so I will be emailing again soon! I love you all! Elder Janda