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