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.