WK 50 - መልካም ገና from Kenya!!! 🎄

Or rather...MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas wherever you are and I also hope that you found greater meaning in the season. I know that I did! We had a good time celebrating here in Kenya.

On Thursday we had a Christmas themed mission conference that was pretty good. We discussed Christlike attributes, expressed our testimonies of Christ's birth creatively (I struggled with that one and settled on a mediocre haiku), and made a Christmas parody video of "Sicko Mode." Let me just say that we are very music deprived. During lunch Santa came! We were very happy to see the man in red because it did not feel like Christmas at all until then.

On Christmas Eve we had a zone white elephant party and I got a nice colorful tie. Then on Christmas day we gathered in at the chapel and had some activities such as spikeball and WII BOWLING. President pulled out all the stops and bought three Wiis off of Facebook. We ate lunch, and then watched the most classic Christmas movie ever:

Jumanji 2 

We got in contact with a long lost investigator from Summit named Samuel and taught him a lesson about the Book of Mormon. He said that he'll start reading it immediately.

Today we had President Carpenter of the Area Seventy come and talk to us. If you've read his talk from 2018, he talks about how one of his sons had a stroke on his mission. That son came tonight and talked about how our plans in life, including our missions, don't always go as planned. That was very fitting. It was a nice devotional.

One last Christmas thought: the birth of the Savior is the fulfillment of prophecy. Thinking of the pre-mortal existence, knowing that Christ was fore-ordained for his purpose, we can see that God always keeps his promises. That is why the birth of Christ was such a glorious moment because it means that man could accomplish his purpose to have eternal joy and overcome all. 

Merry Christmas again! I love you all!

Elder Miles

እግዚአብሔር ይመስገን 

Tiki WARRIOR

Our base: Upper Hill chapel

Santa Claus

There is a mission meme of me squinting so much (also my first name too for some reason) , so the ZLs made a Mii of me squinting

WK 49 - Zombie Elephant

Oh, my goodness guys we had a run in with a zombie elephant this week and eight people freaking died and then we had to rearrange the whole mission because of it. Just in time for Christmas too gosh darn it. 

Oh, wait the zombie elephant and the dying Elders had no correlation (I think). I should probably make that clear. 

Also, they didn't die die per say, they’re just missionary that died as in they went home and I'm not happy about it. Two of them were Elders Heiner and Jensen, our Summit homies. We had a big farewell devotional and wow I was legitimately sad. They served valiantly and were awesome examples to me. 

Because we had so many people leave, the mission structure received a huge makeover in the form of transfers. And let me just say I've never been a prouder father. My little Summit area has become a ZONE! I'm still the district leader and my companion is still Elder Kearl. We now have our very own pair of zone leaders, another companionship, and the Tulu Dimtu District.

Now on to the zombie elephant. For the finale of our cool African p-day activities we went to a baby elephant orphanage. One of them had some medicine on it that made it look like zombie. It was way cool seeing the tiny versions of those animals. We were able to touch them as they came around and watch them get fed. We also nearly got assaulted by baboons just before. 

I really wish I had more to say about the people we are teaching. We do our best to work with the ones we've got, but mostly we just find people way outside of our areas and share short, uplifting messages with them. If that's how it has to be then I'm ok with that. We can uplift everyone we come across in some way. 

Because I'm lacking in that department, I want to spend some more time on my spiritual thought. That way this email is a bit more worthwhile. Christmas is this week! As we are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, I have been thinking about what his birth means to me. It means we can overcome sin, weakness, physical challenges, pain, sadness, you name it! It means we can live as families forever and experience joy in this life. It means that there is a God who loves us enough to give us his son and a plan to make it all happen. It brought a light that changed this world forever. My Christmas challenge for you is to spread that light. Please, I can't emphasize enough how much sharing the Savior's love can change lives. 

ወደፊት መልካም ገና!!! 

Elder Miles

Elephant Butt ft. Elder Nelson

The Elephant Orphanage

Gulping

Baby herd

The zombie elephant

Goodbye Jensen and Heiner

We found a dog

EAAM mission

Week 48 - Roxanne, Roxanne!

This was a slow week. Not speed-wise though. Speed-wise I have no clue where the time went. But work-wise it was slower than molasses so hopefully we can change some things to make next week better. I'm making a promise now that we'll have some good work done for you all to read about. 

The random activities of the week included Amharic classes, institute, zone finding activities, playing Risk, making peanut sauce, and doing family history. I found out that Isaac Newton is my 1st cousin 12 times removed and William Shakespeare is my 12th great grand uncle! 

We cleaned another Kenyan chapel this week. It was really nice compared to the one last week. Call me a janitor because I did enough sweeping and mopping to earn a degree in it. Elder Kearl and I found a Gecko in the chapel and he named it Roxy. 

Half of the Summit District is dying because Elder Heiner and Elder Jensen are old men. I attempted some good-bye exchanges this week. They leave on Tuesday. We'll find out tonight who will be joining us in Summit.

Our devotionals this week were with a Stake President, an Area Seventy, and an Area Health Advisor. We called a Pentecostal guy in Hawassa and taught him the Restoration. We were teaching a kid but then he started bashing us. Elder Kearl and I made a Facebook video for the mission page. Go check it out its pretty darn cheesy. But that was pretty much the extent of our week.

For District Council I showed a video about the Manaus Temple Caravan, which is a group of members who traveled 3000 (or 6000?) miles by boat and bus to go to the Temple. If you haven't seen it, you can find it on the Church website, it's awesome. It's an amazing story of sacrifice and dedication. When we sacrifice, we give up something in hopes of obtaining something greater. When we sacrifice to serve and follow God, he will fill those holes with joy and peace, and guide us by the Spirit to better places. 

It looks like we'll be here at least until the beginning of February. Plenty of time for more lessons and experiences. I'll let you know as they come. 

እግዚአብሔር ይመስገን

Elder Miles

 

William Shakespeare

Isaac Newton

This week's chapel

Last week's chapel

Stanced up in the chapel's beautiful property. We saw a goose and chased it. 

Roxy!!!

Risk

WK 47 - "The Voice of the Church"

This week didn't really F L O W very well; there were just a bunch of random semi-notable events so I'm resorting to a bullet point format. 

-Last pday we got to ball up again! Nearby where we live in Kenya is some sort of Olympic training facility, and they have one of those classic third-world basketball arenas. If you've ever watched foreign basketball tournaments you know what I'm talking about. But a bunch of us went and played for a few hours. I got real sweaty in my new Hakuna Matata giraffe shirt and my legs were jelly by the end but it was so worth it. 

-Two of the other Elders found a lady in the same apartment complex as us who is from Ethiopia! She has a YouTube channel where she teaches Amharic and when she found out that us white people spoke Amharic, she needed us to be in her videos. So, one day us and two other Elders went over and starred in her videos naming fruits and kitchen materials. The kitchen video has dropped so check it out! (cringe warning) Here's the link:

https://youtu.be/_fLuSOyqQb0

-We ordered Domino's one night and enjoyed barbecue chicken pizza. 

-Elder Kearl and I got soaked on the way to the church and had to spend some time wringing out before choir practice. 

-We drove 30 minutes away and cleaned a branch meeting house here in Nairobi. I had to sit on the floor the whole drive, but it was cool to see more of the city! 

-Elder Sitati of the Seventy challenged us to hit 50 lessons as a mission in one day, and we got 72!

-Our finding and teaching has been slow but we are chugging along. We've been able to work with Patrick and Tariku pretty consistently. We were able to send some video lessons to families back in Ethiopia. We have also been working with Tesfaye and Emmanuel again! The process is slow but I'm grateful we are still able to teach. Online finding is fun as always. I asked one guy if he had a wife or girlfriend and he gave me his heartbreak story. RIP that poor guy. Another man notified us that he is on the front lines of the war. 

-So far, we've been able to have Elder Sitati and Elder Carpenter of the Area Seventy come and speak to us in person, and this week we finished the trio and Elder Mutumbo came and spoke! Elder Mutumbo is awesome! He is the happiest man I have ever seen. He likes to say, "speak with the voice of the church" hence the title. He talked about our callings and how we can either be objects or agents. We can either choose to act based on our circumstances, or be acted upon by our circumstances. What a powerful lesson. We have been blessed with agency. Use that agency and choose to have faith in God and press forward.

ቻው ቻው

ሽማግሌ Miles

Sick mask we found in a market

Beans n' rice

Elder Nelson and I in our traditional Ethiopian garb

Rainbow

Kenya sunset

EAAM and Elder Mutumbo