Habari zenu,

Well so last week I tried that day by day thing, its good but i don't really like it.  So I'm just gonna tell a couple stories. Other than the stories its pretty standard mission stuff.  Pray, walk, walk, walk, teach, walk walk walk walk, sleep, so on and so forth. Anyways Gather round Kids, it story time!!

Story #1

I've talked a little about mud huts previously.  A lot of people live in them and you kind of have to keep adding stuff to the walls to keep them sturdy so we went to an investigators house and she was spreading "mud" on the wall.  We talk with her for a little, she only speaks Swahili so I am getting about seventy five percent of the conversation, but can't say anything.  So I find out my comp is asking her what goes in the solution, then offers to help her.  Fun fact mud is a very small part of the solution.  So after using our bare hands to spread this stuff on about half the wall. I turn to my comp to ask what is in this stuff, cause i didn't understand the lady's answer.  Its cow poop and water with a little dirt.  Yeah too late to turn back now so we end up finishing the wall.  When in Kenya be Kenyan I guess. ( He was in his white shirt and slacks.)

Story #2

Me and my comp are contacting, we give a couple guys a pamphlet. Two very very drunk men see and want one for themselves, hey a contact is a contact so we give them one.  BAD IDEA. These two proceed to speak gibberish and follow us for about three blocks. We keep saying "that's great we need to leave" and pick up the pace. These guys follow us.  At this point me and elder L are running and these guys are running after us waving the book in the air and shouting something at us. I don"t know what it is but he was passionate. Suddenly we are like cross the busy road and they wont follow us, WRONG. We cross just fine these guys drunkenly run right in front of a bus and a motorcycle.  We went about two miles before they gave up and left, to this day.  I have no clue at all what they said whatsoever, twas great.

last one

There is an elder here who convinced me for the past three weeks that he was from England, only on Saturday did I find out this guy is from Murray and had been acting this whole time, yeah it was fun.

Anyways have a great week,  enjoy the snow, love you guys, happy new year

Love elder Tucker

 PICS!

My authenticated kenyan shorts, yes i did bring them, you know you are jealous

Me and my comp

Me with a bowl of gingerbread man chapatis on my head walking to the Christmas party.

Our christmas tree

I loved this note to Kenyan Mommas from an Elder. 

"Hey dear mammas of my brothers in Kenya!! You guys rock and are so great!! I've been here in Kenya for about 5 months!! The mission is hard but powerful. I know it is hard for you to hear about the difficulties in this mission.  Each one of us elders that have been sent here, and are here for a divine reason.  There is someone in Kenya/Tanzania that has been prepared specifically to be taught by your son. When they send emails that say the mission is so hard(I've had my fair share ha ha) just tell them THEY CAN DO IT. The Lord can't and won't give us anything too hard to bear. In the book of Mosiah Alma's people were in bondage and were given strenuous labors and tasks, and were appointed to have task masters over them.  They didn't just give up and quit. They turned to the Lord and asked for help and guidance, and because of their faith God blessed them to endure those hardships. In D & C section 123 verse 17(this takes place in Liberty Jail and is written by the prophet) it says "Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us CHEERFULLY do all things that lie in our power, and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, for his arm to be revealed." In this mission it is necessary that we cheerfully do what we can do, and that is your best. If we have a great attitude even when circumstances seem we shouldn't, we need to be happy and look at the positive.  That is how I have been able to deal and get through very tough and nerving experiences. I look at every person in Kenya and I imagine their potential if they were in the church, and then I make it a goal to get them there. I hope I have given some words of comfort. I know that all of you sons will be great and do great here in the wonderful Kenya Nairobi Mission". 

Habari Zenu
I hope everyone has been having a great week so far,  and enjoying
 this Christmas season. Lets see this week has been very interesting lots of finding, lots, we
got thirteen referrals this week alone.

Family home evening with an investigator family, not much else to
report, we went shopping.

Tuesday was great, we had a ton of lessons, most of them went
fantastic.  We got three investigators to commit to a date.  We also
had one lesson with a guy who is convinced the Book of Mormon is a
cool story written by joseph smith, but its fake because there are no
nephites left in todays world.  We told him that the book talks about
that but he didnt want to hear it. Then that night we made Chapatis,
which are super great, its like a cafe rio tortilla but on steriods
they are delicious.

Wednesday: I got sick, not a fun day... not fun at all. We had ZTM and I slept
through most of it. I also broke my matatu record, we had 24 people on a
thirteen passenger van. But we met a couple of very awesome
investigators.

Thursday: We got dropped a lot, but we got to paint houses so that was fun.
Bought a lot of fruit, including GREEN ORANGES, which made me very
uncomfortable.

Friday: Lots of lessons dropped, so we contacted a lot. Then played football
with the local kids, they were surprised a msungu could play soccer
but it was fun.

Saturday was the branch Christmas party and there was so much food,
and if you don't eat said food you get roasted by the host. So to make
it seem smaller I made a burrito out of rice meat beans and a chapati.
Apparently burritos aren't a thing and the releif society president was
like " AHHH WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THAT CHAPATI?!" but I got all the
youth to do it now.

Sunday was same old same old nothing to report.

Hope  yall have a nice week. Merry Christmas
Love Elder Tucker

I have had a huge culture shock this week. Flights went great, we were in Nairobi for a couple days. Now I am in Eldoret, mostly langas and konombyo though, everyone is very humble here. All the little kids love me and my comp. I am feeling kinda overwhelmed with the struggles here. For instance mostly we teach in mud huts, with no power, and sheets for walls, but i know i can do it.  I really miss you guys. The differences here are incredible though. I did laundry by hand today... that sucks a lot btw haha.  Glad to know you guys are doing well, as we say here nina wupenda (i love you guys).

Habari (essentially hello in swahilli) 

    Hope everyone is doing amazing, and loving the christmas season.  Here goes the two week summary. Last MTC week, super fun I learned how to play rugby. We taught some real people and had a lot of fun with the zone.  Same old schedule teach, learn, teach, read etc. etc. Had a testimony meeting on Monday then Tuesday morning I flew to Kenya.  Made it Nairobi, got through visa stuff to find out that they lost my big bag, whoo! Luckily I had all the essentials for a few days in my carry on. I stayed at the mission home had KFC (really big deal here, its one of the only Fast food chains). Then my bag came the next day, it was apparently left in Johannesburg. Met my new companion, Elder L, from Canada. We are one of two completely white companionship's.  Luckily Elder L  is really good at Swahili  We did training and then I went to immigration.  That took all day but I got my application for alien id done with a lot of trouble. Friday we got on a bus for eight hours to make it to Eldoret (running capital of Kenya, that's right be jealous).

    Finally made it, on the way I saw baboons, zebras, cows, donkeys, chickens, geese, sheep and goats. No Giraffes or Elephants or Lions, yet. They are closer to Kyulu which is the opposite side of the country. Standard mission stuff on Saturday, we had three appointment's. Only one of the appointments could understand English so I learned some basic points of the restoration. Yeah, I can understand the language alright, but I can say very little.  Pretty much Habari (News or How are you? Mzuri (good) Msungu (white person) Poa (Cool) mambo (sup) and some more but thats the basic.  So mostly I just sat there and turned pages it was fun,  I'm getting better.  Little kids love us here, they can only say, how are you in english so we hear that a lot. I'll tell you about who we are teaching when I find out, cause I know pretty much nothing. I can't understand them.

Now the food... we eat a lot of Ugali, which is maze meal and water,  tastes like absolutely nothing,  its a lot like platydough texture wise,  and is your utensils/napkin. Skumawiki, which is some weird seaweedie stuff, tastes pretty good actually.  They drink a lot of cocoa which I don't really understand, cause its like eighty degrees always, but hey when in Kenya right?

Love you all,  Book of Mormon is blue & Joseph Smith was a pamphlet.

Elder Tucker 2 

1st Week in the MTC

Greetings guys, This week has been great we went through the temple on Thursday, the Johannesburg

 temple is super small compared to Bountiful but it is beautiful.  Its like in the middle of a garden and its just really cool.  IF you ever get the chance definitely go. 

sorry for all the typos internet is super slow so i don't actually get a whole lot of writing time. One more week and we go out to the field. Teaching is becoming easier especially after we got chewed out by a couple teachers for missing a lot of the basics. ME and my companion  are doing awesome and the Whole MTC is having a great time. I probably wont be able to email next week because we leave Tuesday morning for Kenya, Yay!

 Anyways have a great week, love you guys. Sorry i cant respond to all of you

Elder Tucker

P.S. we cant send pictures because the internet is was too slow, so sorry, just know that i am still very good looking.

So first week in the MTC here in Johannesburg! Lets start from the beginning. I almost forgot my scriptures at the airport luckily my mom and dad are superheroes and they saved my butt! The flights were long there were an about eight other missionaries on our flight and we met up with about eight more in Atlanta. The flight here to SA was crazy long! especially when you cant watch movies or anything.  Ive found that being a missionary kinda forces you to read the scriptures haha, guess thats what i needed. We went to Mcd's and had African creme soda, its green and tastes super finky but it is really good!

The MTC! 

the Mtc is crazy here, we have a whopping 27 missionaries, crazy right?! The president and his wife are the coolest people ever and they are hilarious! There are four districts here the largest district is eight people, and Me and my companion are the zone leaders.

Everything is super chill its actually really nice! I love the teachers here and the other elders, especially the African ones are awesome. our district loves to make jokes and its great. we are mostly all together so districts don't really matter.

one of my favorite experiences so far was either hearing the prayers in different languages like sootu and zut and a name i cant pronounce, which is a lot.Or when we gave Elder ___ and elder ___ (both from Zimbabwe) some beef jerky! They lit up and devoured the whole bag it was hilarious! Another fun story was an elder(from SLC) broke the handle on the bathroom, and was locked inside.

Anyways love the mission so far and feeling the spirit! Its awesome here in SA and my accents are coming along nicely! And yes the toilets flush the other way here.

love, Elder Tucker