So you know how a lot of missionaries get fat on their missions?  I might have figured out why,  I personally haven't changed weight at all, I check all the time. Needless to say I use the full exercise time otherwise elder le cheminant says I get cranky.  However I am starving ALL THE TIME, my stomach is a bottemless pit, no joke I ate almost 300 biscuits in the past week, and its not just me every other missionary that I've talked to in this mission has said "yeah first transfer I was fine, but in the second transfer I ate like no ones business."  Today's stories are about this phenomenon which I like to call "The Members Mission" I call it that because I have literally been told by at least two members that they are trying to make me fat and that they enjoy seeing missionaries in their branch get fat.

Story #1 

You will never find someone more creative with food than a missionary the day before p day.  Take elder c for example.  He serves in huruma and will eat anything and everything.  He made one of the strangest sandwiches I have ever seen.  Peanut butter, regular butter, and chicken sausage.  It looked nasty, but apparently it tasted good.  I personally have found creative snacks, my personal favorite has been, the homemade nutter butter.  Biscuits are a big thing here, so we eat a lot of them and I enjoy to making my own nutter butters out of them, but if you buy chocolate peanut butter it makes them even tastier! (Regular peanut butter here is the 'all natural' stuff which doesn't taste as good)  My companion this morning made everything.  He literally got whatever he could out of the fridge, diced it up, then fried it with some eggs. It was really good actually.  

Story #2 

A Kenyan dinner appointment.

So usually a DA goes a little something like this.  You plan set up the appointment and have everything prepped.  Then when you arrive they begin cooking, begin, sometimes they leave you and go to the duka when you arrive.  So you sit awkwardly in their house for a little bit trying to appear as if you are not freaked out by the chicken that just decided to come in and walk around making weird sounds. Then they return and cook the food, a lot of food, like a good solid dinner for five people. Then you pray and eat, but they only eat about half a plate and expect you and your companion to eat the rest.  So you try, but frankly you can't, but you don't want to upset them so you continue to eat. After you have had an entire pot of ugali and sukumawiki you have to now teach.  So you try focusing on anything but how full you are right now.  You share a brief testimony then get out of there.  as you stand up you nearly throw up because that"s where the food can go, say "thanks" and slowly ever so slowly walk back to the flat and pray with all your might that whatever it was you just ate agrees with you.  You probably have about a fifty fifty chance of having a fairly good night, or one of the worst days of your life.  Hooray for Kenya,  I love DA's.

point #3

So if you guys want to eat what I do, its actually very easy.  Ugali you just boil water, add maze meal ( corn meal might work, not sure), then you stir it up till its nice and almost doughy.  It tastes like nothing but its very very filling and fun to eat cause you can make sculptures out of it ( I like to make dinosaurs).  Usually with ugali you make something fairly soupy,  one of my favorites is omena which are like fried sardines almost with tomatoes.  Its good, smells bad, but its good.  Chapatis are super good but they are harder to cook and take a while so if you want to learn how to do that just google it or something.  And githeri which is delicious, it consists of maze, and beans, and that's it, don"t know why its good but it is. 

I know my last couple emails have been about food, but honest that is all I can really think about.  We had a few interesting meetings this week. Mostly answering questions that our church does not worship the devil, we don"t sacrifice kids, is not the house of Joseph Smith, you know same old same old.  Its very interesting the rumors you will hear when your a missionary.  Some of them are a little disturbing, and make you question exactly how stupid a person can be.  I believe the penguins from Madagascar said it best "Smile and wave boys, smile and wave"  

Anyways ya'll have a good week, till next time.  If you haven't in a while invite the missionaries over and put them to the test, eat a little then stare at them till they eat everything on the table, don"t take no for an answer.

The still hungry Elder tucker.