"But we already found you a house"- Sister Mxxx

So this was week six, week six means transfers.  This also meant that my time in Naivasha/Nakuru has come to an end. I have really loved this area and the people, and all the adventures I have had.  To be completely honest I actually wasn't thinking I was going to be able to email today.  But looks like you guys have to suffer through another one of my emails. Lets hear some stories

#1:"Elder DON'T DO IT!!" - Elder Munyaradzi

Well so we had another baptism in Nakuru, which meant another baptism in a lap pool.  This time I was chosen to perform the baptism.  It was really spiritual, super exciting for Our new member.   As well I got a chance to do a couple strokes of breaststroke to the wall of the pool, so that was fun.  My companion saw my plan beforehand so after Brother Bxxxx was out of the water he shouted this at me, it was funny.  

#2:SURPRISE!

I have been in this area for a while so I was kinda expecting to leave.  But the members didn't expect that, hence the subject. Sincse we work two areas and we needed to pack up my stuff from two houses, on the way we did some drop in good-bye appointments.  Elder Munyaradzi  and I being jokesters we decided to tell the family, that he was leaving. The family laughed about it for a while, then we told them the real news, and they thought we were joking.  The mom kept saying I am supposed to finish my mission here, it was a good night.

I am being transferred back to Eldoret an area over from where I started my mission. I hope you guys have some fun.  As i said before I wasn't planning on emailing today. So I don't have my camera on me, so next week I will send a ton of pictures.  

Love 

Elder Tucker 2

Extremely Rare Double Spiritual Letter

This week has been really wet, lots and lots of rain.  I always seem to forget my jacket when I need it the most, but when I wear it, it is hot as Hades.  Turns out God does like to mess with people. Okay guys, I know that this is weird behavior for me, but I literally had the most awesome thing happen this week.

Wxxxxxx

So first off everyone rewind over a year ago when I was serving in Eldoret.  One of our neighbors drove a super sick Subaru outback with red racing stripes.  And I always wanted to talk to him to tell him that he had a super sick car.  But I never got to cause he was always driving it and blasting music. He never really seemed liked someone who would be interested in our church. Well one day he called me and Elder Le Cheminant over cause he said he wanted a book.  We gave him one and told him church was on Sunday, and he was welcome.  We kinda thought that would be the end but then HE SHOWED UP!  So after kinda freaking out for a little bit, we sat with him showed him how to read the hymn book and sing and stuff, met with him, the whole missionary stuff.  We taught his family a couple times then I got transferred. 

Fast forward about nine months when I am sitting in DD Meeting and his name comes up for some Elders in Nairobi.  So I asked afterwards for a little bit more background.  Turns out he lost everything, his family, his car, his house, and then went to Nairobi and was hustling for work.  Then he found the church again and started taking the lessons again.  Then one night he was kicked out of the house he was staying at and went to a bar for some free water. Got some help now is back on his feet and GOT BAPTIZEDI! He just got the priesthood last week. 

Now you are wondering why I would be telling you all this.  So turns out Wxxxxxx never forgot that book from me and Le Cheminant.  I was on exchanges in Nairobi and on our way to visit him, he found us on the road, and lit up and came over shouting ELDER TUCKER!!!!!! ELDER TUCKER YOU'RE HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!  He gave me a nice hand shake bro. hug and then thanked me for that small gesture of giving him a book, and helping him get his life back with the lord.  He told me all that happened and all he had been through, and he said, that he knew that he just had so much love and respect for me and Elder Le Cheminant that he had to stay true to us, and finish what he started.  It was a truly tender moment for me to know that even though I didn't really do anything other than give out a book, and it changed this guys life forever!  It was so sweet.  I love that guy, he is so sick. 

Some lessons from Wxxxxxx, is 1)don't judge to quick and 2)plant all the seeds you can, you will never know the harvest time. 

HE GOT BACK WITH HIS WIFE AND HIS FAMILY!!! His wife will probably be baptized as well!

Welp that is it from me, have a great week

Elder Tucker

Insert funny quote which escapes my mind.

I am going to be one hundred percent honest with you guys.  The majority of this week was spent travelling and sitting in zone conference and waiting for interviews.  I only did missionary work Friday and Saturday. I don't have much funny stuff to report.  On a super good note though we had a confirmation in one of my branches!  And we got three more people on date, so that was flipping awesome.  Since I don't have many many stories today I thought I would try to teach something spiritual (I know crazy right).

I just thought I would share something that I found pretty incredible.  This week I got to be someone's answer, and that was awesome!  In the Nakuru group we don't have many people, and it is kinda chaotic.  So sometimes us as the missionaries can get called to give a talk in sacrament minute of.  Literally no notice just on the pulpit say that elder so and so will be speaking.  Well that happened this week to me.  And while I was walking up to front of the room trying to come up with a ten minute talk on the spot, i just decided to do what the scriptures say.  So I walked up there with no plan and literally just opened my mouth. after a few seconds of "UHHHHH"  and almost swallowing a fly, words finally started to flow.  I know I mentioned something about prayer, and that is about it. I have no clue where any of the talk came from nor do I remember the great majority of it.  I do however remember what happened after church.  A certain sister came up to me and told me about some of the problems that have been going down at her place.  She said that the talk I gave was directly an answer from god to her.  It gave her faith and hope to move forward.  This was a testimony builder to me that god does answer prayers, and in complete honesty it is the spirit that does all the teaching.  As well I learned more fully that the lord is completely honest when it comes to his promises. 

(For the record to those of you who feel like you want to do this next time you are asked to give a talk, it goes a lot smoother if you prepare.  This is used in emergencies. not for every talk) 

Welp that is about it, have a great week

Elder Tucker 

ARTS AND CRAFTS

So this week I spent a lot of my down time making random stuff.  Don't really know why I just got really excited to make stuff. This email is the list of stuff I made.

1: Rainbow bead lion necklace.

I  have this ebony lion necklace that  got from some Masai ladies that I love to wear.  Well somehow this week it broke.  So after moping for a second, I gathered up all the beads that I could find and fixed it.  The only problem is the beads weren't all there, so I had to improvise.  Luckily I still had my makeshift hacky sack I made a few months back during lockdown days.  I stole some beads from that and finished it out, it looks a little funky but it gets the job done.  

2.  A bag true to my heritage

I got a package on Sunday. In this package was the most useful tool in all of existence... the one... the only.... DUCK TAPE!!!!!!!!!!  I was super excited!  So my proselyting bag I have sewn up like eighteen times but it keeps ripping in different places, and it isn't water proof.  Sometimes my books get ruined if it is super rainy, so I decided I was going to fix that.  I had my mother send me some lime green duck tape, and this morning I made myself a duck tape proselyting bag, with some flattened bottle caps as buttons.  I am really proud of this bag, it totally made my week.  I will send a picture.

I made some other stuff but they were kind of a failure, and other just little trinkets

out of papers and wires and crap to put on my desk and play with when I am bored but yeah, it was a fun time. 

Love you guys

Elder Tucker

Nectar of the Gods, a pool baptism and elephants.

Sup, I don't have much of and intro so... STORIES!

1. "I am going to get high off of sniffing this aluminum can"-me

This week was great for a few reasons, one of them being after literally a year and a half of searching. I finally found it...ROOT BEER!!!!!!!!!! A&W!!!!!!!!!!! STRAIGHT FROM THE STATES!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I drank seven of them and almost cried at my first sip.  Then after every can would smell them to still get some sensation of this beautiful beautiful creation, straight from heaven.  We also bought some ice cream to make some floats and it was so amazing! Literally best thing I have had in over a year.  I can't wait till I get some Brigham's Brew  Root Beer again.

2. "No jack, no cannon balls"

We finally had a baptism in our area Nakuru.  It has been over a year and our building fell down a few months ago.  Causing us to be shifting from a hotel and some members houses. Which caused attendance to severely drop. However the work of the Lord will progress. We finally had a baptism, and we got to do it in a swimming pool. I thought that was pretty sick, then we had the service under a palm tree.  Not something you get to do everyday.

3. "AHH! IT FARTED ON ME!!!" - Sister Bamu

Today for p day, we went to the elephant orphanage.  Turns out baby orphaned elephants are really gassy and love to pick on sisters haha.  They were super cute.  They would run up to the bottles and just down like three gallons of milk, then just play around.  I tried to get an elephant hair so I could hang out with the cool gorillas. (Refrence to Disney's Tarzan)  but I sadly failed, turns out those suckers are pretty tough to get.  But I did get too pet an elephant, and also I got to pet and feed a giraffe named Kiko.  Cool little dude.

Yeah good week, here are some pics since it has been forever​. We weren't able to get the pictures to load. We have to get permission it says. Working on this. 

Interesting/Funny side note from Mom.  Teron's 1st cousin is also on a mission he has been out 1 yr and a 1/2.  His weekly letter also included a description of happiness. This week was the first time he has been able to taste Root Beer since he entered the mission field in South Korea! It ws a Root Beer kinda week. 

This man knows nothing of customer service! Elder Tucker

What's up everybody?  First off, My I would like to say... that is a very nice hat Joe, way to fashion today!  Now that that is out of the way I guess we can move onto some stories, this week had quite a few, so I will sum some up in some sentences.  Kenya now has two presidents, one of the deputy presidents is a watermelon.  I have started a war on ants, and so far I am losing. I found the sickest barber ever! but now for the highlights...

1:"Yeah I don't feel too good BLUUUHHH"-also me

 I honestly don't know where the problem was on Wednesday.  It could have been the mango I ate, beans and Sukuma, and or the amount of Cocoa and Ngumu, but my stomach was very very upset Wednesday evening. My I told my companion the above statement, ran outside, and threw up absolutely everything.  Luckily the bishops wife is a funny character and after me returning just looked and said," Elder Tucker, if my food is that bad, you can just say no!" then every one laughed, while I kept running in an out to vomit, it was a very interesting lesson to say the least.needless to say, we went home after that so I could finish dying.

2:Subject

Okay, so i have mentioned Matatus in my earlier emails, but in case you forgot, it is a Hippi van, that is supposed to seat fifteen people but very normally reaches about twenty five.  Anywho, any one who has driven with me anywhere knows that cars make me sleepy, and church, especially on fast Sunday.  So living a forty minute drive from the church fast Sunday is pretty much Elder Tucker trying to fight of sleeping all day.  Well I managed to make it through all of church (a rare accomplishment for the tucker Klan) but on the ride home I lost the never ending battle.  At one point the conductor was trying to fill the Matatu to full capacity and had to wake me up so as to get me to scoot over.  Now normally, you would gently wake up your customer and then ask them to scoot over, NO! this stupid conductor straight up SLAPPED ME! not even asking first just went straight to SLAP THE MZUNGU! I woke up real upset, but my companion just died of laughter.  This wasn't a tap too, this man wanted to slap me! It was a rough Sunday, but I made it through. 

Well that is it for me, hope you guys have a fun time, k bye

Elder Tucker

Dear Dad, 

What I like about my companion is he is totally genuine.  He is himself and he doesn't change for people. My favorite member is Axxx he is super funny and very animated. He totally lies to us all the time about how crazy Kenya is.....

We only have 2 or 3 progressing investigators. Finding investigators is a challenge but we keep trying. 

Sorry about no snow. Love you Dad! Teron

"Dude why are you walking so weird?" Elder Jack

A small FYI, another transfer has come and gone. I will again be remaining in Naivasha/Nakuru, with Elder Jack.  In fact most of our district is the same other than we got a new set of sisters.  I guess God wanted to give our District Leader more headaches haha. The people are too used to me here, everyone seems to know me. They say "the Muzungu who speaks Swahili and Kikuyu, he teaches about Christ". Anyway, lets hear some stories:

1: Subject

So while walking this week, my shoe started feeling really funny, so as we kept walking I was trying to fix it by walking different.  After doing this for about a kilometer my comp stopped me and asked essentially "What I was doing?"  It was at this point that I finally looked at my shoes.  As I lifted my foot to look at my shoe the entire heel came off, and half of the sole.  So we thought we should check the other one as well, same thing happened.  I was not prepared for that, so I went the rest of the day proselyting in some cheap flip flops, it was awesome. I will buy new black shoes. 

2:"Moose?"-Elder Mbaya

So this week we also had exchanges.  I got blessed to work with an Elder from DRC Congo.  His name is Elder Mbaya. Anywho somehow in our conversations throughout the day he asked me what kind of animals we have in North America.  In the limited English that he knows I tried to explain a moose, but he really only understood brown, furry, and lives in the woods.  So while we were visiting an investigator,he saw a commercial for national geographic.  It was a scene of a grizzly bear eating salmon.  So in the middle of the lesson, he taps me on the shoulder and says "Elder, moose?" but before I could say anything he just says "that thing looks scary. I don't want to meet one, it will eat me!"  I started giggling at that point, but he just kept saying how afraid he is of moose now, and he saw a bear.  I still haven't told him it wasn't a moose. I just want to be there for the realization moment.

This week was good, we may have a baptism in a week. Then it will take off from there. 

Have a good one,

Elder Tucker the one of two, not the only