Elder Matt Hansen:

Everything here in Mombasa is going well. The heat is really starting to pick up though but it could be worse. Hopefully I'll be gone by the time the heat hits hard but we will see. The work is still moving along and for the most part is going well. I'm glad that the measles campaign is over, now hopefully more people will be home this week. Its not too effective to knock doors, ha I don't even know what people think when they see two white guys but its always interesting. The worst is when we tract into Muslim homes. You never know until they answer the door, then you can tell a few things 1- by their clothes, and if not that then 2- whether they have a black dot on their forehead from praying, or 3- by their names, ha. Its kind of awkward though when we run into them because they don't want to hear anything about our message and so it kind of puts you at a loss of words, ya know? Most of them are kind though so that's good. We had a baptism yesterday and that went through well. It was a sister of one we baptized a few weeks ago so that's pretty exciting, they are both strong in the church. Also I had to teach Elders Quorum yesterday but it wasn't a big deal because there were only like 6 people in the class, it was pathetic. We spoke about home teaching, something that doesn't happen here. We are going to talk about it again next week so hopefully that will help to get it going. If members home taught it would help the branch so much, it would help with retention and that's one thing we struggle with here. So that's about all that's going on here in Mombasa. We are going to the beach to play soccer today so I'm pretty pumped about that, should be fun!

Elder Brantley Shattuck:

Apartment inspection

Sept 8, 2009
This week went pretty well, we had three investigators at church, one of which got really overwhelmed and felt like it was too much for her. The other one was a father and son who came without the mom because she isn't ready, Andy (the father) however is a lot more ready and prepared than she is so that will be a process with them, they are from Twin Falls.

Other than that though work is pretty much the same, we have apartment inspections tomorrow which probably won't be too fun, Sister Albright is expecting immaculate houses and the townhouse I am in has be inhabited by missionaries for over 5 years, so it is in pretty bad shape, the Slaters(relief society president) paid for us to get a carpet shampooer and it didn't have much of an effect on any of the carpet.... oh well, what can you do? Life is good though.

Sept 14, 2009
The work is going really well. Yesterday was a pretty neat day for me. Sitting in the Aquia sacrament meeting I looked around and I saw Sheila Oertly, the Montalvo's, Susie Dodson, Mark Lefebure, and then we had two new investigators at church as well named Bobbie and George Cash. It was a bit humbling see how much the Lord has blessed me in this area. We have a lot of people to teach right now, which I am very thankful for. We are teaching a family from Twin Falls, Idaho right now and they are a perfect family, young with two kids, they would just be the type of family everyone looks to teach on their mission. The wife has been the slow one, but in our last lesson we were able to have a member come with us that connected with her really well and there was a different countenance than the previous lessons. I really hope she steps up to the plate and overcomes her concerns. Elder Shattuck

Sept 21, 2009
Had a really neat experience this weekend as I was able to attend stake conference, Elder Neal L. Andersen happened to be presiding so I was able to hear from him, both times, the adult session as well as the general session. It was great he talked about temples in the adult session. Then in general conference he talked a lot about doing the basics of scripture study and stuff like that. The adult session was far better though, I remember going to the church and caulking around greeting all the people I know and doing the missionary thing making sure to get seen and remind people about missionary work.... anyways once it started to settle down I remember sitting down and listening to the prelude music as he walked into the chapel.... it was a very simple yet powerful feeling that came, to be in the presence of an Apostle is a special thing. I got a picture with him:

Elder Andersen, Elder Shattuck, Elder Smith

I also ate my first vegetarian meal last night, it wasn't to bad. It was lasagna and had like fake sausage or something in it, I was surprised I was pretty nervous about it.

Elder Adam Walker:

Elder Chin and Elder Walker



Elder Alec Fullmer & Elder Adam Walker




Zone Conference

Aug 24, 2009
Well I have transfer news... I'm getting transferred to a new area. I'm going to Lexington, Virginia. I have been called to be a Zone Leader, not too exited about that but the town that I am serving in is the Mormon town of Virginia, half the people are LDS so it will be kinda weird, compared to everywhere else I have been. There is a college there, Southern Virginia University, and it is pretty much the BYU of Virginia, there are 6 student wards and it is ran by church members. So we will see how it goes, I'm exited to see. We cover 3 student wards and it sounds like 1 family ward. So that will be really weird compared to just one family ward. I leave here tomorrow. We set a lady for baptism here this past week, Shannon Neely, and she is solid, she will be an awesome member. She was an Anti Mormon 2 months ago and was addicted to Heroin 2 years ago. She talked to her preacher about the Book of Mormon because we gave her one while tracting and her preacher told her just to give it back to us because it was a nonsense book. Well, she wondered why it was nonsense, she started reading and then she couldn't put it down. Now she is getting baptized. Her conversion started over 2 years ago because she was addicted to drugs (mostly Heroin) and other prescription drugs. She was trapped and felt that she was never going to be able to get out. She was in an abusive relationship with her x-husband and that didn't help matters. One day she had just gotten home and she was out of it and she was suicidal, she didn't want to live any more, she was questioning if God even existed at that point. When she walked into her kitchen she fell on her knees and prayed her heart out. From that point everything has gone up, she has been completely clean of drugs since October 10, 2007 and the even better part is that she is going to be baptized October 10, 2009! She has been being prepared for over 2years now. Its amazing how God works with each of his children. Some are ready in a heart beat and others take years and years to become what he wants us to become. Everything is going well here, I'm exited to go to a new area, it will be interesting and a new experience but it should be fun.

Aug 31, 2009
Elder Reed is awesome, we are having a great time and having some great success. We are teaching some great people and I believe we will have quite a few baptisms here pretty soon. This area is awesome, I love it. There are 6 missionaries that are really close and there is just a ton of work to do. This is every missionary's dream place to come, and I got lucky and here I am. It's weird cause we will walk down a street in one of the towns here and people will say hi to us. There are a ton of members here compared to everywhere else. There are 8 wards within a 10 mile radius. Its great. Five singles wards, that is fun, we were able to speak in one of them this past week, there are a lot of good people here. We have been really busy, its been a fun week. We are teaching a lady and her kid has autism and it is really hard to teach because her daughter is always just going crazy. The last time that we went over there she spilt sprite all over Elder Reeds Scripture Case. The funny part about it was that she hit it once on purpose then he picked it up and set it on the table and then she came over and pushed it over again, we didn't know what was going on. Overall everything is going really well though. We are doing great and staying really busy. Zone conference is Thursday so we are looking forward to that. We have some good things planned for that so it will be great. D & C 121-123 have been some scriptures that have been really close to my heart the last while. I guess there is a talk from Elder Holland in the Ensign this month. Its about Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail. I believe there is some great advise for all of us in there. It might be something you would want to look up and study, it puts adversity in a good perspective. Thanks for everything, everything is going well and I am loving out here. I love you, Elder walker

Sept 9, 2009
Everything is great here, life is good. Its been a great week. One of the people that we are teaching received his answer that the church is true on Sunday. He is on the Football team at SVU and he is a good kid. He was having a hard time with getting an answer to his prayers, but last week we taught him how to fast and promised him that the day that he fasted he would receive his answer. Well he tried it and guess what, he got his answer, it was great. It was at a very interesting time as well. There was a kid that was bearing his testimony in one of the singles wards that Ross goes to and me and elder Reed were just looking at each other saying, "this is not good" it was just one of those testimonies that you don't really think that an investigator would be to impressed to hear. Well that was his spiritual moment in coming to know that the church was true. It just goes to show, you never know how the lord is going to work. He works in very mysterious ways. Many times through the most unpredictable people. he is getting baptized Sept 25th. so it is coming up soon. We also set another lady this week for October 10th, Her name is Melissa and she has a 5 year old daughter that has autism. She is really nice just has a lot of struggles. She is getting baptized October 10th. So we are looking forward to that. This area is awesome. We cover 3 wards, 1 family ward and 2 singles wards. We stay really busy, and its fun because the singles wards are all fired up about missionary work because they all have friends that are not members and they are inviting like crazy, its awesome. We found a new lady to teach this past week, she is really good and she will come along. We are hoping to get her fiancee involved as well.

Sept 14, 2009
It's really weird having missionaries coming out that graduated in 2009, its weird, I'm getting old. Haha. That’s great that you had a lesson on missionary work at church. Its something that everyone needs to hear there is no doubt about that. It’s the most important thing we can ever do. We have something that is very special that no one else has so its important to share. The thought that I have been leaving with people is I start of by asking them, “what does the Book of Mormon mean to them” and then what do you think the Book of Mormon meant to Joseph Smith? Then I read a few versus out of DC 135 (v.3 and sometimes another one, just depends). It kind of opens people eyes of how important it is and reasons that we need to share it with people. We are doing really well here, the Lord is blessing us a lot right now, we have 4 people set with baptism dates. One is Sept 25, another Oct 10 and we have 2 set for Nov 7, we also have a lady that we are going to set with a date tonight, and we have 2 or 3 more that will have dates as soon as we are able to teach them again. There is a fire for missionary work here right now in all the wards that I am in, especially the student wards. Its been great, members are really trying to find people for us to teach so we are spending a lot more time teaching. I am really enjoying it, I love it. Me and Elder Reed get along really well, things are falling into place really nicely and I am loving it. The work is great, time is flying and I love life. Elder Walker

Elder Scott Snell:

Aug 31, 2009
Nothing to exciting happened this week it was just the same old same old. A little frustrating at times but that is life. I am feeling like my time here in my are right now is coming to an end in the next couple of weeks with the transfer. We have two more weeks left in this transfer and it marks almost six months in this area. I am a little worried about where I will get sent cause I don't have to much time to get to know the ward and are before I have to leave that one again but oh well. I will just work hard until they make me leave. I have been going on a lot of splits with younger missionaries lately and some of it is fun and some of them I am glad I am not their comp. It is a little wearing though, I just want to work in my area with my investigators.

Sept 7, 2009
This week was a good one, we are sure staying busy. We have to run from appointment to appointment, running errands for our branch in between that. To top it off I got a call from the home office telling us to look for a new house, which we really didn't have time to do. Well, we didn't really find a house and we barely made it to all of our appointments. So now this week we have even more appointments, still have to find a house and before I transfer finish making a member book for our Branch President. Fun Fun Fun. I guess I would choose this over not having anything to do. But we have a week full of stuff to do and not much time to do it. Time always goes faster when you are staying busy though. I love you. I am loving this work. The church is true. Elder Snell