December 29/2013

     We had a great talk with Carson on Christmas morning.  He told us he would be calling at 8 or 9 am our time, but ended up not calling until about quarter after 10.  That would have been about quarter after 8 pm for him.   We didn't really recognize his voice when we answered his phone call but after a second or two we were so excited that it was really him!  We attempted recording his conversation so hopefully this makes sense.
     He wished us a Merry Christmas and then told us about what he had done that day.  "Went to the Knecht's, (it's pronounced like "connects")  had dinner over there.  Then went to the church, had an investigator chill with us and then we came home and chilled...did some laundry."
    He said he had a bit of a hard time trying to figure out how to call out to Canada and had to have the senior couple search on the computer first. '
     He asked for the "Mzee".  (pronounced "Ma-zay")  which meant that he was asking for Dad.  Carson told us that if you look up Mzee in the swahili dictionary it actually means "old man" but it can mean father/elder so over there "Whenever we're talking to someone we say 'I'm Mzee Williams, and this is Mzee Ojogollo," etc...
     This was his reaction when we asked him if he liked the present we sent with him to open Christmas morning..."Oh my goodness, I almost cried!  I was bawling...I was on the ground bawling!  It was funny because the week before I was talking to one of my brothers from the MTC and the both of us were saying we want peanut butter and homemade jam.  I was...I was...it was wonderful!   I went and made myself a sandwich right off the bat...right when I saw that.  I was...yes...I went and made myself a sandwich.  It was wonderful!  It was so good!  It was awesome!"

     Then Ashlee asked him if he had seen any exciting wildlife yet.
     "No I haven't seen any wildlife except for some crazy huge frogs.  Lots of frogs and crickets.  The one I found yesterday was about tennis ball size.  It was the biggest one I've seen.  It was pretty fun!"

(Taylor later told us that Carson had sent her a picture a few weeks ago of a frog like the ones he talked about on the phone.  So here is the picture he sent a while back...)

     Kaylee asked him if he had eaten any frogs and when he said No, she told him to let the inner Duck Dynasty out and have at it.  

     He told us "the craziest thing I've eaten so far is an octopus.  I liked it.  It was good!"

     

     I was excited to tell him that I got a 22 rifle for my Christmas present this year.  That may not have been a good idea because it started this conversation...

Carson:  "Awww  crap!  Nooooo nooooo!  You guys are torturing me right now.  Awwww.  You got new carpet in...you got the kitchen all renovated and now you got...awwww."

Mom:  "Just think how nice it's gonna be when you get home!"

Carson:  "You guys better stock up on ammo for when I get home.  I'm gonna be gun happy...trigger happy!!!"

Kaylee:  "And we got a John Wayne lever action 243!"

Carson:  "What???   Lever what???   Lever action???"

Kaylee:  "It's like hardcore!"

Carson:  "Ohhh that's awesome!  Oh shoot!  Now you know...you guys are gonna make this mission go on a lot longer.  It's gonna feel like FOUR years now!"

Mom:  "Naw...just think of it as we're setting up the house for when you get home."

Carson:  "I've been thinking the last few weeks....   Once I get off my mission, this is what's gonna be happening...hunting seasons gonna be starting.  Hockey seasons gonna be starting.  Football seasons gonna be starting.  Duck Dynasty's gonna be there waiting for me.  And now a 22!  I'm just...I'm just...The blessings are coming!  Even before they're happening!  It's wonderful!

     (He used a lot of "Like" and a lot of "wonderful" when he talked to us!)

     There was one point when he was talking to Kaylee about rugby vs. soccer vs. football.  We made him say the word "football" over and over again.  He said it soooo funny!  "Phooot-a-ball"  We laughed at his little accent that he's getting.  

     He talked about his chips mayia which is pronounced "Chips My-eye."

     We asked him about his laundry.  He said, "Everybody's been criticizing me because my shirts are turning yellow...and they have big black spots on them!  So just before I phoned you guys, I scrubbed all four of my shirts that I have.  Right now they look very clean but in the morning, they're probably gonna have like bird poop all over them or something like that.  ...   I just wash em in a bucket, throw some soap in there, and then throw em on the line to dry.  ...  Well, once they're dry, I just kinda casually pitch them in my closet and then once I need to wear them, then I iron them."

   We also asked him how often he goes to the members houses to eat...  

Carson:  "Uhhh...like my first transfer was every Monday.  Every Monday night we would go for Family Home Evening but like lately this lady's mom...the moma...has been traveling so we've not been able to but the last transfer, we've been going...uh...once a week?  Pretty much once, maybe twice a week."

Mom:  "So do you eat at home the rest of the time or just go out to eat?"

Carson:  "So most of the time we're eating out.  We don't have time to cook and we don't have the energy or the creative mind to do it."

Dad:  "What does it cost to get a chicken dinner?"

Carson:  "Like you can get chips kuku which is just a chicken and chips, like a lot of chips and that'll be 2500 tsh.  Or you can just get kuku which is chicken and a little bit of chips and that's 2000 tsh.

Dad:  "That's like 2 dollars?"

Carson:  "Ya...that's pretty close to 2 dollars."

Dad:  "I wouldn't cook there either.

Carson:  "And then chips, just plain chips, is just 1500 tsh so that's kinda what I go for."

Kaylee:  "Are they as good as Wendy's?"

Carson:  "I don't know.  I can't remember what Wendy's tasted like.  I've ate chips so much here.  The thing with these chips are they're like deep fried and well...they're warm too.  Like we'll get there and they're just taking them out of the batter.  Slap em down and you're like "fix me some chips buddy!"  They wrap it in tinfoil and you bring it home and it's steaming warm and you're just ahhhh...yes!"

   We asked about the shopping situation over there...where can you go to buy fruits, vegetables, shirts, shoes, etc...

Carson:  "Ya...there's like shopping malls all over the place.  Like in my first area there's a city mall where we could go and there's a big grocery store in there and you could go get whatever you wanted.  You could get apples, oranges, pop, mango juice, and like, basically like a Walmart.  Ya, just a little bit smaller than a Walmart.  And there's lots of places like along the streets where you can get apples and such.  Apples regularly cost about 300 - 500 tsh."

Dad:  "Could you ever go buy a new shirt or a suit or some shoes anywhere over there?"

Carson:  "You can...it's just for me...I need to know kiswahili so I can bargain with these guys cause right now...they see me and they're like..."woooo...mazo (?)...lots of money...let's get as much money from them as we can!"  So if Elder Ojogollo walked up to the guy and said, "Hey...how much is that shirt?"  He'd say...maybe 9000 tsh.  Then I'd walk up..."How much is that shirt?"  He'd say 15,000 tsh.  So I haven't bought a shirt or shoes here but once I know kiswahili I'll be able to talk them down.  Cause usually a shirt costs anywhere from 9000 tsh to like 15000-20000 tsh.  It's just you gotta bargain with the guy cause they're just trying to get as much money off of you as they can.  And so you just gotta play with them a little bit and be like..."Oh ya...all I got is 9000."  Well, can I do 10?  "No, all I got is 9" and they say no..."Ok...see ya!"

Dad:  "So how much is 9000 in our language?"

Carson:  "Pretty close to 6 dollars cause 20 bucks is 15,000 tsh, so 9000 is...pretty close."

   The talk turned to money after that with us giving Carson a bit of advice on how to get some extra money from home.  He's having some trouble using the bank machine so we've been trying to figure out another solution for him.  Unfortunately...about halfway through that conversation...Carson's phone ran out of minutes.  So twenty LOOONG minutes after that, he called back!  He had to run down to some store to buy more minutes for his phone.  Dad finished giving him the money advice and then talk turned to missionary work.  

Dad:  "So how's the missionary work going?"

Carson:  "Oh...it's going great.  So like right now our area's looking great.  We got two areas now.  So this other area is doing very well.    We actually got this referral from the other missionaries.  We taught him for about three weeks and then he said he was going off to his home...like for about a month.  We didn't hear from him.  And so this last week he came back and he was talking to us and he's like, "Hey, can I have some Book of Mormon's?"  And we're like "sure...how many?"  "Seventeen!"  So we're like, "why?" and he says , "Oh, I've been teaching my family back in Punda."  That's 3 or 4 hours out of Dar and they all want Book of Mormon's and they all want to be taught by the missionaries and so we're like..."Ya, sure we can get you all these materials."  When we talked to the senior couple and they're like we can't go see them but the senior couples and them can go see them.  But missionaries can't until we get some new missionaries to come in.  But it was very good.  

     It was funny, this one day we went to this one place and all of our investigators that were in that area (he whistled here) were stone cold drunk!  And all these guys were like...looking at us and "Oh hey, the missionaries are here."  And they were talking to us.  And like we started talking to them and they're like..."you know, we don't want to do this anymore.  We don't want to be drunks.  We don't want to be drinking anymore.  We want to change.  Can you help us change?"  And we're like sure.  It was awesome.  So we were taking down all their contact information and we were teaching them.  It was great.  But the thing was, they were stone cold drunk so I  don't know if in the morning they remembered anything about it.

Dad:  "You'll just have to see.  So how often do you tract?"

Carson:  "Uh...not really.  Not too much.  We have lots and lots of lessons right now.  Like, I've gone tracting a few times.  But right now we have lessons, lessons, lessons, lessons.  We get referrals from the members and from the investigators and so we go and contact them and we go and we see people.

Dad:  "So how many discussions do you teach in a day?"

Carson:  "In a day...seven.  Well, actually, the last (?) day, we split and Elder Ojogollo went with these branch missionaries to Sinza area and I went in Kinondoni and we got a total of nine lessons.  Nine member present lessons...like ten lessons overall in one day.

Dad:  "So the language...are you figuring that out pretty good?"

Carson:  "Oh ya.  It's very very good.  Like it's awesome!"

Dad:  "I still laugh when I think of you teaching english though!"

Carson:  "Ya, I know.  I'm laughing too.  These guys, they have me teaching the advanced class.  Elder Ojogollo takes the young bucks so they can speak kiswahili, then I take the old bucks and it's funny.  These guys are asking questions and it's like...ummm...let's look in the dictionary for that.  Like they'll come up to me and they'll be watching scientific movies..."hey what does this mean?"

     We were worried that the phone might cut off again so we asked him to bear his testimony for us...

      "Ya..ok...sawa.  This missionary work over here is awesome.  Like it's just...these people are so powerful and they're so chill too.  Like you'll talk to them and they'll be like "ya, sure, teach me the discussions, I'm all for it."  Lots of these people are sacrificing and they really don't have much.  They're so willing and they're willing to do all this stuff and it's just wonderful!  We've been having all these discussions and people have been changing.  Like this one guy we've been teaching him and at first he wouldn't listen to us.  He'd just ask us the same questions over and over again.  And this last week his countenance kinda changed and so he's been kind of...changing.  And he's like..."I wanna be baptized", he broke down..and whoo."

      "So it's been great.  Ya, I know this is the Lord's work.  And that this is what God wants us all to do.  In church we got to watch the "Work and Salvation" video.  It's basically the prophet and all the apostles doing this devotional for the new missionaries to train them so that when they go to their areas that they get the members involved.  And how to spread missionary work and how missionary work happens and that most importantly investigators will relate to the members more.  That's why member present lessons are so important.  We're gonna be leading this discussion next week and I hope it goes good."

     "Like it's awesome!  This is awesome!  I'm really feeling it over here!  I'm very grateful for what you guys have done for me and been helping me to do.  I'm especially thanking both of you guys that have such an influence on my life and you help me to be out here and I'm very happy and I'm loving what I'm doing!  I'm very exhausted from all the walking that we have to do.  But it's awesome!  I'm loving it over here!  Lots of fun!"

     "I miss you guys.  I don't know, you guys tell me negative 50 weather and I'm just like, uhhh...I'm ok.  I'm okay with this positive 40 weather...getting sunburned and all that.  I miss you guys.  I know the Church is true.  I've seen it affect people's lives and I've seen it help people for the better.  And I say these things, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

   After drying some of our tears then...we still had a few minutes so we asked him about his malaria experience.

Mom:  "How sick were you?  What was going on?"

Carson:  "It felt like the flu but just ten times worse.  I was out of energy.  I had a huge headache and diarrhea...like explosive diarrhea!  It wasn't good.  So we just went to the hospital one day.  This Roman Catholic place.  So there were all these nuns running around.  They're like "What's wrong?"  And yelling at me in kiswahili and I'm like, "I don't know what you're saying to me...I'm just having some problems and I don't know what's going on with me." And they're like..."We understand English."  Oh...ok.  So I started talking to the lady and she's like..."oh...you've got malaria.  This is what you need.  Go get some pills."  Ok.  And then about a week later I was starting to feel better.  But then we went to the hospital again just to kind of make sure and they took some more blood.  They used a huge needle too!  Drained some blood out of me and then they came back and said, "ya, you're free to go."

   And then that's when we lost him for the last time.  But we're still so thankful to hear his voice and hear how excited he is to be over there.  We are feeling so blessed and very thankful for his health and safety!  Overall, it's one of the best Christmas's we've ever had!