So last week on Tuesday when we were traveling back to our area and we were packed 26 of us in a matatu. The road was suuuper muddy because it was raining. There was some stuck cars we passed. Our matatu was super heavy and as we passed them i said in Swahili "Our fatness makes us stong", it made the entire matatu laugh LOL but it was true!! This guy named Brother Chyulu came to Mautuma branch and supplied us with a new printer that also scans and copies, he also got us a new battery pack for when the power goes out, and he fixed the wifi!! Guys like him are so nice, they just come and fix things! This week we called a lot of the people that we got there numbers the week before. From it we got 5 new investigators!! And 4 of them are adult men who have families and speak English, EXACTLY what we are looking for! One of them is named Simon he has some really good potential. We gave him a restoration pamphlet and we met with him the next day and he read the entire pamphlet and had lots of questions and wants to know more about Joseph smith and the book of Mormon!!! We went to the branch presidents house for breakfast one morning. He really loves us, and we love him back too!! He is such a great branch president! Probably the best!!! We then went and visited another member named Euphresia and she gave us some food after the lesson and on there tiny little tv somehow there was WWE. Her mother was soooooo into it hahahaha i was laughing so hard!! She was clapping and making sounds and having the time of her life LOL! After church on Sunday we visited some investigators and then we went to the 1st counselors house and roasted some maize together "This is beautiful" In his own words! It was such a nice time! We talked about the church, his conversion story, family, and just the simple life in Mautuma. Also about the dangerous animals around, like green and black mambas that can kill you between 30-minutes to 3 hours if bitten.... We have a busy week ahead of us but i am really loving the mission and trying to get all i can out of it!! 😄 make sure to keep a smile on your face! it will make you happy and those that see it happy!! 😊 I wish all the best week ever! May happiness be in your life and good vibes come your way! Enjoy the 4th of July for me you beautiful Americans [?] Love, Elder Merz

We had a great great DDM last Tuesday with the zone. Me and my companion reported on things we got from MLC. One of the big subjects and things we were supposed to train on was about Giving it our all. We asked the questions What are we actually here to do? Why is giving it your all important? How will it help us? How will we do it? and then also some scriptures that come to mind. We had a very great discussion together. This is also an important principle to apply to our everyday lives. In EVERYTHING we do we need to give it our all. No half efforts here. If you give it your all you will excel in whatever you are doing! We are teaching a 10 year old girl named Barbara. She is Sharons little sister. She is soooo smart!! We teach her the lessons in a more simple way that she'll understand and teach the most important points. She understands and remembers them suuuuper well!! I haven't seen someone like her before she is truly incredible! We have a few lessons with her and hope to have her baptized soon!! We did loooots of finding and contacting this last week. We now have a load of numbers we are going to be following up with this week. We have also gotten some referrals from members which is the best for finding because then you have someone to help you teach them and they already have a relationship with someone in the church! We have been biking a lot the last week and some of the days i was just dead tired. I was out at like 9 one night! Saturday we were at a funeral all day and then went and taught an investigator with the help of a member. We visited sister Jane again and she came to church again!! It then started raining super hard and we were up on the mountain so we went to another members for shelter and we got some ugali and pumpkin leaves out of it!! Wooow its suuuuuuper good!!! A new favorite food with ugali!! Congrats to my cousin/best friend Tim for finishing his mission this week!!! I cant believe it is already time! I still remember when you left!! I know he'll get a great welcome home!! Love ya bro!! Congrats!!! :) thanks for leading the way for us! Thats about it for the week!! Enjoy the smiles around you! Love, Elder Merz

This week we had Zone Conference in Eldoret so we slept in our flat for one night and then last Monday we were here in Kitale emailing and then Tuesday we went to Eldoret. Our zone conference was great!!! We talked a lot about the Doctrine of Christ and how it is so important. Go and study yourself these chapters. 2 Nephi 31-32, 3 Nephi 11 & 27. The question was asked How does our understanding of the Doctrine of Christ manifest itself? There were many great answers and contributions but i would like to share 2 quotes, i guess you could call them, from my mission president. He said "A lot of this is in the doing. Not just talking about it." A lot of living and following the Doctrine of Christ is in actually DOING something. Everyone can talk about it. And lets be honest, talk is cheap. Where things happen is in the action. The other thing he said was "We need to understand it that it does in fact, change our natures." I really love my mission President. I am sure everyone can say theirs is the best, but mine is no acception. It also all comes down to HOW we understand the Doctrine of Christ. The more we UNDERSTAND it, the better we will be able to follow Him and the better we will become each and every day. It was interesting, so Elder Card got transferred to Kisumu. And so we were once again together at zone conference. Once again together in Eldoret....i never in my life thought we would both be back in that city at the exact same time. We slept at the Huruma Zone Leaders flat and Elder Card and I slept on the floor on some mattresses. the only thing that bugged us was......a nearby Mosque at legit 3AM starting "praying" and they turned up there microphones to world on like full blast. It woke us both up and we just laughed about it together at 3am haha! This week at the end of the week we extended 3 baptismal dates! We are getting back to work now. And i like that now i am in charge. We are really working on finding new people to teach. We visited manyyy members this week and took them My family books to help them start their family history. We visited this super less-active lady and helped her start to fill out the book with her own information. She loved telling us stories and remembering things and a Miracle happened!!! SHE CAME TO CHURCH!!!! For the entire church block as well as participating in the classes!! Blessings truly do come from Family History! DO YOUR OWN and feel the love for those loved ones you have. Find out their awesome stories. I had a great week and i hope that all of you have a fantastic week as well!! Enjoy the blessings that God will grant you this week! Love from your village boy, Elder C. Merz

So let me explain how last week went. Elder Limu and I woke up at 5 to get picked up at 6 by a taxi guy. The taxi got stuck in the mud and didnt show up until 7. We had to load up his stuff and drive suuuuper fast to Misikhu to pick up Elder Brown and Elder Phokane. We did the drive in 40 minutes, and we were FLYING!! Thats like world record speed LOL. We picked them up and then the guy had to drive super fast as well to Kitale so that they would not miss there bus, which left at 9 sharp. We met with the Kitale Elders there, printed the tickets and they caught the bus by Gods grace!! Elder Brown is going to Kayole to be a Zone Leader, Elder Pratt is going to Lucky Summer Nairobi, and Elder Limu is being transferred to Zimbabwe LOL. Then my new comp. Elder Ncube came that evening but we had to sleep in Kitale. The next morning we took Elder Konyana (Elder Pratts old comp) to the bus station because he is going to Nairobi and training a new guy. Then we had to wait all day and pick up Elder Munayiri who is the new District Leader here and is with Elder Phokane. But our areas are way to far to go there so we slept another night in the kitale flat even though no kitale missionary was there. The next morning we took a taxi that dropped those guys at there flat in Misikhu and then took us to Mautuma. The mud roads were more of a horrible slip-n-slide due to the rain. But we made it. Elder Ncube got to unpack a few things and pack his bag for Nairobi and the taxi took us back to Misikhu. We were in Mautuma for about 30 minutes. We took a matatu to Kitale and slept there again! 3rd night in a row! And then we left in the morning from the Kitale bus station to Nairobi for MLC. (Missionary leaders meeting with the Mission President). We picked up the Eldoret Zone Leaders and the sister training leaders, so it was fun the travel with them! Especially with my boy Elder Fraga! We had MLC and i learned some great things (i will share in a minute) then Saturday we traveled back to the western part of Kenya. After a 10 hour bus ride and some traffic and traveling issues we had to stay with the Misikhu elders because we would have gotten home super late if we went to our area. So then Sunday we had to wake up super early again (5am for the 3rd time this week) and travel to Naitiri where we attended church and then we went to the flat and slept there last night. So we were in our area 1 day the whole week. We are so sick of traveling, buuut lucky us we have zone conference this week so we are traveling to Eldoret tomorrow LOL!! In MLC we talked about how we can give it our all as missionaries. The Lord really does and will help us as we learn to trust in him and do what he wants us to do. Miracles are happening here in Kenya and each companionship should be able to experience them! I hope this week everyone can trust in the Lord more. His promises are real, and can not be broken. He WILL hold up his end of the deal, but is up to us if we are going to follow through with our end. I love Him and the blessings that he has given me. Even though this last week we were not in our area he still blessed us with a new invistigator who we even set a bapitsmal date with. He knows us, and our situatuions. He loves us soooo much, even if you are sitting on a bus for 10 hours traveling cross country. I wish you all the best this week as you trust in the Lord more. And feel of His blessings, love, and peace. Lots of Love, Elder C. Merz

I slept in my bed 2 times this last week, we went to Kitale and had a going away party for Elder Limu. We just got some meat and Elder Pratt and I made some chapatis and we had some fun together! We did some flat checks again and then Elder Limu went back to Mautuma with Elder Phokane and i went to Misikhu with Elder Brown. It was so awesome to go on exchanges with my first MTC companion. Let me just say we are MUCH better than we were in the MTC lol! We visited some less-actives and some investigators and had really great lessons. He is so powerful and a great missionary. We also got to share some memories of people in Buru Buru (since he replaced me when i left). It was a great great exchange and from it they were able to see a few less actives that we visited come to church. That was for tuesday and wednesday. We also got some new invesitgators and referrals together!! Thursday was an adventure of its own. So we had an interview that needed to be done in Mautuma so we waited in a matatu for over an hour until it left. On the way it broke down AGAIN and so we had to help the driver fix it and then off we went again. We passed the other Elders coming from Naitiri and we stopped the cars, switched keys and continued forward. Long story short it took us about 5 hours to get from Misikhu to Naitiri. We grabbed the bikes that the other Elders left for us and biked to Mautuma. The chains fell off about a milliion times because the chains are super loose and dryer than Elder Browns home state of Arizona. We arrived in Mautuma he did the interview, we grabbed a few things from the flat and biked up the massive hill back to Naitiri. We got there and got a ride to the main road where we got another Matatu back to Misikhu. So literally the whole day we were traveling and did an interview, welcome to Western Kenya. Elder Limu and I then went to Eldoret for a correlation meeting with the district president and we stayed in the night there with Elder Mahanzu and Elder Fraga (who i also came with). Let me just say I love Elder Fraga and have so much respct for him. He is one of my great great friends and i am thankful for him! Elder Limu is off now to Zimbabwe and I will really miss him! Its hard to have a companion go home but i realized someday that will be me. So i am trying to soak everything all in and not let the smallest or biggest things bring me down. This is the Lords work and i have a privledge to help Him in this part of His vineyard. This next week is already crazy and we know what is going to happen but stay tuned for that next week haha! Lots of love from the land of the Lion, Elder Merz

The week has flown by!! I guess that comes with traveling during the week... We had our zone conference in Eldoret on tuesday and wednesday. Honestly not even too many notes were taken. It was a different kind of zone conference but i still learned a lot!! There are 4 friends that are going home at the end of this week so they bore there last testimonies. These are a few things that were said that i really like and know to be true. "We cant help somebody if were not on higher ground." -Elder Manu-Tunei "Each one of us has the potential to become like him." -Elder Limu When we traveled back from Eldoret we had an adventure. We stopped and checked the Kitale and Misikhu flats. We then got in a matatu to go to Naitiri. The roads were suuuuper muddy, slippery and bumpy. But this guy thought we were in a rally car or something. So he was flying and kinda drifting all over the place. We were bouncing like crazy, the 4 of us that were squished in the back. Then we got to a super slippery part and thats when we realized his "professional driving" broke part of the steering column...so one wheel would be straight and the other would be turned. We were trapped out in the middle of no where until the driver was able to ghetto-rig it together. We got to Naitiri when it was dark and we had no option but to ride our bikes home. It was already past our curfew and we had 1 tiny little torch on Elder Limus bike and the road was suuuuuuper muddy, slippery, huge puddles, and we couldnt see. Haha i wont explain all of the situation but it was definitely something else. Also it was raining, i got a rock flung into my shoe but had to keep biking, and yeah it was pitch dark because we are kinda in the middle of no where. Hakuna Matata!! 🦁 I will just send lots of pictures from the week. Its sad to think that Elder Limu is going home at the end of the week but he has done his time!! Haha! Thats basically it for the week. Elder Limu also got sick so we had to be inside for a day. Buuut we had a confirmation and we are re-activating people! I love the work!! :) Continue to pray. All is well in Zion Love, Elder Merz

This week we went on exchanges with the DL. I went to Misikhu with Elder Phokane. We focused on finding good places to do community service. We went to about 4 hospitals or clinics and i found out there that i am really good at talking with people. Not just about the gospel but also in a situation like that. We had some great success and we helped the people there to see our church is a good one and also 3 of them said they would love for us to do some service there!! It has been raining a looooot recenty and so doing some of the usual work is a bit hard. As traveling the roads are all very muddy and sometimes dangerous with all the rain. But we are still putting in the work to do our best. We got some help from some members as well and had some very great lessons. I love it when an investigator asks serious questions to try to understand better. It makes me feel good to see there interest in the gospel and to truly just understand. Thats all we do as missionaries is help people understand. Sunday was a quite a day! We biked allll the way to Naitiri for the branch conference they were having there but had to leave after sacrament meeting and bike back to Mautuma for the baptism we were having there!! I dont know whats going on but we had 17 LA's, 8 investiagators, and 8 recent converts in Mautuma. And 5 less-actives in Naitiri!! The work is really really going well. People are coming to church, paying there tithing, reaching out to each other and just doing what they are supposed to and they ARE recieving the blessings!!! I am also helping members open family search accounts and on Sunday I helped the first member send some names to the temple!!!!!! 😃 family history here is so different from other places. So that is a biiig big step!!! We were so excited and it was a very special moment! Last thing. Just yesterday this guy who i think is crazy was walking by us. He would like go in front of us do something crazy but we'd keep walking and then he would catch back up to do something crazy again! He had like an empty jug that he set down in front of him and we walked past then he picked it up and got in front of us and then threw it. He also had a stick with him. He stopped and drew a 16 in the dirt then got in front of us again and threw the stick.....then he went and retrieved his stick LOL hahaha like i dont know how to say it but it was super funny! Gotta love all of Gods children!! :) From your favorite mzungu, Elder Merz