Letter FROM Josh 15 June 2009

Hello family! i hope you are all still having fun with each other, and i hope mike gets home safe. say hi to all of the little ones for me, especially Sheris kids, i havent seen them in forever, but i hope you all are having a great time.My week was pretty good. We set a baptismal date for one of our investigators (Freddy) for the 28. we are very excited for him. he actually voluntered to pass the sacrament the first week he came to church and we had to explain that he needed the priesthood first, he was a bit heartbroke at the time, but then when we met with him later that week we explained more and since then all he has wanted is to hold the priesthood and to be baptized. He is a really cool kid, his family isnt interested though. his grandpa is a pastor for a pentacostal church and his dad is one for a lutherin church. most of his family is fairly open religously and they dont have a problem with him joining us, but they "know Christ is their savior and dont need any one new to help them know that." We tried to teach the restoration to them but the dad and grandpa kept inturupting with all of these bogus questions that they didnt even agree on and then would argue between themselves for a bit, so we just said thanks for listening and excused ourselves since it was getting nowhere. mom wanted to know what else i cook. i tried empenadas one day but i made the dough recipe up myself, not bad, but i am going to get an empenada dough recipe before i make them again. but most nights we have a beef or vegetable stew with either rice, ugali (the boiled corn meal stuff), or chapaties (home made pita bread stuff). and about once a week we have spinich with ugali. and towards the end of the month we eat pap and milk (pap is the south african name for ugali but when you cook it for milk you leave it all crumbly and let it cool first). i am almost always the one that cooks. i would try more of the stuff from home but most nights there isnt time unless we want dinner at like ten or so, but i cant wait that long, and i dont have the patience to be cooking for that long.dad wanted to know what a typical day was like. so every tuesday and thursday we teach english from 11 to 12:30, wednesday we have district meeting from 10:30 to 12:30 and friday we have our weekly planning sessions. then have lunch (normally fruit and other food sold on the street). then have between 3 and four apointments. the only time we do tracting is if we get bounced, which is probably 1 or 2 of our apointments each day. then we get home between 6:30 and 7 (nobody likes to be visited after then, cause its dark and they dont like people coming over past dark, we have apointments then sometimes, but its not likely, and its almost always with recent converts or people that we have been teaching for a long time or that feel very close to us for whatever reason) and plan for the next day. then we cook and do whatever for the rest of the night, normally the cooking takes up most of that time because everything has to be made from scratch, they wouldnt even know what a "pre-mix" item was, and i dont think have seen microwave food here at all, but even if i do see it, we dont have a microwave, so it wouldnt help.as far as what it looks and sounds like and etc, youll just have to come and see for yourself sometime, cause i dont know how to describe it. but to help maybe think of arusha as a mini salt lake city. in the main town there are big buildings and paved roads, but not many people live there. once you get outside of the main city then its all residential. the residential is where it gets different from home, dirt roads tons of little side shops and etc. But you really just need to be here to actually know what its like.anyways, i love you guys, have a great time with everybody at the house! Love,Elder Harris