Letter from Josh 14 August 2010

Hey Dad!

first off, do not come saturday night. you will be to tired from all the traveling in the first place to enjoy church in any way on sunday and also because my mission isn't even done until at least midnight on sunday. and since you will be coming right at transfer week, i might have to help a bit on monday until whoever my replacement is gets here. i was thinking that could be more of an adjustment day and do a few small things like show you the mission office. if you really wanted two sundays here it would be better to come later in the week (Wednesday or thursday maybe) and then leave that second Sunday night. One Sunday in Arusha sounds good to me. Mombasa could be good, there is a family there that we could go visit, and it has by far the cheapest souvenirs (or wood carving souvenirs at least). and we could also stop by chyulu on the way there or the way back to show you what it is like (it is very rural and would probably be cool to see). the downside is that it is an 8 hour drive one way, so it is almost a full day of traveling just one way. and we would probably only want to spend one day there, so it would be two days of travel (or most of two days) for one day of showing you the place. I would like to do the safari out of Arusha, Ngoro Ngoro crater is suppose to be the best safari drive there is, and that's a couple hours southish of Arusha i believe, but there is a lot around there even if we dont go to Ngoro Ngoro.
my proposed itinerary would be:

sunday night: you arrive
monday: in nairobi, slower day so you can adjust, but we will still do something.
tuesday: in nairobi, i have a game drive with my mtc group that afternoon and the testimony meeting is that night. i dont know what you would do that day, sorry. (you might need to get re-entry stamps on your visas for when we come back from Arusha, I could arrange for a guy in the office to take you to do that in the afternoon while i am at the game drive thing.)
Wednesday: travel to Arusha and show you around (the bus to Arusha gets there around one, so we will have time to go around town)
thursday: safari
Friday: safari
Saturday safari
sunday: church in Arusha and show you the town and we will most likely be able to visit one or two people from arusha.
monday: back to Nairobi, go around a bit.
Tuesday: show you around my areas in nairobi and possibly visit a few people. fly home tuesday night or wednesday morning

or if we do go to mombasa then we would leave for mombasa on tuesday and then come back and fly out thrusday night. (if we rent a car we could leave a bit earlier and have part of Tuesday in mombasa and part of thursday in nairobi as well)

the other question i have is- will we be renting a car? i didn't think about it till now, but it would be nice to have one while we are in kenya. in arusha we can take local stuff (gives you the experience and it is a pain to take a car across the border here. we did it for that zone conference we went to in arusha and it was a major pain) and on safari i am assuming we will have a driver. i can ask if we can use one of the mission cars while we are here, but i dont know if that will work due to insurance stuff.

Mombasa would be fun and i would enjoy it but it is a few more days and i dont know how long you want to spend here. especially with that much travel time. i wish it could be less travel time but the roads here aren't very good.

and in reality it would probably make more sense for you to come on monday night and then adjust Tuesday while i am out with my group on the game drive. but that is up to you aswell.

i can check my mail a bit throughout the week and respond so that we can get this planned and what not as soon as possible. i also have to let the church know what date to buy my ticket for so the secretary here is pushing me as well.

anyways, i love you!!!!!!
have a great week!
Elder Harris