Week 35, Bardege, Gulu with Elder Ankrah

  

  
My hip is a lot better. It hasn't been bothering me much, so I didn't end up getting it checked out. I'm all good.  I can't believe Dad caught himself on fire! That's nuts! I'm glad that he's okay! I wish that I could hear Corbin give his talk. Will you send me a copy of the talk, so I can read it?
Monday night was pretty good we went and had family home evening with my favorite family in the branch. I don't know what to call them all because they don't have a family name, but they're from South Sudan and they're also super-duper funny and I really enjoy being around them. We had popcorn and played games. It's so humbling to see how such a small gift like popcorn makes them feel. All I did was buy them each a bag of popcorn for the night and it cost me less than one US dollar total and when I gave it to them all of them were so happy. Even the Mom, and they were so genuinely grateful for something so small. It made me feel really good. Tuesday, we traveled to Kampala which took all day.  I stayed that night in the mission home and then the next day we had a conference with Elder Koch, of the seventy. I loved mission tour and I learned a lot from what he said. We talked a lot about teaching repentance and how through repentance we can help people feel the love of the Savior.  I got myself into a sticky situation though because I wore my sandals down and forgot my other shoes. So, at the last minute I had to run back to one of the missionary apartments and borrow some shoes hahaha. Mission tour took all day and then we stayed the night again. The next day we left after I went for a run and made the drive back to Gulu. Wednesday I was so tired. I actually fell asleep during a lesson and dropped my scriptures on the ground. That was super embarrassing. Idk what's wrong with me but I can sleep like crazy lately. I'm always tired. Thursday was interesting, we did service in the morning and I learned a lot about what a stumbling block pride can be. We were trying to dig a trench for this one member, and we were going to connect a pipe so that he could get running water to his house. But we had to connect it to his neighbors tap. He and his neighbor seriously don't get along. Well he wouldn't let us connect the pipe even though it would've made his water pressure better. Because they don't like each other they wouldn't even get together to talk about it. They kept wanting the other one to come over to his house and ask for permission. So, neither of them would leave their own property. It was a joke, and because of this we had to dig a trench like three times as long and connect it somewhere else. Stupid that they couldn't just have a little humility and talk to each other about it. That day I got a couple of super nice text messages from members in the branch, and I was going to send them to you, but I forgot our phone at the apartment today. We taught some good lessons though. Dennis didn't come to church Sunday, but I think he's super serious about the gospel. (This Dennis is different than the orphanage Dennis, that one is a member) You asked if there was anything I liked about Africa. There's a lot I like! I want to tell you about something specific to Gulu. A lot of people beg for money here. Because I'm white I'm a target too, and it can get super annoying. But the people here are a little different. I had a lady approach me a few days ago and instead of asking for money she asked if I had any work that she could do to EARN money. I didn't have anything for her to do, but because she came to me and asked for work instead of money I figured out some stuff for her to do, and because she'd asked for work it made me feel a lot more generous than if she'd asked for money. I told her that and she told me that her father had taught her that it was wrong to beg, but if hard times came to ask for work, because it's important to work for our money. I thought it was interesting because it's a gospel principle. 
I'll go on exchanges every week for the rest of the transfer starting this week. So the other elders all live in Gulu town, but the zone is expanding and there will be elders in Lira and Adyel within the next couple months and they'll be in my zone as well. The tie in the picture is from Ethiopia! I traded Elder Mclain for it, I thought it was way cool. Those are baboons and you have to be really careful because they are NOT nice hahaha.