Week 34 Bardege, Gulu with Elder Ankrah

You're a huge support to me being out here. I don't think I could survive going more than a week without hearing from you. This week was just long. I'm kinda struggling a little bit and idk what to do other than put my head down and work. Time is just crawling for me and this area is tough. It's hard because the people are just hard people. They either reject the gospel or won't keep commitments so it feels like we're working for nothing.  Tuesday was a regular day and then Wednesday we drove to Kampala to pick up the new missionaries coming to the zone. The drive down was a lot of fun, we listened to Disney music the whole way down hahaha. One of the missionaries that I was taking down is this super wild guy, and he'd hang his head out the window and scream at people when we passed them. Driving down took all day, and we stayed the night in Kampala. Then Thursday we picked up the new missionaries and came back to Gulu. One of the new missionaries is from Provo and he's super cool. His name is Colby Mclain. He's going home in a month. A lot of travel this transfer!  On the way home we fed some baboons and I got some sweet pictures. We also swung by the game park, so the new missionaries could see some animals. We saw giraffes, elephants, and hippos.  I ran over a dead crocodile on accident, it was a blind corner and it was just lying in the road. So, we don't have MLC this transfer. It's mission tour, so Elder Koch, an area authority is coming here. We go to Kampala this week for that and then we go again on the 19th for interviews with president.
My studies are one thing that I look forward to big time. I always find some comfort in the words of the prophets or in the scriptures. Sunday was good though, this guy Dennis that is super smart finally came to church. He's the most stubborn dude, and he heard a lot of negative things about the church, so it's been a battle to convince him that the church isn't what he thought. I think he's finally coming around. I've had some of my most spiritual experiences of my life sharing my testimony with him. In fact, I think what got him to come around was that during the week I kind of unloaded on him. I'm a little bit sick of all these fake people who we teach but never keep their commitments and never do anything to find out for themselves if the church is true. Dennis just wasn't really putting in the effort necessary to get an answer and I told him that it was just our job to share the message and I told him that if he didn't do anything about it he'd never find out if the church was true and he'd miss out on blessings. Then I shared my testimony with him Elder Holland style and told him if he didn't keep his commitments I'd never come back hahaha. Then he came and just getting him to come to church made me feel so happy. If he becomes converted, he'll be a leader in the church here without a doubt. We had a wild game of cover your assets last night as a zone and It really made me miss playing games with our family. Btw I found a really great eagle scout project for Corbin if he's interested. There's an orphanage ran by a member here who lives out in the bush that could really use his help. The guy has an amazing story and has given up his whole life to take care of these children with his wife. They have about 50 kids living with them right now. An eagle scout in Colorado did a project to raise money for him so that they could build a building for them all to live in, but now they need school supplies and clothing. If Corbin wanted he could do a fund raiser to get money for them to buy school supplies like desks and what not. They have teachers who have come from BYU and do volunteer work and teach them, but they have no school equipment. There's some other stuff that they need to. Idk if that's something he'd be interested in but if he wants he could make a serious difference here for those kids. I'll be thinking about you guys! Have a good week Mom, I love you! Tell the whole family I love em for me. Miss you guys more and more all the time! Love, Elder Payne