Week 42-Bardege, Gulu with Elder Ankrah

Through personal experience I've learned that life's' greatest joys are found in the family and I believe that everyone deserves to experience this joy. In the communities that I've served in I've become more aware of the glaring need for families to come together than ever before. There isn't a strong emphasis put on family here, there is a lack of love and concern, and almost no sense of obligation to care for one another. Most children are born out of wed lock and into broken homes, and to parents who aren't committed to each other let alone children. Families are the building blocks of a community and the gospel. Without them people live a brutal tooth and nail lifestyle, constantly fighting for survival. Life can be hard here in Uganda and without the support system of a family it's that much harder. There are quite a few ways that I'm working towards uniting families one of these ways is by teaching complete abstinence before marriage. This is so that children are born to parents who are committed to each other and to nurturing their children, together. I share with groups and individuals about the joys that comes from families. As a representative of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints I present my views and beliefs on the divinity of the family unit to all who will listen and try to bring families together through the gospel of Jesus Christ and a hope for family relationships that will last long after this life. I also teach people about responsibility and accountability and encourage them to do service to build feelings of love between family members. My favorite way to bring families together is through conducting family home evenings, where we bring families together for an evening of gospel learning and unity building. As we seek to establish these home evenings I've seen people realize the love they have for each other and strengthen family relationships as they sing hymns and play games together. Gordon B. Hinckley once said that, " The strength of any nation is rooted within the walls of its homes." My hope is that as I continue to work towards bringing families together, and strengthen homes, communities will unite and life for the people of Uganda will get better.  Last Monday, after we emailed we went and taught a family. It was a good lesson, but they have mice... BAD... and they kept running around by my feet, so I couldn’t really focus. Tuesday was fantastic, we met this guy from Ghana who was really cool, and he invited us over. Turns out he was baptized while he was on vacation in England, but he's not active. We're working on reactivating him and it was cool for my comp since he's also from Ghana. It was great, and we'll get a dinner appointment this week from it. Really excited because all the food I've had from Ghana has been really good. Wednesday, I scratched my eyeball when a giant bug flew into my eye. I have no idea how it got there since I wear glasses, but ya my eye hurts so bad. We found a super powerful lady that day, and she came to church Sunday. Her name is Mourine, I think she'll get baptized soon. We also had a huge breakthrough that day with this lady named Christine that we've been working with forever. She finally decided she wants to be baptized so her and her children should get baptized this coming week. Thursday, I got sick. Friday, also sick, most of the day I sat in the truck with the heat on lol. But I thought about Corb a lot, and how it was kinda fitting that I was sick on his birthday since he was so sick when he was first born lol.  Saturday I was fine, but it rained like all day long. Then Sunday was awesome, we had a ton of people come to church. Overall there were lots of good and bad this week. We found 14 new people to teach so that's wonderful. Two funny things that happened. First, one morning, I can't remember what day, we went outside to teach for the day and ended up having a balancing competition. We were doing a tree pose and seeing who could hold it the longest. Me and my comp went for 14 minutes before we gave up and called it a tie. How crazy is that? Then another day while we were having lunch we were talking about pets, and I asked my comp if he would rather have a dog or a cat. All of the Africans said they would rather have cat, and it was only me and one other American who said we'd rather have a dog... A few seconds later and I realized they all thought that I was talking about for food.. not for a pet!
Love you all-Elder Payne