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. 

                                     

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

Week 33 Bardege, Gulu with Elder Ankrah

I'm so proud of Corbin that sounds like such a cool award, a title of liberty necklace! Baylor needs to do something fun for his birthday! Tell him to do a barbecue, that would be a blast. Dad works so hard. I've learned so much from him about sacrificing and serving in the church. I'm really doing good, but my hip bone is always sore. I think I just need to stretch it better.
 Last Monday night was bad. We walked to this lady’s house, who got baptized a little while ago, and she just talked for the whole entire night about random stuff.  And then at the end of the lesson she tried to feed us, and she wanted to feed us this stuff called posho and odii. It's disgusting. I don't even know how to explain it. It is like this lukewarm, white, mashed potatoes looking stuff. But it's a little bit harder. It has no taste at all, and then odii is like peanut butter… with anchovies in it... And then we walked home in a storm and got soaked hahaha. Tuesday, we got bounced a lot and by the end of the night we'd walked around our entire area. We went to bed at like 8:00. Wednesday, we had this super funny lesson. We were talking about how God loves all of us, and we about how he's blessed us with talents and stuff and the woman we were teaching was like "oh ya I have tons of talents and gifts from God" and I just looked at her and said "ya, like humility huh?" and my comp laughed so hard he fell on the floor. Thursday, we went to Lira to pick up our truck. Sheesh that was a long day. We had to take a 4-hour taxi ride that was really more like 5 hours because the taxi was super slow, and I hate taxi's here so much. It's like a van right, but then they cram like 5 people onto a 3-person row. Anyways, I fell asleep with my arm out the window and now I have one arm that's super sun burnt and the other is pale... But I got the truck back so that's really nice. This week we did a ton of service and on Friday we went and carried jerry cans to a well and got water for this super old lady in the branch. We also dug a huge trench for this neyabo so that she could get running water to her hut. The best day of the week was easily Saturday...  I got your package! I loved it so much, you have no idea. You take such good care of me. I'm so spoiled. I love the tuna fish, I had the best lunch ever today. Also, the books, I read Mormon Doctrine until 3 in the morning last night. I'm learning so much! That book is crazyyyyy good! I was reading my patriarchal blessing and it talks about how I'll find treasures of wisdom and knowledge on my mission. I have without a doubt. My most spiritual part of the week was Sacrament on Sunday of course. I've heard the riots have calmed a bit in Kampala, I drive down Wednesday, so we'll find out. The riots aren't in Gulu, so I'm all okay. I love you guys so much!

Week 32 Bardege, Gulu with Elder Ankrah

 
Hey, I'm doing better, slowly and steadily. My week was super busy too… Sister Collings doesn't know what to do for me with this virus, so I guess I just gotta tough it out. But anyways, Tuesday we were just super busy trying to see people and we met this new lady who's amazing named Belinda. She's in her early 30's and I had the most spiritual experience of my mission teaching her. Then it was just the same old on Wednesday and Thursday, except I went on exchanges with another missionary on Thursday, Elder Newman and we had a great time working together. Anyways there was a lot of stuff that happened at the end of the week. On Friday we had to go to Lira again, to do more interviews for baptisms. We got into a car accident, it was bad enough that the truck couldn't be driven. The wheel of the axel broke, so it's still in Lira getting worked on. but the problem is we were stuck in Lira. We had to take like a 5-hour taxi back to Gulu and It was such a long day. And since we're out in the middle of the desert they don't have the parts to fix my truck, so I don’t know when I'm gonna get it back. We got back super late that night and then we had Zone Conference on Saturday along with some baptisms and it was just crazy trying to get it all ready since I'm in charge of all of it. But the baptisms and zone conference went fine, I had to give a training on unity and was supposed to talk about how being united as missionaries helps us to get ready to be married. It was good because there's been some drama in the companionships in the zone. Baptisms also went well, this guy Dennis we've been teaching for a while got dunked. We went to Chobe; the game park and it was a blast. We saw all kinds of animals, but I can't send pics because of the Wi-Fi, I already tried. If we ever decide to come back and visit this place that's where we'd stay is on Chobe. Anyways it was a crazy week, I'm glad that it's over haha. Sure love you a lot. Elder Payne 

Week 31 Bardege, Gulu with Elder Ankrah

                                             

Tuesday, we did service for this crazy lady named Irene. We went and fetched all her water for the week.  We get water from a place called a bore hole, which is like a fresh water well. We have to pump the water into jerry cans and then carry them back to her house which is super far away. I love her little daughter, she's the cutest thing ever. I have no idea how to spell her name though.  After service we spent all morning just hanging out with her family and the kids and teaching them. We also met this dude named Lakanna that day, he's like a DJ and makes really weird music videos. He wanted to learn about the church, so we taught him a little bit. He's not very serious though. Wednesday was good, but we found out something super sad. So, do you remember that girl Gloria?  We've been teaching her for a while and she's really great, but we found out she had an abortion when she was 13 years old. How sad is that? Anyways we talked a lot about repentance with her and she was still able to get baptized Sunday. For some reason the branch wanted me to do the confirmation, so I got to do my first confirmation. That was a neat experience, the spirit was super strong. Lately we've been having branch members do the baptisms too since it's a good way to get them fellowshipped. Thursday, I went on exchanges with a guy named Elder Harris from Liberia (the one holding the girl in the picture). Friday was just really long but we taught this lady that was super funny and she's having us over for dinner tonight. I just hope she doesn't try and feed us pig ears…No joke, some lady tried too.  My name in the Acholi language is sweet. It's Elder LIT. How cool is that? I'm learning some small Arabic from a new lady we are teaching too. Love that language. I wish I could speak it fluently. I'm learning a lot from my studies right now. I feel like I can't study enough. Sometimes I have to just relax and not study because I feel like I'm too intense and learning too much. Bruce R. McConkie has some talks that I LOVE. There are two books I'm trying to get ahold of other than Eragon hahaha. One is called Mormon Doctrine and the other is Doctrines of Salvation, both by Bruce R. McConkie.  If they're not too hard to get ahold of I’d love it if you could send them to me.
We played scrabble slam with a member this week. Dad and Corbin would both love it so much.
We get a limited working fund for fuel, so we have to manage that well. It can be tough because we're so far away from everything. Plus, we're both a little sick right now so we don't feel like walking anywhere. There are missionaries all over Gulu but they're all pretty close together. No missionaries in Lira yet, but there should be soon. They need them there so bad, those people are ready for the gospel.
The weather here is just hot. Always hot here in Gulu. It's more of a desert though so at night it can get chilly. We don't have any AC but we have a fan. And the Africans don't like fans, they get too cold, so I snagged another one from some other missionaries and now I have two fans! If it dips into the high 80's people put on hoodies. My hair got butchered by a guy I paid to cut it. I'm not going to need a cut-I’ll be growing my hair for a while, it was pretty dang short
Thank you so much for taking care of me. I don't really know what's going on, I think its just a virus. I have a bad cough and am super tired I think it's just a virus that will pass. 

Week 30 Bardege, Gulu with Elder Ankrah

Tuesday and Wednesday were totally normal missionary days. We got bounced at every single appointment Wednesday, so it was really slow. Thursday was great though, we went and saw these two sisters that we've been teaching who are going to get baptized Saturday and they're really funny. They are CRAZY though. Their names are Prossy and Gloria. At first Prossy thought that that we were illuminati, and that we prayed naked hahah. Took a while to convince her otherwise. Then we went to Lira Saturday and did a bunch of interviews. It's always cool to get to hear other people’s testimonies! So, I love to go out there. Our house has a water tank, but it gets filled a lot more often than the last one. Yes, we have a nice toilet. We do have a fence around the compound, but we don't have a guard here. We do have a washing machine. I drive a Ford Ranger, I took a pic but the wifi isn't good today. They don't really have maps here. I don't know why because it would be so helpful. Thank you for taking care of me. I miss you a ton. I love you lots and lots mom. Have a good week and keep an eye out in the mail.

Week 29 Bardege, Gulu with Elder Ankrah

We had Mission Leadership conference at the Mission Home this week. So, because of that we didn't spend much time in our area-Bardege. Only a couple of days. Miraculously we still found 12 new investigators.  We drove all day on Thursday to get to Kampala and then had MLC Friday. I really enjoyed MLC, and I never thought I'd ever say I'd enjoyed a five-hour meeting. I just loved all the trainings and the spirit was super strong the whole meeting.  I got to catch up with Elder Millecam, my trainer, so that was cool. I also got to pick up all my homemade weights. In our area we have a neyabo named Gloria and her sister Prossy that are getting close to baptism. Another thing we are working on is that I've been teaching Elder Ankrah how to drive. If he passes a driving test the mission will pay to get his license so I'm helping him learn. It's a serious challenge though because not only has he never driven before but he has to learn driving a manual shift in the most driver unfriendly country on the planet hahaha. I learned a good lesson from the Porsche incident and always keep my hand on the e- brake. Dad will be so proud. Elder Ankrah is a really great guy, super fun and super humble. We get along great. I really like him. By the way, each of those spiders? Ya they're bigger than my hand.  The new house is so nice compared to Lugazi. I would actually bring you guys back to this place.  However, the bed is terrible. I think it has bed bugs… Along with my comp I live with Elder Newman, from Ogden and Godfrey, from Idaho. 
I bore my testimony and talked about how we can follow Christ. My branch president's name is William, he's a great guy. We could go to dinner here every night if we wanted to. I love the people!  We haven’t been in the area long enough to set up service opportunities yet but we will. I haven't been to many refugee camps yet. But hoping too -South Sudanese people are great investigators.