Having you cut hair at home has been so cool and
I definitely grew up hearing you having gospel conversations with your
clients while you were working. My week came and went, nothing crazy. We taught
a guy from Sierra Leone who is really cool named Albert this week and he wants
to be baptized before he leaves for Canada in a few months. He asked lots of
good questions. You can tell he has a good heart. That was probably the only
serious lesson we had this week, we found a lot of people who are not serious.
We also met a man named Amos, he’s an inventor who is teetering dangerously on
the brink of genius and insanity On Wednesday Elder Woodland came over with his
comp and hung out with us after district meeting and we had some good food. I had some ice cream and a doughnut hahaha.
Church on Sunday was great! We had a few people we are teaching there and
then we went and saw a less active guy right after who talked without me saying
anything for about 45 minutes. On our way home we almost got struck by lightning. A
storm was coming in and we were walking up a steep hill. There were a few other
people walking near us. All of the sudden about 10 feet in front of us was a
ridiculous bright flash of light and this crazy heat. There was a huge thunder
crash and it knocked us to the ground. Then it started pour and we ran as fast
as we could home.
We just had our first Stake Patriarch called on
Sunday. He and his wife will be visiting Utah in a few months to see their
daughter. They want to meet you while they are there. When it gets close, I'll
find a way for you to get in touch with them. I am so happy! I love how much
the first presidency has focused on families. I recognize how essential
families are to Gods plan. We are here to help one another. Another life lesson
I’ve learned here is how to budget. I’ve gotten into really good habits learning
to live on my allotment. Tell Corbin I miss him more than he will ever know. I have
all kinds of good memories from picking him up from school and making our
secret ice cream runs. He’s such a good-hearted kid. I love you guys -can’t
wait to talk again
Seriously starting the week off getting to talk with you guys
was super awesome! Made the rest of my week go great. I'm really enjoying this
area and my companion is a great guy. Some of the highlights from this week are-
Tuesday we found a new lady to teach who seems really cool! Her name is Betty
and she's a single mom and lives on the outskirts of town. We had an awesome
discussion with her, and she's super interested in the Book of Mormon. People
who are interested in the Book of Mormon and want to learn about it almost
always progress. She works on Sundays though, so we didn't see her at church. Interesting thing, I've realized the women
here recognize the spirit quickly and are more receptive to the gospel. A lot of time the men are very stubborn and
just want to argue. But you can tell that most of the women we teach are in
tune with the spirit. One thing I've learned and can see plainly now is how
important the relationship between men and women is. I have a huge testimony of
the family. The two people I know I'll never have to worry about testimony wise
are Faith and Jared in lugazi. It's the only couple I've baptized on my mission,
but you can just tell that they strengthen each other. Wednesday we had our
district development meeting, but our district is kind of big as in it covers a
large amount of land and we had to travel to a place called Kajansi for the
meeting. It takes a good chunk of time to get there on a taxi. But the meeting
was good, I gave a training on ministering to Christ's people in the way that He
would. After that we hung out with Elder Woodland and Bimpe (from Ghana) in Kajansi
for a while. It was cool to catch up with Woodland, who I trained. We got lunch
with those guys and then some guy offered to give us a ride back to Eentebbe
(which never happens it was so nice) and saved us some money and a super
uncomfortable two-hour ride in a hot and stinky taxi. Small miracle. The rest
of the week we spent trying to find new people to teach and didn't have much
success. There’re two other guys who are progressing well named Innocent and Tonny
and they're almost ready to get baptized. Saturday, we spent the day helping
clean the church, and then hung out with some of the members that night. It's
kinda cool, there's a lot of guys our age here so it's easy to be friendly with
the members. Sunday, I bore my testimony in church and then Budu got surprised
and had to give a talk. That night we went to a member’s house who's been in
the church a pretty long time (21 years this May) and he will be the first
stake patriarch in the Kampala south stake in a few weeks. He's a really
neat guy, he'd get along well with Papa. He's been to Provo a couple of times
too so he really feels like he can relate to me and loved to talk about Utah. They fed us some chapati and juice and then we went
home.
I'm so excited to be in a city and shop in a store where I have a variety of food!! Look FROZEN chicken-
Love you guys
Wow this has probably been the best week of my
mission. First of all, I can't even tell you how excited I am about BYU, I
literally jumped up and down after reading my acceptance email. I'm so happy! And then on top of that I found out I get
to call you every Monday now! It's super exciting that I can talk to you. I
have tons to tell you guys about this week, you know about half of the good
stuff already. I got the chance to meet Elder Stevenson of the quorum of the 12
TWICE this week with his wife. He came to visit Uganda, so we had a mission
conference with him on Saturday this week and it was one of the coolest
experiences of my mission. His presence was extraordinary! To just be in the
same room with him was awesome. You could feel the love he has for people just
radiating off his person. It was so neat. And then to hear his testimony of the
reality of Jesus Christ and the atonement gave me chills. The Spirit was so
powerful! It was so cool to be in a room with him and such a small audience and
to just listen. We also had Elder Palmer, our area authority there, and Elder Chatora of the 70, who will be our new mission president in July. Then the next day for Sunday we had a huge stake conference with both the stakes in Kampala and Elder Stevenson spoke again. But before the conference he walked over and visited with me and a small group of the other missionaries. It was so cool. The conference was really great, people from all over the country came to hear him so I got to see my RC's from Gulu, and Lugazi all in the same place. It was so fun. So, on top of all of this, I got to Entebbe finally this week and have had such a good time. My new companion Elder Budu is super cool. He's so fun, a little wild, but still likes to work hard. Plus, he likes to run so we ran 12 miles the other day. And Entebbe is amazing, we have to walk a lot, but the people are great. I'm just super happy and can't wait to talk to you!
I read all your talks this week, they were incredible. Thanks so much
for sending them. Tell Corbin to email me next week I haven't heard from him in
a while and I miss him. My week was really low key, nothing super interesting
happened. But I had some good experiences with the book of Mormon this week.
Just reading it in my personal study has been like a pillar of strength for me.
It's so true and I love it so much. I will really have to make time to
study my scriptures better when I come home. I feel like there's something for
me to learn on every page. It does make me sad for the people who can't read
English here, who don't get a chance to experience the powerful witness of
Jesus Christ that the book of Mormon is. We're so lucky. I love this gospel so
much and I love you guys so much!
I really missed the watching the Superbowl
but I'm pretty happy Tim Brady and the Patriots won. Just so you know, I think
you're the best mom in the world and you always have been. I got your package
today! Super-duper awesome, especially all the talks. Haven't got to read them
yet but I eyeballed them, and they look super good. Monday night we had a
really fun family home evening with this family from Kenya, and they have the
cutest little 6-year-old boy and he said the best opening prayer. It made me
miss home super bad, family home evening is so great to strengthen the home and
family. For the activity we danced, and then had avocado tea. That's a
new favorite of mine. It was super great, that family’s neighbors have
persecuted them for joining the church so one of the younger girls in the
family shared a spiritual thought on the atonement and about how Christ died
for more than just our sins, how His Atonement can help us through all the
challenges we face in life. Tuesday through Thursday we spent getting all the
people we teach ready for baptism, so we had a lot of lessons this week. Thursday
morning a member named Gerald made me a dish I'd never tried here, and
it's my new favorite. It’s called Amukakay and it's basically boiled sweet
potatoes that are sun dried after with a peanut butter tomatoes sauce. I'll
totally make it at home, it would probably be good on like yams. The peanut butter
is different here, it's all natural. I'm sure we can find some. I bet you guys
will love it. It's the only thing here that I really LOVE when it comes to the
food. On Thursday night a girl named Ester who was baptized last
week told us about her boyfriend who had been beating her. When he found out
she got baptized he beat her severely and told her that if she got confirmed
he'd kill her. So, on Friday night we went and visited him, and he was pretty confrontational,
but we talked some sense into him. He realized that if it happened again, he
was going to have serious problems. It was super awesome, we didn't get a
chance to tell Ester about our visit with him, but she came to church to get
confirmed despite the threats. I won't lie, life here is hard a lot of the time
and it makes me realize how good we have it at home. Friday, we did baptism
interviews. Saturday, we had 16 baptisms. Super cool, but the baptism service
was chaotic. Sunday was wonderful we had loads of confirmations and got to hear
some wonderful testimonies. We have an apostle coming to visit sometime this
next transfer and I'm really excited about it. This week I'm hoping to start
the new testament study manual, but I'm also loving my Book of Mormon right
now.
MOM THE PATRIOTS ARE IN THE SUPERBOWL!!
Tuesday, we taught all day long and went to that forest I sent
some pictures of. I didn't feel very good that day, my stomach was upset. Wednesday, we
went Jinja for zone conference, that night I had a rolex, like the 3rd one I've
had on my mission. It's super bland, it's literally two tortillas and then two
plain eggs with no salt. Who even would think of that?
The next day was
zone conference and I had to talk about goals and goal setting. It went really
well I think, but after we got some crazy news. President Collings decided to call
Elder Hall to a new area. So now it's just me and Elder Asare here in Mbale. That meant we
had to drive back to Mbale that night to get Elder Hall's stuff (a three-hour
drive) and then get him back to Jinja (another three-hour drive). The problem
was that we were supposed to be in Kampala so we could go on exchanges that
next day with the assistants, so it meant that I'd have to drive through the
night to Kampala. It was super
wild, but it all worked out well and we made it to Kampala around midnight.
That Friday we had exchanges and they were wonderful, we had a really spiritual
day. We taught a lot about the Book of Mormon. Saturday, I drove back to Mbale
and we stopped in Lugazi to say hi to some people. I got to see Malayka and her
son Britton. It was cool. That night we visited a few people we are teaching.
Sunday was chaotic, running a new branch is a lot of hard work. But it's good,
it's really neat to see the gospel of Jesus Christ practiced in such a raw
form. It's really just a bunch of people who are trying their very best to run
the church the way it's supposed to We're teaching so many people right now. We're
already booked with appointments until Friday. Tomorrow we are
serving in the orphanage again. I will send some pictures next week.
Hahahah yes-larger women are considered
attractive here… that's an African guy thing... Even my companion likes big
girls. They consider it a sign of a good husband/ father /provider.
Are you getting the boys to study the Come Follow me program with
you? I really wish that we could all study it as a family. I would also LOVE to
study that with Bailee. I think that sounds wonderful. That is so cool and
symbolic, it sounds like you are learning so much about the Savior. That is
incredible! I hope they boys really get on board with it. What a wonderful
potential blessing that program is for our families and our testimonies.
Having you cut hair at home has been so cool and
I definitely grew up hearing you having gospel conversations with your
clients while you were working. My week came and went, nothing crazy. We taught
a guy from Sierra Leone who is really cool named Albert this week and he wants
to be baptized before he leaves for Canada in a few months. He asked lots of
good questions. You can tell he has a good heart. That was probably the only
serious lesson we had this week, we found a lot of people who are not serious.
We also met a man named Amos, he’s an inventor who is teetering dangerously on
the brink of genius and insanity On Wednesday Elder Woodland came over with his
comp and hung out with us after district meeting and we had some good food. I had some ice cream and a doughnut hahaha.
