11.25.13

So this is transfer week! I will talk more of that later.

First of all this week was really awesome. On Monday night after we got home we heard a car honk at the gate. So we go to see who it is, and it was the AP's!! They came for surprise exchanges. So they slept at our house on Monday night then worked with us all day Tuesday then slept on Tuesday night then went back to Kampala on Wednesday morning. 

Tuesday was awesome. We had a great time working with Elder Reed, one of the AP's. The whole day went almost completely as we had planned it, which hardly ever happens. Most of the time 75% of our appointments don't go through. But it was an awesome day. We had a really enjoyable time. Not much happened Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday we spent some extra time in the evening going on splits (exchanging companions). It was really successful and we were able to get a ton of new investigators. On Saturday we had a baptism!! It was a sister to one of our recent converts. She doesn't know English but speaks Luo and Kiswahili, but she was very ready and excited to be baptized. There was also another child of record baptism of a young boy who just turned 8 years old. Josephine asked me to baptize her; That was a huge shocker to me. I wasn't expecting her to ask one of the missionaries to baptize. I was expecting one of the members that stays close to her. But I did baptize her and it was a great experience. 

Saturday evening we went to our Branch Presidents house for dinner. They made cow liver for us! I think I would have been fine if he didn't tell us before we ate it, because it tasted good but I was thinking about it way to much and lost my appetite really fast. Just the image of a liver and the thought that I was eating it wasn't going to well for my stomach. But it did taste good. Haha that was a good time. 

Church yesterday was really great. Sacrament attendance was 95 again. That was great. It has slowly been growing since I have been here. All of the meetings were very spiritual and we all learned a lot. After church I sat outside in the sun to get my super white legs some sun. I felt like I was sitting in an oven that was like 500 degrees! It was so hot. Now my legs are less white, but they are still super white compared to my head and arms. Then we went and played football (soccer in America) again at the orphanage. Then chilled at the house for the rest of the night. 

Then came this morning. The Zone Leaders said they were receiving the transfer news today. So we spent all morning waiting for the phone to ring to find out what was happening with the new transfer. After forever we finally found out. I am being transferred to a place called Entebbe. It is where the International Airport is for Uganda. The surprise is that I am white washing (two new missionaries at once) the area!!! This will be an interesting experience. I never imagined that I would be white washing. I am excited to be leaving but at the same time I wish I was staying in Lira. There are a few people that we are teaching that I would love to see get baptized  and the members of the Branch here are amazing people. I could hang out with them all day and still have a good time. But I am also excited that I am going. It just stinks because its like a 5 hour drive to Kampala and then another hour to Entebbe. We are leaving on Wednesday. So next Monday I will be in a new area!!!!

So that was our week. Sounds like you all had a crazy week. Lots of things going on. Music stuff and sports stuff and mission stuff. Life is crazy! 

Its about dang time Andy!!! I was actually beginning to think I would have a chance of beating you. I guess its exciting for you :)

Have a fantabulous week everyone!!

Love Elder LeCheminant

grass hut in the village

recent convert

11.18.13

So this is week 6 of the transfer. Its weird but awesome that we are already at the end. Then I get to do it again, and again, and again, like 12 more times!! 

This week went a whole lot better than last week. We had exchanges like every single day. On tuesday we had district exchanges. I went with Elder Hardman in his area and then Elder Manyakanyaka came to our side with Elder Buyers. Then on wednesday in the evening Elder Buyers and I went to their side and we split and went tracting for the rest of the night. Then on friday they came to our side and we split and did tracting. Also on thursday the zone leaders came for exchanges and Elder Mgijima came with me and Elder Buyers for the day. Then saturday morning we did district exchanges again because Elder Manyakanyaka had to interview the person we baptized on saturday. So that was all lots of fun and helped the week go by really really really fast. It is all just a blur now. 

So tuesday with Elder Hardman was interesting. This is his first transfer so he is still going through all of the "new guy" stuff. He still talks super fast in an american accent and doesnt really know the area very well. But we survived and only got lost a few times! We had a great day together and taught some great lessons. It just reminded me of when I first got here and all of the things I went through. At the end of the day I gave him a lot of advice about things that helped me get into the swing of things. He is a great guy and is from Morgan Utah. Me, him, and Elder Buyers always talk about 4-wheelers and dirt bikes and snowmachines. 

Wednesday nothing exciting happened. Thursday was super fun. In the morning we went and did some service with one of our recent converts. He is a fantastic guy and loves the church. Anyways he is building a new little house kinda next to the mud hut that he has been living in. So we went to help. We started by taking apart the mud hut. We took the grass roof apart and then took each brick out one by one so that they could be used on his new house. That took about 3 hours. It was really fun. I love demolition! Then the ZL's came and Elder Mgijima came. We had a great rest of the day and taught a lot of great lessons. 

Friday, In the evening when the others came over to our side for tracting, I went with Elder Manyakanyaka. We tracted for like an hour and didnt find anyone. Then we started heading to the person we baptized on saturday so that he could interview her. Her name is Dilish. She is the wife to Bruno, whom we baptized the second or third week I was here in Lira. On the way to their house it started raining cats and dogs. We were instantly completely soaked all the way through. So we decided to just go home since we were close. I was sooo wet!!!!! When I took my shoes off I dumped like half a liter of water out of each shoe. We decided to reschedule the interview for the morning. 

Then saturday Elder Buyers and Manyakanyaka went to interview Dilish. So I went with Elder Hardman again in his area for the morning. We all met up for lunch and then went to the church for the baptism. So Dilish was baptized, and Bruno got to baptize her. He was really hesitant at first but we took care of all of their concerns. Also the daughter to our Branch President was baptized. She turned 8 last week. The baptism went really well. Its been a while since we have had a baptism. Afterwards we went and worked for the rest of the day. 

Sunday church was really great. Our Sacrament Meeting attendance was 95!! It has gone up like 15 since I have been here. Dilish was Confirmed and Bruno also got a Calling! It has been awesome to see that family come to church, they are amazing people. After church Elder and Sister Moore came to our house to inspect our cleaning. They are the senior couple in Gulu. We dont have any senior couples in Lira so they have to come down to check on the Branches and inspect our cleaning. Sister Moore made us some amazing chocolate chip banana bread/cake. That is like basically my favorite food of all time. Chocolate, bananas, and cake all in the same thing!!! Haha it was delicious. Then we went and played soccer at the orphanage and then the zone leaders came over and chilled with us for the rest of the night and we had dinner and messed around. 

So that was the week!!! 

We kinda heard through a few members about the typhoon in the Philippines. It sounded crazy!! That would be a crazy experience to go through something like that. I'm glad all of the missionaries survived. 

Mom I wasnt going to tell you but I did get a Ugandan nativity. So sorry to ruin the surprise for you :)

That's great to hear about Hunter leaving !! He is going to do great in Brazil. What is his missionary email? Also I want Aarons missionary email as well. He goes to the MTC soon. Yay for Lauren and Kali for going to the temple this week. I really wish I was there to see everyone preparing for missions and going to the temple. But i cant really do anything about it because I'm in the middle of AFRICA!!!! Hahaha Good luck to all of you. 

Its funny that joey doesnt want me to be the only eagle scout!! haha you better get on it! Only like 3 months left and there's a ton of stuff that you have to do that takes time. 

Have a great week. In Luo we say "Donga Ber" for "have a good day." I don't know how to say have good week. 

Love Elder Me

11.11.13

Well this was a super fast week. Not much happened. Just the usual walk all day and teach people the gospel kind of stuff! It was really interesting. I could really feel the adversary working very hard against us. Things just werent going good in the beginning.

On Tuesday we had 5 lessons. There was a period of like 4 hours where we just walked and taught nobody. Our appointments cancelled so our only other option was to tract. Then as we were tracting there was literally nobody home that we could teach. On top of that my body was dead tired and not in the mood to do anything. So that was a real struggle to make to the end of the day. Then on Wednesday I felt a lot better, but we only had 4 lessons. There was two recent converts we had planned to see at the church. They both said they were on their way so we stayed there and waited, after 20-30 minutes we would call them again and they would say they would be there in 5 minutes. That went on for 3 hours; so a ton of wasted time sitting at the church. That kinda made the rest of the day not really go according to plan, but we just endured. The rest of the week we did really great teaching people so it kinda made up for those two days. 

Another thing thing that  was kinda a bummer is that 3 of our people that we planned to be baptized this Saturday weren't home at all last week. They had gone to their villages and were supposed to be back on Saturday so they could come to church, yesterday, on Sunday. But all of them got stuck in their villages with no transport, so they couldn't come back for church. 

So that was all super depressing!!! Haha don't worry to much; Missionary work isn't meant to be easy all the time. This week was just one of those weeks. We are just pushing through and trusting that the Lord will bring us out on top. That's kinda how he works, He lets us fall only to help lift us and make us stronger. It's one thing that helps to keep me going. Missionary work is just soo great! :)

So today was pretty awesome. Before we came here to the internet cafe to email we went to a Trade Show. That is basically like a mini fair. There was a bunch of small booths selling things, so we decided to go as a zone. It was totally awesome but a bad idea at the same time. I spent waaayyy to much money! It was worth it though. I got some pretty nice things that all of you will have to wait for a couple years to see. Hahaha. I really didnt spend very much when you compare it US Dollars. But for Uganda, I spent a lot. Just some cool African things. It was fun and exhausting bargaining with all of the sellers all day. 

To answer your question mom. 1 US Dollar is like 2600 Uganda Shillings. So 3000 shillings is a little more than a dollar. I love Uganda currency. Everything is in thousands. 

I'm super jealous of the coming snow. Here the rainy season is coming to an end. It still rains a lot and the weather isn't as hot as normal. But the dry season is supposed to be coming at the end of the month. They say that the sun is just out frying everything and it is really hot even for Ugandans. Not to excited for that, Its already hot enough! Haha I have been complaining a lot in this email. Sorry about all of that :)

Have a good week! 

Love Me

11.4.13

Hello Everyone!

First of all, yesterday was awesome! After church there was a solar eclipse!! It was pretty sweet. You could only really see it with sunglasses. I took a few pics through my sunglasses. They are pretty cool. A lot of the young people here didnt know how to describe the eclipse. So they just would say that the sun was fighting the moon. And then I told everyone that the moon won! Haha funny people. Then after that we went to the orphanage to play soccer. I was the goal keeper. I did pretty good. My old keeper skills were coming back from however long ago it was when I played soccer. It was really fun! 

Anyways. The rest of the week went well. I cant believe it is already November. I just left yesterday in May!! We kinda forgot about Halloween until the evening on Thursday. Then we started telling everyone "Happy Halloween!" and they would have no idea what we were talking about. We would try to explain it but Elder Buyers and I realized that we really dont know why we have Halloween. It seems like kinda a pointless holiday. One of the companionship's in our zone switched each others name tags for the day. Funny! I wish we would have thought of something like that.

On Wednesday we had our ZDM or zone development meeting. There have been a ton of changes made to the mission! First of all, the mission is going away from being numbers oriented. We were really focused on daily numbers (of lessons) and used to even report to the zone leaders every day, now that is done away with. Also President Chatfield wants us to start focusing on rescuing people that are lost and retaining our recent converts. Basically the mission has had about 17 or 18% retention over the last two years. So there are a ton of less active people. So now we are working on that as much as we can. Crazyess.  Anyways, I'm really happy and excited about the way the mission has changed. Its really hard to describe everything over an email but there was a lot of other things as well.

On Saturday we had a fun party at the church. It was a graduation celebration for our Branch President. He just got his bachelors degree from a university here. So we had a big party. Ugandans really love their celebrations. The "ceremony" part took forever. They spent like 2 hours just introducing all of his friends and family members from the village. My head hurt sooo bad! Oh yea, I have had the flu since like Wednesday morning, it is now just about done with. So my head was hurting really bad from the flu and just sitting there forever, then it started to rain!! Haha, everyone picked up their chairs and ran inside the chapel. That was really funny to watch. There wasnt enough room in the chapel because it is really really small. So people were just crammed in. They decided to cancel the rest of the program and bring out the food. The food was sooo good! We had rice, beans, goat, sheep, chicken, steamed cabbage, and cassava. Super delicious. Cassava is like a giant root that they boil. Also typical to Uganda, for big groups of people they always have a ton of bowls for food but they have zero utensils. So we got to eat by hand! I actually really like eating with my hands. It helps you get more into the food. Hahahaha. Enough about that.

I cant really think of anything else that happened. 

Congrats to Becky Sorenson! I feel like she just left like less than a year ago. But that's awesome that she is back.

Yea i got the exercise band and the ctr rings. Shanks a lot!! We do have to pay a little bit to get packages. It costs 6000 shillings for a bigger package and 3000 for a small one. SO whoever picks them up at the Postbank (that's what they call post office here) pays the money and we just pay them whenever we get it. I think it is just a flat charge regardless of what is inside. I'm not 100% sure about that though. Just put pictures of Jesus all over the box, I've heard that helps it go through customs. Oh yea, I few things I wanted you to send. Some taco seasoning and that Johnny's all purpose seasoning. I cant remember anything else for now. Thanks!! :)

Thanks for everything. I love you all. Until next week

Love Elder LeCheminant