Tuesday, September 10, 2013

9.10.13

Well I have been transferred!! I am now in a place called Lira. It is the second farthest north place in the mission besides Gulu. There are 8 missionaries in the Lira Zone which is a big change. My Branch is called the Adyel Branch. It is in the Lira Mission District. So now i am no longer with a Ward or stake. Just Branch and Mission District. Things are a lot different here but the Branch is amazing! My companion is Elder Buyers. This is his second transfer so I am mothering now! Haha. I have been helping him kinda regain the desire to work hard because his last companion was one of the most apostate missionaries in the mission. Elder Buyers is a really great and spiritual guy. He is from Rigby Idaho and is straight out of high school. I have grown so much this past month. I finally figured out how to work as a missionary and not have to follow others around. And being with Elder Buyers has shown me how much I have grown.

It has been fun working here in Lira these past few days. The people here are amazing and the members of the Branch are very strong. The only thing bad thing is that it is sooooo extremely HOT here in the north. I am sweating all the time, even at night because it is so ridiculously hot. And the mosquitoes are really bad here. Other than that I am so excited to be in this great place. Northern Uganda is completely flat. There is no hills as far as you can see. The language spoken in Lira is called Langii. It is a pretty awesome language. I was just getting used to Luganda and being able to hear what people were saying, and now I have to start over and maybe try to learn some Langii. But basically everyone speaks very good english so I dont have to worry to much." White man" in this language is "munu." Its funny! Little kids chanting "munu" as we walk by. Kids are crazy.

The drive to Lira took about 5 hours. It was so hard sitting for so long! I am used to walking all day, my legs hurt sooo bad after the first 2 hours. But the drive was absolutely beautiful. We went through some real Africa. We crossed the Nile River, which was amazing. The part with the bridge over was like a class 5 rapids. When we passed the river we saw like 15 baboons just chilling on the side of the road. They are pretty goofy looking animals. I wish I had taken a picture but I didnt have my camera available. But now I can say that I have seen baboons!! Be jealous :) The rest of the drive was amazing. When you watch Lion King and it shows the flat plains extending forever, that is basically what we drove through. So awesome! I saw some legit villages with mud huts and everything. I love Africa! 

We just got back from a Tri-Zone Conference in Mbale. That is why I am emailing on Tuesday instead of Monday. We left on Sunday after church and drove for about 5 hours to the south eastern part of Uganda. We had Elder Hamilton from the Africa Southeast Area Presidency teach us. The conference was awesome and I learned a ton about how to be a better missionary. We slept at the Mbale chapel, 20 Elders sleeping on foam pads and I havent showered for three days now. I smell soo bad! Anyways after the conference yesterday (Monday) we just had the whole evening to relax and do whatever. We drove back to Lira this morning, dropped our stuff, and came straight to the internet place.

It sounds like winter time is coming there. That means that the dry season is coming here and that also means that It will only get more hot! I'm not too excited. I hope that the heat doesn't effect me to much. I'm already sweating enough. Maybe someday soon my body will decide to stop mass producing sweat. I hate sweating when im just sitting and doing nothing! Haha enough ranting.

I have really grown to love being here. I decided over these past few days that I dont want to come home in 20 months. I never want to leave and go back to normal life. Being here in Uganda as a missionary has become a part of me. I love everything about the restored gospel. The scriptures and Preach My Gospel are truly amazing things that we have. I study and mark them like crazy. Haha, i\I have set of different colored highlighters, and it looks like some little kid went crazy coloring all over my scriptures because there are so many colors on every page. The scriptures are the best gift anyone could ever receive. The church is true!

Love Elder LeCheminant.

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