Double Area Duty

So this week was pretty hectic. An Elder was really sick the whole week! We went to a clinic in town to get him tested to see what he was sick with. They found E Coli in the stool sample and a bunch of random bacteria and parasites in the blood sample. They prescribed some medication. It worked and now he is recovered. 

Due to that I had to take care of two areas for the entire week. On Tuesday and Thursday we worked in my area then on Wednesday and Friday we worked in his area. Each day the three of us Elders took a turn staying home. Finally on Saturday he was feeling better and was able to go out and work for a while. 

There were a lot of people that we weren't able to visit or teach throughout the week. But we did the best we could with the situation! I couldn't let myself let anything happen in their area for the whole week.  

On Friday we had an interesting experience. While trying to visit a less active, her mother showed up. She doesn't speak English so she started yelling at us in Acholi. Then a neighbor woman came over and was doing the same thing but she could speak English. We just listened to her for a while. Every once in a while we would throw a nice question at her and then she would avoid it and go on preaching nonsense to us. But I was patient and let her finish then we just left. 

Its amazing how misled some people are! Satan is sooo good at leading people away from the truth and bringing out false doctrines that are pleasing to the natural man. Its so frustrating for us as missionaries because it can cause a lot of problems when we are trying to proclaim the truth. So there was one fun experience for you! ;)

That's pretty cool that Mr. Fry is going to teach in Africa. Which country is he going to?!?!?! Africa is the best place ever!

Oh yea, dad, I'm sure there are tons of opportunities to do surgery in Africa. I know that Uganda needs some serious help with its health care. There is a General Surgeon that lives in our compound that is from Siberia. There are probably tons of hospitals around or some kind of American organization that could use a surgeon. 

Haha funny of the week, Mom, I gave a talk in sacrament meeting on Sunday as well. And I also talked about the Plan of Salvation. Haha what a coincidence. Except I only used my scriptures and my mind. I had nothing written down or anything. So I just talked for 10 minutes! Its amazing how being a missionary I don't have to spend hours preparing something like at home. I can just stand there and talk about most of the gospel topics for an hour no problem. 

The world really is coming to an end. Sarah is 16!! Hahahah ;)

Happy birthday.

One more thing I just remembered. I wanted to put a plug in for Senior Couple Missionaries. The world needs more Senior Couples!!!!! We just found out that there has been a 40% decline in applications for Senior Couples. Especially Africa needs more. In the Uganda Kampala Mission there are about 6 couples leaving by September this year and there are currently no couples planned to come and replace them. 90% of Couples assigned to this mission decline when they receive their call. The problem is Africa wide. In the Area office in South Africa there were 5 couples working for the area presidency; now they are down to 2 with no one coming to replace the others. We need more Senior Couples!!!!!!!!!! 

Thanks for listening :)

Here is a picture of of Ethiopian Food we had today for lunch. Its soo good! The white stuff is called Injera. You eat it with hands. It is soo good.

Have a great week!!

Love Elder LeChem

Mango Season

This was a pretty good week. I dont have time to go into much detail. Everyday was good. Just going to work and teaching people. 

First of all. Its mango season!! There's sooo many mangoes everywhere. And every person we go to just gives us tons of mangoes. I've never seen so many mangoes in my life. But they are sooooo good!!! 

On Friday we were teaching my favorite family ever. They are Patrick and Jackie. I baptized the whole family a couple months ago. Anyways, they are all doing amazing. The whole family is super active and participates in everything and actually lives the gospel and keeps the commitments that we give them. That doesn't happen very much.  They even come all together and even sit together. On Friday we were just having a nice discussion and answering some of their questions. We found that Patrick is now in Mosiah in the Book Of Mormon and Jackie is partway through Jacob. Its so awesome! And they understand the stories and things that are taught. They are the best family. The Book Of Mormon is true and works miracles when you actually use it.

On Saturday and Sunday an Elder was really sick. So on Saturday I went out and worked with his companion and we covered both areas. My comp stayed home with him. It was a great day.  Elder Antony, is from Kenya. He is super humble and willing to work. I loved working with him for the day. We had a great time. Then Sunday after church I stayed home and the other comps worked together in their area. We just sat there all day talking and listening to talks. Today he is doing a lot better. I had to take care of my district so I even sacrificed a couple good days. But I know it was worth it. 

Today a few of us went into town and had lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant. It was pretty good. Then we went to a hair cutting place and got FREE HEAD MASSAGES!! It was super nice. I feel so good right now. She wasn't a professional massager so it wasn't as good as when a pro does it. But it still felt nice. For Uganda it was pretty good. Haha 

That's so awesome that David Polley got his mission call. Super exciting!!

There's so many people going out on their missions now. 

Sarah and Joey are getting to old

Sister Moore suggested something to put in packages. Chocolate Chips!! Cus those don't exist in Uganda. I would love some to make some banana choco chip cookies. But if you send some make sure its the semi-sweet ones so they don't melt. 

Also yesterday I made the cheesecake pudding from my last box. It was soooo good!!! You should send a lot of those. Especially the banana flavored ones. :)

Have a great week. 

Elder Chem

General Conference

So first of all, according to me mom is the only one that loves me! Because she is the only person that emailed me today!! Seriously I got no other new emails from anyone. :)

This week was great. On Monday in the evening we had a compound dinner. We made a ton of food and invited all of the people that live in our compound to come and eat with us. In the morning it seemed like everything was going to fail miserably. A lot of the food wasn't turning out right and then it was terrible weather and raining and no power most of the day. But it actually turned out to be a huge success. I made a giant pot of amazing beans. Sister Moore made a ton of bbq pork! It was soo good. There was a ton of other amazing food. We had a great time with the other Mzungus. It was my first gathering/hangout with white people that arent missionaries in about a year!! So much fun. 

Tuesday went pretty good. In the evening we were teaching Peterson. He has a baptism date for the 25th. We were teaching him the plan of salvation. Unfortunately he was having a really hard time understanding and taking in what we were saying about the pre-mortal existence. He then just started spouting tons of questions and concerns with what we were talking about.  I did the best I could to explain everything clearly and simply. But he was still having a hard time. But I was amazed at how well we were able to handle the situation and answer his questions. A year ago I never would have been able to get close.

Wednesday for our district meeting I did a training about relying on the spirit from Preach My Gospel. It actually turned out to be a really good discussion. Afterwords we did exchanges in the zone. One of the ZL's came with my comp and I went with his comp in their area. His name is Elder Dlamini. He is from South Africa. We had a great day together and taught some awesome lessons.

Friday in the morning all of us went and did service for a lady. We were cutting the grass around her house, digging in her garden, and I also cut down a tree. It was so much fun! We timed how long it took me to cut the tree. I was chopping for exactly 1 hour! It was such a hard tree to cut down. I was exhausted but it felt so good to do some good hard physical labor. I felt so accomplished when the tree FINALLY came down! There is a pic at the end of me cutting.

Saturday and Sunday we were finally able to watch General Conference. We had it playing at the church and it ran just like it normally would if it was live. Conference was seriously amazing! I felt at home when I saw the Conference Center and Temple Square. It made me really appreciate how blessed we are to be surrounded by so many things. I miss Temple Square so much! The temple is so beautiful. Just seeing it and also the conference center, brought such a strong feeling of the spirit into my heart. When the tabernacle choir would sing I felt a literal presence of something. I know it was the Holy Ghost. This was one of the few times in my life where I have felt such a definite and undeniable presence of the Spirit. I love General Conference! All of the talks were so inspired. The Apostles were so direct in their messages about obedience, missionary work, and living the gospel. Elder Holland is amazing!!!

Today I was able to call for mothers day! To all you mothers out there, Happy Mothers Day!!!! It was so good to talk to the family even though it was waaayyyyy to short. Those 40 minutes were definitely not enough time. We barely had enough time to say hello and talk about 1 or 2 things then time was up ;(.

Don't have too much fun with graduation and stuff. I remember back in the day when I graduated... Haha that was soo long ago!

Mom you need to send me the Vitamix so I can eat healthy as well! Haha kidding. I dont need to eat healthy until next year when I come home.

Oh yea, today we got our transfer news. The transfer ended yesterday. Everyone in Gulu is staying except for one. So this is going to my 3rd transfer here. Mom this is going to be the longest I will have stayed in an area so I feel like I have been here for a long time. But I am happy to stay. I wish I could just finish my mission here. Gulu is amazing. I will turn 1 year this transfer. I cant believe that I will be 1 year in three weeks!! When did that happen?

Have a good week.

Elder LeCheminant

Baptisms

We had a perty good week this week. People were actually around!! I don't have much time so this will be a bit less detailed. 

On Thursday we worked with one of the Zone Leaders. It was a great day. We were teaching an investigator called Peterson. He is an awesome guy. While teaching he told us that his father was baptized like 3 years ago. So we were able to find him!! We met with him yesterday and he is awesome. He has a powerful testimony about Joseph Smith and the Book Of Mormon. He just stopped coming to church. Kinda Lame. But its ok! We are now going to be visiting him and teaching his son Peterson. So we will complete the family and reactivate at the same time. Exciting!

On Friday we had the baptism interview for Eve. We did a quick exchange with the ZL's. After the interview we had about 30 min before our companions were done with a lesson they were in. So we went to visit Patrick. We planned to review the Restoration with him. Right before going in we decided we wanted to try doing it in 10 minutes. Challenge accepted! The lesson turned out amazing!! We did it in 15 minutes from start to finish. We transitioned like ever 30 seconds. It flowed so well and the spirit was so strong! So that was pretty cool. I used to do that with Elder Buyers. It was pretty dang exciting. 

Sunday we had a baptism. She chose me to baptize her. I don't know why but people always choose me to baptize them! Why?!?!? Haha anyways the baptism service was a good success. 

I'm super jealous that you got to be in Utah to see so many people! That would be pretty shweet if the Hofheins came up to AK next summer. Did you get the bags? I have the video of the elephant on my SD card here. Maybe sometime I will try to send it. That was pretty fun!! I wasnt hiding the story from you. I was just letting him tell it.

Congrats to Jose! Haha getting a mission call is always super exciting. Spanish speaking is also cool I guess... :) Sometimes I wish that I was able to learn Spanish or Portuguese. But instead I get to learn a bit of several African languages! It will be a  whole nother year till I get to see Jose. Kinda sad... :)

Sorry mom for forgetting to tell you! Haha I have had my card ever since I got the box! I just kept forgetting to tell you every week. 

The plan for calling on Sunday is... I don't know!! :) Since we didn't try to organize a time earlier I will just tell you what I decided. If it doesn't work then Im sorry. it will have to work :) I think since you have church at 9:00 here it is 8:00 pm on Sunday. So that you don't have to get up early, I think I can call Monday morning here at like 7:00; then It will be 8 pm Sunday night there. Hopefully it will work!! If that doesn't work for me then I will just call and surprise you and you will have to talk to me no matter what ;)

No time left! Have a good week. Love, Me!