Life Is A Blur

Here we go again,

Life is just a blur right now so I don't really know what to say in this email!

 Monday when we went to the Uganda National Museum

Uganda National Museum again

On Tuesday this week we had interviews with president Chatfield at the mission home. During the interviews we watched Meet The Mormons!!!!!! It was such a cool movie!! I think its probably one of my new favorite movies. Its amazing how much the gospel blesses the lives of people all around the world.

Also we were able to watch the video for the new Easter campaign. Its called "Because He Lives". That video is just powerful. The church started a YouTube takeover for this whole week up to Easter and that video will be on the front page of YouTube. Its amazing how the church has started using the media and technology soo much more in the last year. Things have changed so much recently!!!

Over the week we were blessed to have a couple of people begin to be serious. One is called Timothy and the other is called Vincent. They have been doing great. We are currently preparing them both for baptism on the 12th April. Hopefully all goes well.

I know this isn't much but my mind is not functioning right now so I really dont' know what else to say. Apologies!!!! :)

But thanks everyone for the love and support that you show me. Have a great week in all that you do. Love you all!!!!

Elder LeCheminant

Hard Work and New Investigators

This week seemed like it took forever to get done! But I felt like it was a pretty good week. The week was spent teaching many different people.

On Thursday we worked with one of our Zone Leader's Elder Dlamini; he is from South Africa. I was his District Leader in Gulu and now he is my ZL here. Its cool how that works. We had a great day. We were able finally visit a referral family that we received about a month ago. This family was given to us by a member in the Ntinda Branch. The husband is called Moses and the wife is Florence. They are a young family but the miracle is that they are legally married with papers to prove it!!!!! That never happens. And they are related to a strong member in Ntinda Branch. So we are definitely going to be working hard on them. They are cool people and willing to learn the Gospel. So that was fun. Then there was another guy we met. He was also a referral from one of the guys we work with a lot. His name is Timothy. Timothy was fun to teach. We have now taught him the Restoration and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He kept saying that he has made a lot of mistakes. Then we kept saying that following the gospel will help him to overcome those mistakes. He then related an experience where he was praying for forgiveness and he literally felt like a huge weight was being taken off of his shoulders. So we also told him he can always have that feeling as he continues to repent and prepare for baptism. With those two we now have some really promising people. We have a ton of other investigators but they are hard to to get progressing and coming to church. That is one of our biggest challenges here. Getting people to the church. If the church was closer to our area then we could have so many people there. But everyone we teach has to walk for at least 30 to 45 minutes to the church. There is always something that keeps people from coming.

Also something I have been reading in the Book Of Mormon is the story of Ammon in Alma chapters 17 onward. Ammon was incredible. He was able to convert basically an entire nation starting by one simple act of service. He simply spent a few days only serving the king then everyone was converted! It gave me some motivation that anything is possible. Even the high up people that we meet that are nearly impossible to talk to have some small chance of accepting the gospel by something we do. And we will never have it as bad as Ammon did. They wanted to cut his head off! We don't really meet people that want to kill us. So I enjoyed reading that story this week.

Another thing that would be cool for everyone to look at. I was talking to one of the new senior couples today at the mission office. His name is Elder Taylor from Mapleton, UT. He is a cool guy and has a website called www.happiestfacesonearth.org. He has been going around with a video camera interviewing random people on the streets. Also he has been making a lot of little videos to kinda show how Ugandans live. He has some really cool and inspirational videos. He showed us one today of a Mormon Helping Hands project he recorded a couple weeks ago. I would recommend going to the website and watching the stuff he puts up. It gives a good insight to Ugandan life. Showing how people with basically nothing are some of the most happy people you will meet.

Have a great week everyone. Until next week.
Elder LeCheminant

A New Perspective on The Atonement

This week was awesome! We had some amazing experiences and miracles. Our numbers were down for the week but we both felt that the work we did was way more than what the numbers showed. Everyday was fun and I really felt happy the whole week! The happiness is kinda a mixture of working hard, recognizing miracles, and reflecting on the past 21 months of mission. I recognized that I have had soo many incredible experiences throughout my mission. I love being here soo much and I honestly don't know how I feel about no longer being a missionary in a couple months. This has become my life and I feel like it is the only thing I know how to do now! :) The gospel is about happiness. It doesn't matter what we go through, as long as we are happy. And we find pure and lasting happiness only with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The world offers short term pleasures and things that appear to bring happiness which is one of Satan's greatest lies. We cannot be truly happy unless we are living the gospel.

On Tuesday we were working with our Ward mission leader. His name is Bagazwaga. I know, it is the coolest name ever! He is an awesome guy and came home from his mission in Ghana last year. During one of our lessons he told a story to our investigators that explained the atonement in a whole new way. It had a great impact on me so today for the rest of my email I am just going to put that story.

There was a man with a wife and young son. He worked at a train station that had electric trains passing through. At this particular station the tracks had a lot of different branches and connections. Sometimes the system controlling the position of the tracks would malfunction. On those days the man's job was to hold a switch that would keep the tracks aligned for the incoming train. He would have to keep his hand on the switch or else the tracks would move out of place. So the whole time the train was passing he would be keeping the switch. If he let go then the train would come off the tracks and then crash and the people would all die. It was a very important job. One day as he was at work his wife became very sick and she needed to be taken to the hospital. So she sent their young son to tell him that mommy was sick. As the young boy was approaching the train station he needed to cross the tracks. Unfortunately at the same time there was a train approaching the station. The man saw his only son about to cross the tracks but also knew of the oncoming train. He had a big decision to make. He could run out and save his son, but then the switch would not be activated and the train would crash and all the people inside would die. Or he would have to activate the switch to allow the train to pass but not be able to save his son. The man made his decision. With his hand on the switch he helplessly watched the train pass, killing his only son. Later the passengers were talking to him about this. They offered him anything he wanted for what he did for them. The man told the people, "All I want from you is to always remember me and what I have done." That man was our Heavenly Father. He sacrificed his only son in our behalf. And all he asks of us is to remember him. He stood there watching his only son be beaten and tortured and eventually hung on the cross. He did this to save us and provide a better life for all of us. It is only a small and simple thing that he asks of us, to remember him.

I have a strong testimony of the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is such a sweet and amazing thing. The atonement provides hope for us and gives us a chance to live happy and eventually dwell in the presence of God forever. When you taste of the sweetness of what God has done for us, you will never desire anything less. It is filled with soo much sweetness, purity, joy, happiness, and love. Those words are not even enough to describe it. I am grateful for the Atonement and for all that it has done in my life.

Thank you everyone for all of your support and love that you show to me as I am here. The gospel is true!

Pics are of the baptism of Flora a couple weeks ago. Then me and Elder Barrett and a member having delicious lunch. Then a beautiful stack of pancakes that I made one day!

Have a great week!
Elder LeCheminant

First Week With the New Comp!

Greetings from Uganda.

This has been a fun week! Transfers were successful as usual.
My new comp is called Elder Barrett. He is from Price, Utah. He is a cool guy. Its fun being with a brand new missionary. It is a totally different experience but I enjoy it so far. We have had a great past couple of days; the work has been progressing well.

Something we have been focusing on a lot with our investigators is the importance of coming to church. We have been having a lot of success with finding new investigators and receiving referrals from everyone, but we are suffering in terms of investigators at Church. So that is a tough one. We are trying to help all of them understand the reasons behind why we go to church every Sunday. I had a lot of hopes that it would work but on Sunday we only had 3 investigators come. It was definitely a trial of faith. We are going to keep doing it this next week. And hopefully we will start to see more people coming to church.

Church on Sunday was awesome. They had it as a "missionary Sunday." So the elders blessed the sacrament and gave talks, etc. I was one of the elders assigned a talk. The topic was from the Feb 2015 Liahona called "The Gate Called Baptism." So I had planned to talk about baptism. I read through the talk a few times and made a few notes. Then when I stood up to speak a very different thing came out! I ended up talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and having faith, repenting, being baptized, receiving the holy ghost, then enduring to the end. I also mixed in the importance of the sacrament! Haha so it was far from just baptism. Its amazing how the spirit just spoils our plans sometimes!!! People said it was a good talk though :)

In Sunday School, Gospel Principles Class, they asked me to teach about 30 seconds before it was starting because the teacher wasn't there. I tried to get out of it but they somehow got me to. So I taught with literally NO preparation!!! It was fun though. The lesson wasn't to hard. It was chapter 9 about prophets.

So the week was great. I enjoyed it. Its been really hot though. Hopefully the rain comes soon to cool things down.

Have a great week everyone. Thanks for all the love and support that you show me as I am here :)

Elder LeCheminant

It's A Boy!!!

So this was a much better week. We got a lot more things done even though there was still a lot of disappointments.

We met with our progressing investigator called Flora everyday. She has been coming to church the whole transfer. She was referred by a long time member of the church from another Ward in Kampala so she has really strong support system. We met every day to finish up the teaching process because she was preparing for baptism on Sunday. It was our only baptism for the transfer, so I was pretty happy! She chose me to baptize her but I changed her mind to choose Elder Harmon. He had never baptized someone so I wanted him to have the opportunity while we were still companions. So Elder Harmon was the baptist yesterday for Flora. He was really excited. On Saturday we started the water in the font because the water pressure is super low and it takes forever to fill. Then Sunday morning we got to church and went to check it and the font was full but the water was brown. It was kinda gross. I think there was just some bad water going through the pipes, they said that usually doesn't happen. But we couldn't just drain the whole thing and fill it again, that would take way to much time so we just had to go with it. Then after church as we are preparing for the baptism service to start we went to check the water again and half of it had drained out! I guess there was a problem with the plug for the drain or something. So they were baptizing in like knee high water. There was two other baptisms as well for the other elders. It was an adventure trying to get all three of them all the way under because the water was soo low. The first person took 6 tries. I felt really bad for her. But Elder Harmon and Flora were last so they had figured out a good way to do it. So Flora was done right the first time. It was a powerful baptism service and the ward was really supportive with everything which was nice.

A cool thing happened right before the service. There was a guy who we work with sometimes who received his mission call. His name is Henry. They waited to open it until after church so that many people could be there. Everyone gathered in the chapel. Henry opened his mission call right there. He was called to serve in Zimbabwe. He was so happy the entire time! Then after he read the letter, all of the RM's in the ward (there was like 15) plus us Elders got up and sang Called To Serve. It was powerful and just a fun and happy moment for everyone. It reminded me of when I opened my mission call ages ago! Haha

Also another nice experience for the week. On Friday I received a phone call from Kenneth and Betty. They are the family I taught in Iganga and whose wedding we were able to attend. They were just calling to say hello and tell me how happy they are about life. Kenneth was saying that he had gotten a Bible and a Triple Combination, and he had received the Aaronic Priesthood. He was so happy about all of that. Then Betty was telling me how much her life and family has changed since we began teaching them. It was a nice and short phone call. Afterwards I was super happy as well. Those are the moments that make all of the hard work and stress of mission worth it. I always love getting to talk to my recent converts!

Then today we received transfer news. Elder Harmon is going to Lira. And I am going to be TRAINING!!!!!!!!! Haha that's why the subject line says its a boy.  I am training this transfer. Its like I am getting my very own son. haha. I think his name is Elder Barrett. I don't remember exactly, and they say he is from the states. Elder Harmon is super excited to go to Lira. Me and some other elders have been telling him about it today and trying to scare him a bit. Haha it was all just fun and jokes though. I am just really excited to get to be with a brand new missionary. It is going to be a different experience. I have trained a lot of old missionaries over the last couple years. Now I get to start one off fresh. Hopefully all goes well. I will have more info about that next week.  :) This is my second to last transfer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Quote for the week."It is better in a prayer to have heart without words and not words without heart." - a member here.

Enjoy March everyone! Have a great week with all your adventures. I will send pictures next week.

Elder LeCheminafrica