Monday, April 27, 2015

John Kennedy and Chasing Chameleons

Howdy do
Life is good. We spent the week just working and trying our best. We ended the week with 3 investigators. The finding ideas we used in Kampala obviously don't work here, so this next week we will be trying to come up with some different finding ideas. Its going to need some creativity for my non-creative brain!!!! But I am sure we will be able to do it.

We have a father and son that were taught by the previous elders here. The dad is called John and his son is called Kennedy. On our list we put them together as John Kennedy. Yea it was funny because we didnt' realize it until after like 10 minutes!! Anyways they would have been baptized a few weeks ago but there was some confusion with John and plural marriage. The story was really confusing because everyone was saying different things. Even he had met with President Chatfield a few weeks ago and they talked about it, but there was still some confusion. So yesterday we talked to John and got the whole story out of him. Then we talked to President Chatfield today and it turns out it was never polygamy in the first place and he said we can baptize him! So this weekend we should be having two baptisms. Yaya :) They are awesome.

Gulu is a beautiful place. I think God is a show off sometimes. Gulu is mostly flat. Then there are parts of our area where we can see out for miles and then a few random hills in the distance and it is just beautiful. I can't think of any better place to serve as a missionary than here in Gulu. To everyone else in the world, your missions are probably nice, but nothing compares to Uganda!!!!! Hehe :) A few days ago we found a snake on the road in front of the church. It was just a little teeny one though, Like barely a foot long. Then also few days back there was a chameleon crossing the road. We tried grabbing but it ran into a bush. Then we chased it around this little bush for like 10 minutes until I eventually caught it! Then Elder Barrett wanted to hold it. As soon as he grabbed it the whole body turned black and it was trying to bite him!! Haha it was hilarious because on my hand it was totally calm. That was random... On Saturday evening we ate a duck for dinner. One of my recent converts here was so excited to see me again that she wanted to give me a duck. So of course we accepted and she cooked it for us on Saturday with other local foods. It tasted better than chicken. The meat was really soft and delicious. I forgot to take a picture of the duck though so that is just now a long lost memory..

Today we had Zone Conference. It was originally scheduled for tomorrow but some things happened and they changed the plans and we had it today. It was pretty awesome. My last zone conference.! At the end I gave my farewell testimony. That was kinda strange. I felt like it was just another zone conference and that I still have like the rest of my life here as a missionary. The conference was all about using time wisely and about effective daily planning. There was a lot of things we could improve on with daily planning. It will help me though these next few weeks to use all of the time most effectively.

Have a fantastic week everyone. Choose the right. The gospel is true.
Elder LeCheminant

Monday, April 13, 2015

The Beginning of the End - Last Transfer!

So this week was a pretty good week. We finished off the transfer on a good note of 2 baptisms!!! Yay

Most of the week is a blur as usual. The two who were baptized was Timothy and Vincent. They are both awesome. We visited them everyday to make sure everything went right during their last week of preparing for baptism. Satan can throw in a last minute bomb sometimes.

On Friday was the birthday of one of the guys that we have been working with. His name is Isaac. At night on  Thursday he told us that his birthday was the next day. We asked if he was going to celebrate then he said he has never celebrated a birthday. So of course we had to do it for him!!! Haha it was fun. Friday morning we baked some chocolate chip cookies. Then we got him an Angry Birds birthday hat from the mall and got him birthday card with a little race car as a present. At the mall the only numbers they had for the candle numbers was 1 to 9. They didn't have a zero!!! And he was turning 20. So we got a 2 and then wrote a zero on it. It was a fun random little party. He enjoyed it. The only problem is that the whole thing messed up our brains for the rest of the day. Haha but at least we got to celebrate Isaac's birthday with him. :)

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Saturday we walked waayyy too much. We were at the church in the morning. Then we were going around with our District Leader to get Vincent and Timothy interviewed. And between the interviews we had a couple appointments. Then in the evening we had a dinner with a member. Everything was literally as far away from each other as possible. We walked at least 10 miles, probably more for the day, but both interviews were successful. Then we had a dinner at a member's house. It was sooo amazing! They cooked fantastic food. The downside is that both me and elder Barrett were feeling kinda sick. After we left their house, Elder Barrett threw up and I wasn't feeling to good so we went home a bit early. In the middle of the night I threw up. All night and all Sunday morning both of us were in and out of the bathroom. Then we had to walk 30 minutes to church completely exhausted and tired and during church we still had it. Haha it was crazy!!! By the end of Sunday we were doing better. We went to bed kinda early and even this morning we woke up late. The extra sleep was very needed! Now I feel great!

After church was the baptism of Timothy and Vincent. I made sure Elder Barrett performed the baptism because he had never baptized anyone before and I wanted to be the first one to see him do it. :) He did great and all went well.

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Then today we received transfer news and got the biggest surprise of my life!!!!!!!!! So basically they are closing our area here in Kololo.  Both Elder Barrett and I are going together to white wash the same area I was at in Gulu a year ago. How crazy is that!! I am going back to Gulu for my last transfer. And I am still companions with Elder Barrett. This is the first time I have ever seen two companions transferred to the same area together. I am really excited to go back to Gulu. It is going to make these next six weeks fly by like crazy!!! Its going to be amazing.
Since we are both leaving Kampala we decided to celebrate my birthday early with KFC. So today before emailing we went and got lunch at KFC!!!!!! It was sooo stinking good and tasted just like KFC back at home.  It was basically a celebration of the end of Elder Barrett's first transfer, the start of my last transfer, my birthday, and a bunch of other things. So it was justified. I decided it was worth the money :).

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So here I am saying goodbye to Kampala. I guess I was never meant to be in the city.. haha I love the village to much! This is going to be a great last transfer. Have a great week everyone.

Elder LeCheminant

Monday, April 6, 2015

Happy Easter!

Well this week literally started out with a nice April Fools!!

We had zone meeting on Wednesday morning (the 1st of April). It was a great meeting and the zone leaders had me do a training about obedience. I'm pretty sure they had me do it because I am the only one in the zone who has been a zone leader before. Haha, but anyways I didn't want to talk about the importance of being obedient because that is boring and we hear that one all the time. So I decided to talk about how we need to help each other be obedient. It must have been inspired though because the ZLs told me after that that was actually what they wanted me to do. Haha its funny how that works.
Then the rest of the day was supposed to be full of appointments. Literally we had 6 or 7 lessons planned for after the meeting. But April Fools!!! That, of course, didn't happen. Each lesson we had planned and already confirmed in the morning ended up not being available as we went to each of them. So in the between time we tried to go and do a bit of finding things but it was all completely unsuccessful and we didn't get any contacts. Haha, so it was definitely an April fools to remember. Satan sucks sometimes.

After Wednesday the rest of the week went a whole lot better. We were able find a few families and add them to the teaching pool; that was exciting. Then we had two investigators start to show some serious commitment. Their names are Timothy and Vincent. Both are around 20-22 years old and they have been progressing amazingly and will be baptized this coming Sunday. That was an exciting thing to happen because we have been really struggling to get people to progress and come to church the whole transfer. Timothy stays with his parents and siblings so after his baptism we are going to start working with his parents. For now we have just been trying to build a good relationship with the family and then invite everyone to learn about what Timothy has been learning. So hopefully that will be successful. I always love when families come together in the church.

Sunday was of course Easter Sunday and Fast Sunday and General Conference Sunday. Haha, but for us here there was no general conference. I think they said we will be watching it the last weekend of April. Church was great though as usual; many of the testimonies were powerful. Then we got home from church at 3. We broke our fast and ate food. Then went to an investigator at 4 and they fed us an Easter lunch. Then at 5 we went to a member family's house and they also fed us an Easter meal. Haha that last one was sooo hard to finish!!! Three meals all right in a row and with no resting in between all after not eating for a whole day. It was almost like those food challenges that you watch people do on the food channel. It was fun though and worth it. I didn't eat anything today until around 3:00, my stomach was just to full. I love holidays!!!!!!! :)

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Easter Sunday meal!

Fun fact. During church I was reading in the bible dictionary about Easter. The name "Easter" has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus Christ!!! In my mind I said "what the heck" the way that Jake always says it. hahahaha I was laughing to myself.

Have a great week everyone.
Love Elder LeCheminant :)