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!

Stressful Week with a Great Ending

This was a stressful week.  I won't dwell on it. But we got over it and now everything is great!!! :)

The whole week we struggled to get lessons, most days it seemed like everyone in gulu had their phone off. So that was a challenge to push through.

Tuesday was a good day. At night we taught a nice family. Their names are Geoffrey and Consy. They are very receptive and love all of the lessons. We were able to set a baptism date with both of them. That was exciting. They are so willing to be baptized. So they are now preparing for the 18 May. I seriously hope and pray that both of them progress together. It would be such a great experience to baptize a husband and wife together. They also have a brand new baby of about 4 weeks! So it might be hard to progress Consy but we will do our best.

Wednesday in the morning we had DDM (district development meeting). I organized some role-plays to help with weekly planning. It was great for the whole district and we learned a lot of things that we can do better with weekly planning. In the afternoon we went and taught Eve. She is preparing for baptism on the 4 May. She is doing great and loves the gospel. I cant remember if I already told you about her but she came to church 3 weeks ago and told us she just felt like coming. She had never been before and had never met the missionaries. and now we are preparing her for baptism! I love it when that happens.

Thursday was pretty rough. In the morning we had a full schedule of people appointments. We begin calling everyone to confirm appointments and NOBODY had their phone on. So we just had to go and wing it all day. At night we did get an awesome new investigator. We were walking to the Branch presidents house. Just before we got there this guy comes out of his house and calls for us. He starts talking and asking tons of questions about the church. He had been invited to FHE (family home evening) and Institute by the branch president a while back. So we went and sat down and taught him the Restoration and he was just super excited about all of it! He was definitely prepared to meet us. That was really fun to meet him. Oh yea haha his name is Peterson.

Church on Sunday was fantastic!! Our new Branch President is incredible. We had PEC at 8:30 in the morning and he started on time and didn't wait for others to show up. Then the church block meetings all went great. We had 72  in sacrament attendance and most were adults. In the past about half of the congregation were children. Now most of the kids don't come (most of them were strays from the road) and the congregation is mostly adults. After church we had the best Branch Council meeting I have ever been to in my life. The branch president did such a good job at keeping it organized and focused on things that the auxiliary leaders need to do to help the branch. So the branch is doing great.

 Mom and dad you are making me jealous that you are in Utah seeing everyone!!! I am stuck here in the middle of Africa.

I never expected to be getting a new cousin! Congrats Annelise. That was a huge surprise to read. Rick and Kathryn, Now we need some others to come along so they can all grow up the same age! hahahaha

I got my Easter box!! The candy is soo good! My companion liked his Easter basket/box thing too. Thanks so much! I have already finished most of it, with the help  of some other missionaries.

Why would you leave Joey and Sarah at home by themselves? I trust the dog more than them! Haha totally joking. :) Moose is a good babysitter.

If you need pics for my blog page then you will have 16 GB worth of pics from my card that the Hofheins have.

Me and elder Allred in our Lava-lavas! We got them from Elder Hofheins when he left. You can show it to them when you see him. 

This is the baptism a couple weeks ago. The one who baptized her is now the branch president. 

And then a sweet pic of a giraffe that I took! 

Love, Elder LeCheminant

Brad's Birthday and Easter

This week was also another one with ups and downs. Most of the week nobody was at home. It was really difficult to see all of our investigators. Nobody was at home and also everyone's phones were off. So both days we were just winging it and doing our best to get people at home. 

On Tuesday we taught an investigator called Geoffrey. we found him two weeks ago. Sunday we had given his family a copy of the Book Of Mormon. So Tuesday we went to talk about it. When we got there I asked what he had been able to read. He said he was at the part where Lehi dies. What?!?! I didn't believe it at first. But then he started telling us everything about Lehi's family in Jerusalem and how they left, then built a boat, then went to America, then the split of Nephites and Lamanites. I was so surprised. Wait its not over!! We sat there for a while talking about everything, then at the end, right before we were about to leave, he confessed that he had only read the chapter headings for 1st Nephi up until 2 Nephi where Lehi dies. Haha, I just laughed and laughed and laughed. He totally got us! 

Wednesday we taught a lady called Eve. She came to church a couple weeks ago just randomly. She said she had never been before and she never met the missionaries. She just felt like she needed to come and see the church. So we have been teaching her. On Wednesday we taught her the Plan of Salvation. Then at the end I asked her if she had any questions. Then she said "When are you going to baptize me?" Haha I love it when people ask us to be baptized instead of us asking them. She is progressing very very well and now has a Baptism date for the first week of May. 

Thursday was of course my birfday. Yea not to exciting. I made my box of mac and cheese for lunch. And I mixed some of mom's canned salmon in it as well. Then at night after everyone was back, Sister Moore, the senior couple, made an incredible chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Oh my goodness it was soo good! Yay now I am 20. Woo hoo. Thanks mom for the box :)

Friday we had weekly planning then as we were just about to leave to go out and work, the APs showed up; so then we got to work with one for the day. We had a great time. They came up for our Zone Conference on Saturday. 

It was a pretty dang awesome conference. I love President Chatfield. After Zone Conference we had an amazing lunch made by Elder and Sister Moore, our senior couple here. She made this pasta goulash kinda thing. As mom knows thats like my favorite food ever! She also made some amazing garlic bread and banana squares. I almost died. Then later after we headed out to work we stopped at the church to try and find a member to work with. No one was there except for President Chatfield; he was there doing interviews for the Branches. When we arrived he had no one and was just waiting. So we went and talked to him. It was fun. We were telling all of our hunting and snowmachining stories. I enjoyed it a lot. He is the best mission President ever. 

Sunday was great! It didnt really feel like Easter, but it was good to think a little more about the Atonement. Church was awesome! President Chatfield and the APs came to our Branch. He was there to reorganize the Branch Presidency. Now we have a new branch president. I am really excited because he is an awesome guy and is going to do wonders for the Branch. So that was a fun experience.  There's the week!

I just emailed Elder Hofheins. He replied right away and he said he is going to call you (mom) today to talk about when you all can meet up. He told me something about wanting to have you all over at his house for some dinner. So you can talk to him and figure all that shtuff out. I gave him your phone numba. 

Jacob you're crazy! Stop trying to break the by-side-by-side! hahaha

Mom - So I don't know if I am just crazy or what, but I thought that I saw some replacement heads for my shaver in my box when I opened it. But the day after I was going through it and didnt see them anywhere. So I decided that either someone took them from the box or I am just crazy and they were never there in the first place or I am crazy and somehow misplaced them. I asked all of the Elders if they took it, and of course no one had any idea what I was talking about and everyone acted completely innocent. So I hate to ask for another one, but if you could send another one along with some real shaving cream. I bought some but it kinda stinks. Thanks mom! Your awesome ;) Now I am a lot more careful with the things that are in my packages. Everything else in the box survived. The canned salmon is amazing! I want more!!! hahaha :)

I predict that joey is going to the Boise Idaho Mission! 

Haha kissing is a great way to spread sickness around! I hope everyone in the play at the school stays healthy. There's nothing worse than trying to perform and being sick at the same time. And why are the plays always so crazy? Nothing can beat the ones that I was in. hahahaha :)

Have a great week everyone. Congrats to Lindsey and Andy for graduating this week! Oh yea, what is the name of the blog that Lindsey made for me? I was going through my emails and couldn't find it. 

Love Elder LeCheminant

The Shortest Email Ever

This week was a good week. This is going to be short because the power went out and I have very small time remaining.

Every day this week was full of solid teaching and good work. This week was kinda a week full of small trials mixed with blessings. It was really hard to get used to some things but now we are doing great. Also, as we were working, trials would just start piling up. We just pushed through and did our best then the lord blessed us. That happened several times. Piles of trials then one small thing the lord blesses us with. It was actually kinda cool to be able to recognize the hand of the lord in what we were doing.

On Thursday in the morning we spent about 5 hours working in a garden. We were planting maize and g-nuts. G-nuts are like peanuts but grow in the ground. They are really good. So that was a great experience.
On Friday I did 1 interview for my district and on Saturday I did 2 interviews for the ZL's. They were all successful. On Sunday we also had a baptism. Her name is Cynthia. She is the daughter to Patrick and Jackie who we baptized last transfer. It was a good baptism.

After church yesterday I made everyone caramel syrup and pancakes. It was AMAZING! The caramel syrup actually turned out right and it was artery clogging/heart attack kind of deliciousness.

I will get whatever mail comes at the end of the month! Oh yea, i mailed the pfd form. I tried to do it express but it was going to cost WAAAYYY too much. Express for just a small letter is 86,000 shillings. Normal postage is 3,400 shillings. So yea I didnt want to spend that much money so I sent it regular postage. So I dont know how long it will take to get there.

Have you got the postcard that I sent? Just wondering.

Its my Bday this week! Just in case any of you forgot :)

Yea this is prob my shortest email ever!!!!!!!
Have a good week
Elder LeCheminant

Companion-less Designated Driver

Transfer week is always crazy. This was an especially crazy one.
So basically all day Tuesday was spent going around with Elder Phiri and Hofheins so they could say goodbye to people. That was an adventure. Then They left on Wednesday in the morning at like 6:00 to go to Kampala.

So all 4 of us missionaries here in Gulu were left with no companion. Also the truck was left here. Normally the ZL's are the only ones allowed to drive. But Elder Hofheins was gone and the other ZL doesn't have a license in Uganda. So that left me as the designated driver. I was driving all day on Wednesday. Since all 4 of us had no companion we basically just spent the day bouncing around all 4 areas for the whole day. That was super exciting. Then on Thursday I got to drive to a place called Kamdini. Its basically the split on the road north where you go straight and go to Gulu or you turn and go to Lira. The Lira Senior couple brought up one Elder for us in Gulu; so I got to drive to Kamdini to pick him up. The other three came with our Gulu senior couple on Friday. The drive to Kamdini was fun. It takes about an hour. The road is terrible though and full of huge potholes and crazy drivers. The truck was a blast to drive. Here we drive on the right side of the car and on the left side of the road. And our truck is a manual transmission. Soo haha to Andy! You cant tell me I cant drive stick :)

Anyways, my new comp finally came on Friday. Three days with no companion kinda sucked. I'm happy he is here. He is Elder Mukengeshayi. He is from Kinshasa DRCongo. He speaks French and he is 8 months on his mission now. When he first came he didn't know any English. He is still learning English so communication is a challenge at some points. We have to do English language study everyday; so this is an interesting change. He is a good person though and wants to work hard.

Saturday and Sunday we just spent our time going around visiting people. I was mostly just showing him around the area and letting him get to know our people. This is going to be an interesting transfer. But I feel like we are going to have a good time.

Mom I got the package! It came up with the transfers. Thanks a bunch. I am only a teenager for like 2 more weeks. What?!
Today I ran out of shaving cream. SO Idk what Im gonna do now. I will try to find some at a supermarket here but it most likely will not be very good.

I sent my SD card completely filled with pics with Elder Hofheins. I gave him mom and dads cell phone numbas so he should be calling you at some point.

I cant wait until we get Conference DVD's in a couple weeks! It seems lilke it was a good conference.

I also just looked at the google+ thingy. It looks pretty cool but new. I will try uploading pics to that sometime and see how it works.

Have a good week!
Love Elder LeCheminant

The District Meeting and Johnny Lingo

Well this week we still worked hard and did our best!!!

Tuesday I did exchanges in my district. I went with Elder Allred in his area. Elder Allred is from Kaysville and he came the same time as me but he came from Provo MTC not South Africa. We had an enjoyable time working together. He is a good guy and has good desires to work hard. So the exchange was successful!

Wednesday we had an awesome District meeting. I decided to watch Johny Lingo. I got a copy of it from another missionary. So we watched the old version of Johnny Lingo and spent 30 minutes talking about what we learned from the movie. We had a great discussion about the potential that people have and how we cannot be someones' judge. Everyone has Godly potential and it is our job to bring that out. Also we talked about pride and a bunch of other principles that come from Johnny Lingo. It was a great meeting! I like to do things that are different for my district meetings.
In the afternoon we had an awesome activity. There is a big supermarket in Gulu Town called Uchumi. We gathered all of the materials we had like Books of Mormon, Liahonas, pamphlets, pass-along cards, etc. Then we set up two tables with all of these materials and invited the prospective missionaries from both Branches. Starting at 4:00 we spent 3 hours contacting people and handing out everything. It was a huge success. The prospective missionaries did an amazing job talking to people and spreading the good news of the church. We wanted to do this activity because there are a lot of people in Gulu that have never heard of the church before. SO we used this to help spread the name of the church. At the end of the day we had a total of around 200 contacts of people that wanted to learn more. Pretty dang awesome!! That was a great experience and I think we are going to try and make it a once a transfer thing here in Gulu.

Sunday Church went very well except that we had only one investigator come. The sacrament attendance went up again. It has been steadily going up every week since I have been here. In Gulu the Sacrament attendance was dropping significantly and it got down to the 50's. Well now it is in the 80's and still going up!

Today we got our transfer news! Yea last week was the last of the transfer. So now it is a new transfer. I am staying in my area. Elder Phiri is going to Kampala to an area called Makindye. My new companion is a Congolese (from DRC) called Elder Mukengeshayi. Has been in Rwanda and is coming back to Uganda. He is coming on Thursday so I get to go a few days with no companion. Yay!

I cant believe that its April! My Birthday is in like 17 days! What? I am almost no longer a teenager. What is happening to me.....

Thats so weird that all of these young ones are getting their mission calls. What is happening to the world?
I got a Dearelder letter from Jana Bell. Thanks!! I love receiving letters!

We dont get to watch or listen to conference live here because it would be in the middle of the night. So we have to wait like two weeks after for them to send us the DVDs then we watch the DVDs at church with the Branch. Yay for being in Uganda.

I was cooking some eggs a few days ago. I cracked one and poured it into a bowl with a bunch of eggs to beat them together first. I realized after I put the egg in the bowl that it was all green. Then I smelled it. Holy cow rotten eggs smell sooooo bad!!! I literally almost puked. That was my first time to experience a real rotten egg. It was horrible.

I dont remember anything else exciting. Have a great week!

Love the Mzungu

Sacrament Meeting Attendance is Up!

So yesterday it rained and there was no power in Gulu so we couldn't email. So here we are today!

This week was awesome. Elder Phiri and had good days almost everyday! Our teaching pool exploded this week. We were able to get a lot of families and referrals from current investigators. Now we have almost too many people to teach. This coming week will be a struggle to be able to see everyone.

Everyday was full of people to teach. We taught a lot of wonderful lessons. I also did 6 baptism interviews for the zone leaders! I did 3 on Thursday and 3 on Friday. It was kinda exhausting. I was pretty tired after each set

Sunday church was great. Sacrament attendance went up again to 78. We have a nice steady increase since I have come here. My first week in Gulu there were 54, so the branch is growing. A lot of investigators and less active members are coming to church. We had a baptism. It was sister Jackie. She is the wife to Patrick, who we baptized my first week here. It was a great experience. Saturday we forgot to prepare everything for the baptism. So Sunday morning while in the shower I realized we never filled the font! So we scrambled to get that going. The font was filling all during church until the end of Sunday School and then the water in the tap was gone. The water goes out a lot just like the power goes out here. So the font was only filled to about mid thigh. Patrick baptized Jackie. It was his first baptism ever and he did it perfect the first time. He said the words exact with no help and he even got her all the way under in the low water. So that was a great experience.

In the evening on Sunday we had a celebration dinner at their house. Jackie cooked sooo much food! She made chappatis, rice, chicken, beef, potatoes, matooke, and lots of fruit. It was fantastic. Then after eating we watched the Joseph Smith movie on our little portable dvd player. That family is amazing.

Yesterday for Pday we had a zone activity with Elder and Sister Moore. All of us went to a place called Karuma Falls. I think that is the name, not sure though. It is on the Nile River. It was so beautiful. We had a picnic provided by the Moores. They made hamburgers, baked beans and potato salad. I love american food!!!! That was a super fun activity. I have some awesome pictures but today I forgot my card so I cant send you any pics.

Mom its easy to teach someone how to run the nursery. You just give them the book and tell them to read it!! Hahahaha :)

I know there's not much detail about this week. I hurt from this chair I am sitting on and its affecting my brain functions.. Hahaha :)

Have a good week
Love Elder LeCheminant