Another Hectic Week

Hey guys

Another hectic week! We didn't really get much time to seriously work in our area due to a lot of different things.

Tuesday we stayed in Bugembe all day. The Elders were moving to a new house so since we have a vehicle we got to help them move. We started at around 8:00 in the morning and finished around 2:00 and we were all super exhausted. Their old house was a mess! Its amazing what missionaries can do to a house!!! But their new house is super nice; it was just finished being built two weeks ago. We stayed the night again in Bugembe.

On Wednesday we had a combined ZDM with Jinja Zone, it was also attended by President Chatfield and the AP's. It was all an open discussion led by the AP's. Each District from both zones presented a topic to discuss about. The topics were things that each District was struggling with. It was great to get help from all of the missionaries. We all learned a lot. President Chatfield gave some closing remarks about obedience, he talked about D&C 82:10 where it says that the Lord is bound when we obey but when we disobey He has every right to not give us blessings. Then President gave us a challenge to "Bind the Lord!" Haha it was pretty awesome. Through obedience we can bind the Lord and receive blessings. It's kinda an exciting thing to think about.

Tuesday morning we spent some time at the church helping the Branch President. My companion and I offered to help make some little cards that explain how to do all the Priesthood Ordinances. We spent a few hours using my great computer skills (not) to make the whole thing. Then we printed, cut, and laminated them. It was pretty fun. The Branch President was really happy with us for doing that for him. He is going to give one to each of the priesthood member in the Branch.

Saturday we spent a long time finishing up preparing David for his baptism interview. We realized on Friday that we didn't have any document or certificate that proves he was married to his wife, so Saturday morning we spent a long time with them going to his wife's village to meet her mother and get a written letter stating they were married. Since I failed to take care of it a long time ago we got to be stressed over it on Saturday, but we eventually got it all figured out and got him interviewed.



Sunday was awesome. We had two sister missionaries come to church with us. sister Ang'ila and sister Kunene. They work in Jinja but the Branch Pres requested they come to church so they can interact with the members and get the Young Women excited about missionary work. There has been a lot of discouragement and problems among the young women who are preparing for mission. It was soooo awesome to have the sisters there! They brought a special spirit with them and the members loved them; I realized that Elders are extremely boring compared to Sisters. After church we had the baptism of David. It was awesome and his wife was able to come as well. They were both super happy. We rushed home to get something to eat then we had to take the sisters back to Jinja. On the way back we played a trick on the Elders in bugembe. Since we helped them move on Tuesday we kinda kept one of the keys to their house. :) So on the way back to Iganga we stopped at their house and rearranged all the furniture. Then when they came home at 9:30 they called us freaked out saying that someone broke into their house and so on. My companion and I just kinda played along then eventually told them it was us. Haha then they laughed and were ok with it. It was pretty funny!!!!

 

 Mom, sorry I forgot to tell you last week. I got my package when we went to Kampala. I am addicted to goldfish! I accidentally finished the whole package in about 5 minutes. They are way too good!! The pork jerky and cookie butter is also amazing. I am trying to not eat them too fast. Its really hard to take it a little at a time. The CTR rings were there as well.

I can't believe Conference already happened! This is my third conference on mission. Next time we have general conference I will be packing my bags!!! hahahahahaha
The sad part is that we have wait for another month until they send the DVDs to the branches so we can watch it. I tried downloading a session but it would have taken about a day to download.

So I was just spending some time on Familysearch.org and I was trying to find some more info about Great Grandpa Lecheminant (Wilford Davis LeCheminant). There was one mention of him going to a South African reunion in SLC. I am dying to find out more about his mission to South Africa. I would love it if you can maybe dig up some cool stories from his mission and information about it so my mind can be at ease. If you can't then I guess I can wait until I come home, but its killing me right now :) thanks!!!

That's all for now. Have a great week everyone!

Elder LeCheminant -Senior

Potential Concussion

Howdy do

SO today I forgot my planner again and my head hurts really really bad. We were playing capture the flag in Jinja today with Jinja Zone and I was running backwards to get away from someone and I was going too fast and they tagged me and then I fell and hit the back of my head really hard on the ground. For a few minutes I couldn't focus out of my left eye, but its okay now so DON'T worry! Haha, my head just hurts really bad. I took some ibuprofen but it didn't really do much. Anyways, because of all that I kinda don't want to take much time today for emailing. Sorry Bambi! (Bambi is a word here that kinda is an expression of feeling sorry for someone.)

We spent the whole week kinda reorganizing the way we work each day. Elder Mkutswana and I want to do things a lot different than how they have been done in the past. So each day we struggled to get lessons, we were bounced a lot!

We spent a lot of time working with David. David is an awesome investigator who was super prepared for the gospel. He lives about a 15 minute drive into a village. He was originally taught by Elder Latola before I got here to Iganga. We taught him for a couple weeks then we dropped him. A couple weeks ago he came back; now he is even more prepared. For the two months we weren't teaching him he was reading the pamphlets and the Book Of Mormon. He knows everything perfectly now. He has to ride a bicycle for about 30 minutes to come to church. Surprisingly, yesterday at church he showed up with his wife! It was awesome! We are preparing him to be baptized next Sunday.

We had MLC on Friday, so we left for Kampala early. The meeting was fantastic! Afterwards they took us to a super nice hotel called the Protea for dinner. It was sooooo goood and way too fancy. Saturday morning we went to a guy in Kampala who makes plaques out of Ebony wood. I just wanted to see where the guy is so I will probably spend some money next month when we are there :)

Yesterday for church we had Branch Conference. Many District Auxiliary Leaders were there and Sacrament attendance was huge!!! We had 109 in attendance. Since I have been here it has been around 85 so that was awesome. We also said goodbye to the Caspersons; they are the senior couple that is over the Jinja District and they are going home this week. They will be replaced by Elder and Sister Squire who are from Layton, UT. They are awesome!!!!! Elder Squire completely reminds me of Mike Owens, same walk and everything. Its pretty cool :). They have been here in Uganda for about 6 months and Sister Squire was the mission nurse but we are getting a new doctor couple to replace them. The new couple is from somewhere around Provo or Orem and President Chatfield says he is the best OBGYN in Utah or something. We will see when they get here.

Dad I can't believe you actually bought a tractor!

The deal with the terrorists has kinda settled down. We go home at 9:00 now as normal so that is nice. It is really hard to always be coming home early.

That's all for now. I love you all.
Elder LeCheminant

New Companion!

Well this week was a MESS!!! It was a crazy transfer week. Tuesday we spent all day going around so Elder Latola could say goodbye to people. In the morning we went out to Ciprians house again. It was fun and we ate nice food :).

Wednesday around 12:00 Elder Latola was picked up by the AP's. They were driving to Busia and then to Mbale. In Mbale they dropped him and picked up Elder Mkutswana and dropped him here in Iganga on their way back to Kampala. Then we were in a three-some because Elder Thomo's new companion wasn't even in Uganda yet. Thursday we did our best to work in both areas to visit a few people but it was difficult.

Friday Elder Mkutswana and I did our weekly planning. We were still in a three-some and we went and visited a couple people then had to go to Bugembe to do a baptism interview. We didn't get back until after 7:00. We have to be home at 8:00 for security reasons so we weren't able to do much when we came back.

Saturday morning we spent some time at the church with some members there. Then we taught a lesson at 2:00. We were supposed to be in Jinja at 3:30 to pick up the new missionary. The AP's didn't arrive until about 4:30 so we were playing volleyball at the church with some members while waiting. The new guy is Elder Chinunda and  he is from Tanzania. He was serving in Zambia for the last transfer because of visa problems. Uganda has been getting crazy with visas. USA and South Africa are not letting Ugandans into their countries, so Uganda is in turn not letting people come in. So we have been adopting a lot of new missionaries from other missions because they couldn't come to Uganda when they were supposed to.

Elder Mkutswana is the best. We get along very well together and have too much fun. He is a great guy. I am excited to work with him.

I miss the winter! and mountains.

Oh yea I just remembered something that happened!!! So we have a new returned Sister Missionary, of like 2 months, in the Branch. Her name is Helen and she served in the Kenya Nairobi Mission. Well, on mission there was an Elder from Utah who she got to know and last Wednesday he showed up here in Uganda!! They are planning to get married sometime soon. Yesterday they went to Helen's village to meet her family. They invited us to come along, so we went with them and several members of the Branch to spend the evening at her village. There was a meeting where we sat there and someone was introducing all of her relatives to us. It was pretty fun and kind of a cool experience. His parents are coming at the end of October to meet her family as well and then they will do a traditional wedding here. They also requested that we are there for that as well. So its pretty exciting. .





So the picture with the chickens is from Ciprian's house on Tuesday.  Then the other two are from our gathering yesterday.



This is me and Elder Jimu. He finished his mission last week and is now home. He is the first of my companions to go home!!!!!!! It was too weird.



Also our baptism we had last week of peter. We did the picture together with the other elders to make it go faster.



Have a great week everyone. You are the best.
Elder LeCheminant senior

Transfer #12

So I will just dive right into it this week.

Tuesday was a great day. We met with Peter to finish teaching him the commandments from Lesson 4. He is doing great. Then we met another guy called Robert. He is an investigator that is still in the stage of promising but not yet progressing.  In the evening we taught Ibrahim about the Book Of Mormon. He is a funny guy but remembers everything about the Restoration and is excited about the Book Of Mormon. Then we finished the day by teaching Collins(recently baptized). We talked about the atonement with him and then left an assignment to study more about the atonement and be ready to teach us next time.

Wednesday we went with our RS president, Aida, to a family she wanted us to teach. The husband is a fellow teacher at a school that Aida works with. His name is Fred and his wife is Tabitha. They are awesome!!! They were so humble and willing to listen to us. They were good "students" as well and listened and learned from everything we taught. It was nice. They stay a bit far in the village though so it will be a challenge for them to come to church regularly, but they are awesome! We finished the day teaching Ibrahim again about the Plan Of Salvation. He loved it and was even starting to explain some things to himself.

Thursday morning we met with the Elder's Quorum President and helped him some more with reorganizing the home teaching. We met with Peter and reviewed the interview questions for his final preparation for baptism. Then at around 5:00 we went out to President Ciprian's house! When we got there we killed two chickens and they prepared dinner for us. While we were waiting for the food we participated in what has now become a tradition in Iganga. I planted a tree!! The missionaries before me started a tradition of planting a fruit tree at Ciprians house. So I planted a mango tree!! In 20 years when I come back (hahaha) I will tell everyone that that mango tree is mine!! So that was cool. After that we played UNO, Then we ate. :)

Friday we met some more families. Last week on Sunday there were these two mamas that came to church. So we planned to go and visit them on Friday and took the Branch president with us. It was in a small village about a 7 minute drive from town. We met the first mama called Florence and her family. They were awesome and are listened to us as we introduced the Restoration. Then after that we went to the other mama called Joy. It was interesting. We got to her house and met her husband, we were sitting there about to start introducing ourselves, then they started calling the family to come and join. It took like 5 minutes for everyone to come! There was a ton of children crammed in the doorway. The husband started talking and said that he has 17 children!!!!!!!!!! Elder Latola and I just looked at each other and just went right ahead introducing the Restoration. For them it will a bit difficult to progress towards baptism, we are suspecting that he has more than one wife because Joy could not have had 17 kids on her own. But both Florence and Joy came again to church this Sunday and they brought some kids with them as well. In the evening on Friday we saw Ibrahim again. When we sat down we noticed that the Koran was sitting on the floor under the table. Then we found out the he is Muslim. We taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he wants to be baptized but still considers himself to be Muslim. We were planning to set a baptism date for next week, but now we have to wait until he decides on Christianity or Islam. He wants to be both somehow!

On Saturday in Bugembe there was a crowning ceremony for the new king of the Busoga. The Busoga is the tribe in this part of Uganda. At the ceremony were tons of people and also President Museveni, the President of Uganda, and leaders from other tribes in Uganda. So security was super tight and people were going crazy. We were talking with the Elders there and with President Chatfield and he decided to close the District for the day. In the morning we drove to Bugembe, picked up all 4 elders, and brought them to Iganga for the day. I spent the day working with Elder Allred and my comp worked with his comp.

Sunday was also great. Church was nice and we had the baptism of Peter. After church we went to a village in Bugiri District to a guy called Joshua. We last saw him about a month ago.  During the lesson a huge storm came;  it was super windy and pouring cats and dogs. The roof of his house is just iron sheets so when the cats and dogs hit the iron sheets it gets really really loud! We were doing our best to speak over the noise but it was really difficult. Then There came a point when Elder Latola was teaching and a thought popped into my head that I should pray. So I said a prayer asking God to reduce the rain until we finished the lesson so we would be able to hear ourselves, then after waiting a minute the rain only increased and it got louder! So I said another prayer pleading with God to let us be able to finish the lesson and within a minute the main part of the storm passed over and the rain went to a drizzle. :) So it was just a cool experience for me to see Heavenly Father answer my prayer like that! Its something that I will always remember.

Yes there was attempted terrorist stuff in Kampala this week. Since Saturday we have had to come home by 8:00pm. The AP's said today that things are still going on so we still have to go home at 8:00 until further notice. So yay for that.

Oh yea!! Haha today we got our transfer news. Elder Latola is going to Mbale. My next comp is Elder Mkutswana. He is coming from Mbale. So he and Latola are just swapping. We are ZL's together. Elder Mkutswana was in Entebbe the same time that I was so I already know him. He is a cool guy. He comes from South Africa. Today I started transfer #12!!!!!!!!!

So there's what happened with me this week. I love you all. The church is true!
Elder LeCheminant senior

Sending Roaches to the Spirit World

So I spent a long time replying to others. So now I don't have much time left. Sorry!

Wednesday we had ZDM. I gave a training about the area book and using it effectively. It was great training and I even learned some new ways to use the area book while I was training the other Elders. Thursday we did exchanges with the other companionship in our district. I worked with Elder Mfolwe. We had a great day and taught some good lessons.

Friday evening we went to see Patience, Praise, and Tony - the three people we baptized last week. We said goodbye to them and they went back to school on Sunday. It was sad to say goodbye. Those kids were the best! I could stay at their house all day. We then went home, got our stuff, and drove to Bugembe. We arrived there at around 9:30. The drive was not fun. The road was full of big trucks driving slow. Driving at night here is so painful. We stayed the night there and then worked with them on Saturday. I worked with Elders Mayeya and Rindrafifaliana. Elder Mayeye is from Malawi and Rindrafifaliana is from Madagascar. They are awesome elders and we had a fun day together. We went to their coordination meeting with them in the morning and then worked. In the evening on Saturdays they have a Preach My Gospel class. They invite all members to come so they can teach the members the principles in PMG so the members can better be able to do missionary work. We were with them for the first part of the class, but we had to leave at around 7:30. We went to Mpumudde to give the elders some things then drove back to Iganga. Again the drive was painful and it took us 20 more minutes to reach Iganga than it should have. We had to come back early to do some baptism interviews for Elder Thomo and Mfolwe.

Church on Sunday was awesome. Testimony meeting in Iganga Branch is always a humorous time. Many of the members just make you laugh sometimes from things they do. I love Iganga Branch. We had a lot of investigators at church as well. 4 were investigators and there were 6 other people that just came to church to see what was there! It was awesome so we will be following up with those people this week.

Today Pday kinda sucked. We spent literally all day deep cleaning the house. We were cleaning for about 6 hours!!!! It was exhausting. Now the house is clean and roach free. The kitchen was infested with roaches. It was pretty disgusting. Today we took the time to clean out all of the cabinets and spray roach killer. I think we sent at least 200 roaches to the spirit world. But I am super tired from all the cleaning. So today was not very fun but now I can enjoy our house! :)

Thanks Alan for confirming my memory of Great Great Grandpa LeCheminant. I think it would be cool if someone could find some more info/stories about his mission to South Africa and send it to me. :)

Have a great week everyone!
Love Elder LeCheminant senior

"You will probably get many confirmations that your great grandfather LeCheminant did serve in SA. He was there during WWI and spent 4 years there because all the passenger ships were being used to transport troops and supplies to the war effort. He eventually circumnavigated the globe to get home."  Alan LeCheminant

September!

Howdy do!

This week was awesome!!! We were super busy every day preparing people to be baptized. Last Sunday one of our recent converts, Loy, brought her 3 kids to church. They were home for a break in the terms at school. They all go to boarding schools like most kids in Uganda. Anyway, after church last Sunday Loy asked if it would be possible for the kids to be baptized before they go back to school. They go back on the 7th Sept., so we spent the week preparing them. We taught them every day and managed to finish all of the lessons by Thursday. We had a special baptism service on Saturday for them so they could be confirmed on Sunday.  Every night we were there. Their names are Patience, Praise, and Tony. Patience is 17, Praise is 12 and Tony is 11. They are awesome kids! They all know English perfectly and are super smart. They would spend all day reading the pamphlets and they remembered everything we taught them. We finished the lessons on Thursday,  interviews on Friday, then baptism on Saturday, and confirmation on Sunday. The kids also requested that I baptize them, so I was the baptist on Saturday. They were so excited. I forgot my camera today so I will send pics next week.

We also baptized Collins on Sunday. Elder Latola baptized him. Collins is 24 years old and he is a teller at a bank in town. He is awesome and is really excited about the gospel. He loved everything we taught him especially the Plan of Salvation. We visited him every day during the week to finish up the lessons and make sure he was ready.

Friday we went to the big city. We left to Kampala in the morning and arrived around 1:00. We went to the mission office to get some supplies for the Zone then to the distribution center. MLC started at 3:00 at the mission home. This MLC was amazing!! Last month we had the ZL's from Rwanda and Ethiopia connected on Skype. This time they added the ZL's from Gulu, Lira, and Mbale onto the skype. So the only ZL's physically there were us, Jinja, and the ones in Kampala. It was pretty awesome. The meeting was great and we learned a lot from President Chatfield. We also had a great discussion where we were able to counsel together on certain issues in the mission; it was a great experience. President Chatfield is the funniest guy ever and always has the best stories.'I could listen to him all day long and never get bored. After the meeting we had dinner at the mission home. We had local Ugandan food this time.  We slept in Ntinda for the night. In the morning we went to Shoprite!!!! That is a big grocery store similar to Carrs or Fred Meyer. It is way to nice and I felt like I was at home. Then on our way back we stopped at a service station to get our truck serviced and then we drove back to Iganga. The drive was nice and traffic wasn't really as bad as usual. Sometimes it's hard driving in traffic especially with a clutch. I always feel like I am going to destroy the clutch always going in and out, but we survived and made it back safely.

Today for P-day we played soccer as a zone. It was pretty fun. I actually played today and I didn't do to bad. My foot-ball coordination sucks but I did a lot better today than in the past. It felt good to get some good exercise. Afterwards we went to an amazing restaurant in Jinja called 'The Keep.' It is an expensive "white person" kinda restaurant. It is set up like a medieval tavern, kinda Lord of the Rings style. I got a cheeseburger and a peanut butter banana milkshake. It was sooooo goood!!!! Just like at home. It is so nice to get a taste of quality food every once in a while. Local Ugandan food is good but American food always hits the spot perfectly.

So that was the week in short.

I have a vague memory of someone somewhere saying that we have an ancestor, like grandfather or great grandfather or something, who served his mission in South Africa. If that is true and not something I just made up then I would like to maybe get his story. That would be awesome! :)

Have a great week everyone. You're the best.

Love Elder LeChemy

Zone Leader Life

Well another week has come and gone. This week was super busy with us driving a ton. Yea, for zone leader life. 

On Tuesday we went to dig in the garden for a guy called Lazarus. We dug for a couple hours then went home. After lunch we taught Peter about Tithing. Then we taught Henry the Ten Commandments using Mosiah 13. After that we went to the church for the Mission Prep class. Elder Latola taught it and he focused on how to teach about the Great Apostasy. The class turned out to be really good. In the evening we taught a less-active called Kita. We talked about Family History and how we can take the names of our ancestors to the Temple for their ordinances and we also talked about the gospel being preached in the Spirit World. It was a great lesson. Usually we need a translator when we teach him but this time we did it all in English and he understood everything! Awesome. 

Wednesday was great. We had our ZDM (zone development meeting). So at around 9:30 am we left to go to the Bugembe chapel. At the same time as ZDM, President Chatfield was there doing interviews for the Bugembe and Mpumudde Elders. Sister Chatfield provided breakfast for all of us! She made dough for homemade tortillas. So we got to cook our own tortillas and we had breakfast burritos. It was amazing!! When President finished the interviews he came and joined us for our zone meeting. It was nice to have him there and we gave him some time to talk at the end. We didn't get back to Iganga until about 3:30. At 4:00 we met a guy called George; he had just showed up at church on Sunday so we made an appointment to meet him. We taught him the Restoration. It was a great lesson and the spirit was there. We also set a baptism date for the 14 of September for him. Our next several appointments we had fell through so we went to the church to be part Institute. After Institute we went to Collins and taught him about the Law of Chastity. 

Thursday we did surprise exchanges in Mpumudde. We left Iganga at 7:30 am so we could go and be a part of the their morning studies and planning. They had planned to do service in the morning so we went with them to do service. We went to a members garden to dig. If you haven't noticed, digging in the garden is usually what we do for service. We had a good time even though the ground was super hard and made digging a challenge. I counted 11 blisters on my left hand and 2 on my right hand. Then I worked with Elder Kasambala and Elder Oliphant. Kasambala is the District Leader and he is from Zimbabwe. Elder Oliphant comes from the same Ward as Elder Latola in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. We had a great day working together.

We stayed the night in Mpumudde and Friday morning we left at around 9:30 am. On our way to Iganga we stopped in Bugembe to do some baptism interviews for Elder Allred. Then went back to Iganga. When we came back we planned our day and then went as a district for lunch at a members house. Then we went on splits cus we had tons of appointments. We ended up teaching 9 lessons for the day. 

Saturday we did service in the Relief Society garden. Yes we were digging! The rest of the day that we had planned got super disorganized and the things we actually did were completely different from what we had planned. But we had several great lessons. 

Church on Sunday was powerful! It was one of the more spiritual set of church meetings that I have been in. In sacrament meeting we had the District President and Elder Casperson there. They reorganized the Branch Presidency! Our Branch President was called to be the second counselor in the District Presidency. The previous second counselor recently moved to the US. Now we have a new Branch president with two counselors. Our closing hymn was "If You Could Hie To Kolob." And, of course, I was playing the keyboard. With all of the testimonies from the leaders and that closing hymn, the spirit was very strong there. I felt so warm and happy inside; I even felt like crying.  Elder Casperson and the District President did the setting apart of the new presidency during Elders Quorum so that the members could see what happens when they set someone apart. It was awesome! After church there was a baptism service for an eight year old girl. The primary took over the whole baptism service; two little kids did the opening and closing prayers and one primary kid conducted the music, again with me at the keyboard! It was awesome! After church we taught Collins and the children to an recent convert called Loy. We had a dinner appointment with the RS President at 8:00. Well we finished the lesson with Loy's kids at around 7:45. When we walked out we found Loy cleaning a chicken that she had just killed. She said she was preparing it for us for dinner! Ahhh. Talk about late notice. We couldn't refuse because she had already killed the chicken so we promised to come back after our other appointment. So we ate with the RS President and then at 8:45 we went back to Loy and had her dinner. Two dinners in one night! I was soooo full. 

Have fun at the fair! Hearing about school starting and sports and the fair and all that good stuff makes me kinda miss it all! 

Mom I already said this to you, but. I have really grown fond of pictures recently. I think its a sign that I have been gone too long but I love pictures! My happiness increases like 79% when I open my email and find that someone sent me pictures. I even have started printing some and I have an album that I keep pics in. It would be nice to fill the album (wink wink)! 

So that's all for Elder LeCheminant this week. As it is said in Lusoga (the local language here in Iganga) - Siba Belungi! (that means have a good day)

Love Elder LeCheminant senior

Playin' in Poop.

Well this week started out slow but by the end things turned out awesome! 

Anyways on Tuesday morning we played with poop for about three hours. Ha ha. I'm sure all of you are wondering right now if I said that right. Yes, we played with poop for a few hours! We were doing service for a family. We were covering the outside walls of their house with a mixture of cow dung, dirt, and water. It made a dark green colored runny mud that smelled really nice! It didn't smell nice.. So we would use our hands and take some and smear it on the wall. We did it for 3 hours until all the walls outside were covered. It makes some kind of protective coating on top of the normal mud walls. Of course I managed to get the stuff everywhere! It was in my face and all over my arms and legs. When we got home I scrubbed everywhere I could but I still smelled like poop the rest of the day. Literally, I smelled like poop the rest of the day. Ha ha, but it was fun. I added a couple pics of it. 

Tuesday night it rained and got super cold! We actually used the heater in the truck as we were driving. According to Alaska standards it was actually pretty warm, but I was freezing! It also made Elder Latola get some flu. All day Wednesday he wasn't feeling good, then in the evening it got bad enough that he decided to go home and sleep. All morning on Thursday he slept and finally woke up at around 10:00 and the flu was gone! So we were able to then prepare to go out. 

We also had interviews with President Chatfield. President and the APs were in Mbale and Busia all morning doing interviews there and on their way back to Kampala they stopped here in Iganga to do our interviews. It was awesome. President asked me about what happened with Jim. So I told him the whole story. He gave me a lot of encouragement and support. President Chatfield is the best! 

Friday we did weekly planning. Then at 2:00 we taught Peter about the Law of Chastity. We are preparing him for baptismnext Sunday. So I hope that by Sunday we will have taught him everything. Its going to be a scramble but I think we will be able to do it. Peter is awesome. He struggles with English but he keeps his commitments and is progressing very well! After we drove to Bugembe to do some baptism interviews. We did one interview in Mpumudde and three in Bugembe. We ended up spending the whole rest of the day there because the interviews were really spread out. 

Saturday was a fantastic day! At 10:30 a sister from Bugembe came here and took us to a family she knows. Then at 11:30we went to a family that was referred to us by a less active we have been teaching. Those two families have a ton of potential. It was awesome to be able to be referred to them. Then after lunch we visited another family that we recently started teaching. So now we have 3 families that we are teaching!! Its so awesome. I have never taught this many families all at once. Its difficult to get families. Usually we teach single people or just one person in a family. In the evening we taught Collins about the Word of Wisdom. At first he had some concerns with Coffee and Tea (just like every Ugandan). But we explained that most importantly this is a commandment from God and he gave it to us for specific reasons. He understood and was willing to start living it. It was awesome. Collins is preparing for baptism on the 31 of August. After him we taught a less active called Kita. We went through the Plan of Salvation with him. When we got to the judgement something clicked in his brain. He then said "So when we are judged God will ask us if we went to church every Sunday, paid our tithing, kept the law of chastity, and followed all the commandments?" I answered and said yes. He then said "So that means I need to repent and do those things so I can go to the celestial kingdom!" Haha we all laughed. It was a surprise to me that he would say something like that. I guess us teaching him the Plan Of Salvation actually worked. Then we taught a family called the Kanyoros. We got there after 8:30 so we only had about 15 minutes to teach. We taught about family history and gave them a blank 4 generation pedigree chart to fill out. I hope it helps them on the path to reactivation. 

So basically that was the week! Things turned out pretty well. We ended up with 10 referrals and 11 new investigators for the week. 

Have a great week everyone! Good luck at school. Choose the right. 

Elder LeCheminant senior

Tons of Teaching and Service!

What a week!

On Tuesday we continued with the bricks for brother David Baffa. There were no snakes this time. It was fun. Later we taught Peter about the Plan Of Salvation. It was a great lesson. Later we taught Kiprotich, who was baptized a week ago. We added an emphasis on obedience as we were explaining each of the points in the POS. It was a great lesson.  We waited at the church for some other people that never showed up. At around 6:30 we went to the market in town and bought two chickens then as a District we went to the village. We visited one of the counselors in the Branch Presidency called Ciprian. This guy is powerful and is a story that you can share about testimony and dedication to the gospel. 

Ciprian met the missionaries a couple years ago in town and they directed him to the church. He went to church on Sunday and they started teaching him, then he invited his wife to come and join the church as well. The catch is that Ciprian lives 20 kilometers away from town in the village. He rides his bicycle 3 hours every Sunday to come to church. He leaves home at around 6:00 am so he can be at church by 9:00 for meetings and then church starts at 10:00. He NEVER fails to come to church even if it is raining. If it is raining he holds an umbrella while riding his bike 3 hours to the church. His wife and daughter take a boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) every Sunday to come to church as well. Those 3 hours every week are a testimony to his conversion and dedication to live the gospel.  Even he and his wife are preparing to serve a mission as senior couples. They are just waiting for their daughter to go on her mission first. Are you dedicated enough to ride a bicycle 3 hours every Sunday to church? If not then maybe it would be good to consider where your testimony is and what you need to do to become more converted to the gospel. So there is his story.

On Tuesday night we went and visited him. In the truck it took about 30 minutes to drive there and they cooked dinner for us. It was a wonderful humbling experience. Some of us complain about going to church because we are tired or "sick" or it is far. Most of you can either drive or walk to church in less than 10 minutes. Some of us always come late to church. The only excuse for someone to be late is if they live 20 kilometers away and have to come on a bicycle! But this man always comes an hour early to attend his meetings. Just something for everyone to think about :)

The rest of the week went well. We did a lot of service and taught a lot of new people. Our teaching pool is growing and we now have many great people that we are teaching. Throughout the week Elder Latola and I made a lot of progress and improvements in the way we work. Things are looking good for this coming week. 

Have fun going back to school this week!

Love Elder LeCheminant

Relief Society Garden, Missionary Treasure Hunt, and Transfers

So again I forgot my planner today so I am doing this completely on my brain's very limited ability to remember important things. Haha I should work on that. 

Anyways, On Tuesday we went and did some digging in the Relief Society garden. We were weeding a big section of it. Yea not very exciting, and no mom I don't know anything about gardens so don't get too excited! Haha It was fun though.

Wednesday we had our District meeting. We were asked by President Chatfield to focus the meeting on Elder Ballards talk about 'Follow Up' from general conference. We watched the talk and then discussed the important principle of follow up. That is a great talk. In the evening we went to a member that prints shirts and gave him a design we had for a zone t-shirts.

Thursday we went to the Relief Society garden again. We were weeding in the same area and then got to a place that had some veggies growing so we stopped because we didn't want to ruin whatever was planted there.  There was a member in the next garden over who was harvesting maize so went and helped him finish harvesting the maize. Then we loaded it into giant sacks and helped him transport it home. It was fun. I have never harvested maize before.  In the evening we went back to the member that makes shirts so we could approve the design he made and to give him the money. 

Friday after the morning schedule we went to the church to meet with the Branch leaders to plan out an activity we were going to do on Saturday. Of course the meeting took way longer than it should have. But it was probably the best planning meeting I have ever been in because each of the Branch leaders were actively participating and contributing. Usually meetings have someone talk the whole time and everyone sits there as if they could care less what was going on. So that was great. After the meeting we went out to buy the refreshments that we needed for the activity. We ordered 65 samosas and 65 mandazis. Samosas are delicious triangle shaped things filled with stuff and fried, and mandazis are similar to scones. They are basically just some fried bread. We didn't go home for lunch until 2:00. But we were able to get everything ready for the activity so it was almost worth the time we spent. A member gave us a duck! So for lunch we had a duck. The meat was actually pretty good. 

Saturday we had the activity. We called it the Missionary Treasure Hunt. The name was made to get people interested in coming. Each of us Elders were paired with an Returned Missionary in the Branch. Then we made 4 stations each led by an Elder/RM pair. Each station was given one of the lessons in Preach My Gospel to do a short teaching about that lesson. During the activity we split everyone that came into 4 groups, one for each station. Then every 10-15ish minutes the groups would rotate.  I was teaching about the commandments. We focused it on the Word Of Wisdom, Law Of Consecration, Tithing, and Sabbath Day. It was sooo hard to talk about all of those commandments in just 10 minutes. But we managed to get through it all. Then we took each of the groups out into the field to get some hands on experience doing missionary work. Each group had 30 minutes to go out and get at least 10 contacts. My group split up in the area. I was working with 3 others. I told them that if they see a person or a door they feel like going to, then go there, and I just followed behind and let them do the work. It was awesome! They did a great job. I had to help a few times when they would be at a loss for words but we managed to get many good contacts. One of them even took us to her sisters house and led us down a road that had many people she knew. Then we all met back at the church and had some closing remarks and had the refreshments. We had planned to take an hour and play some minute to win it games but the other two parts went way over time so we couldn't do the games. Then we used all of the people there to clean the church. The activity turned out to be a huge success.  We didn't get home until about 4:00 and were all super exhausted. After some rest at home we went goat shopping!!! Haha, yes we went shopping for a goat because we were planning to use it early Monday and we weren't shopping on Sunday. That was fun. I have never bought a goat before.  We went to see a Sister who had a birthday and gave her a cake that Elder Latola made. She even made it into a little birthday party with soda and popcorn. Then we went and picked up the zone t-shirts we had printed. 

Sunday was pretty good. Church was awesome. After church a member that we work with a lot came over to teach me how to make pilau. Pilau is a popular dish here. It is basically brown rice with spices and meat and it is sooo good!!! I have always wanted to know how to make it. Now I know and I will probably be making it a lot when I come home. Then we went out to the village! We drove to a town called Bugiri and then out to the village. We went there about a month ago. We had a nice discussion with Joshua and were able to answer many questions he had. We even gave him a Bible to use with his Book Of Mormon. Joshua is awesome. He is an older man and is super smart but he is humble and listens to us and accepts the answers and teachings we give him. The only problem is that he is kinda far from Iganga so it will be difficult to come to church. But he is awesome and the seed is planted for the church to reach his area some day in the future. When we came back we stopped at a members home for a quick dinner appointment and had some delicious food. Then we went home and packed, got the goat and went to spent the night in Bugembe. 

Today for Pday we had a zone activity. We slept in Bugembe because we had to get things ready early in the morning. We went to the church in Bugembe at around 9:00 and  cooked some of the goat meat on a charcoal grill and rest we made with some soup. I also made pilau with the goats meat. Elder Lassig and I were the chefs in the kitchen. We were in there for about 3 hours. The pilau took a long time to cook. And then Elder Lassig made an apple pie and I made a chocolate cake. While we were cooking the rest of the zone was outside playing soccer. The chocolate cake was sooooo good! I made it completely from scratch. There's no nonsensical cake in a box type things here so I used a chocolate cake recipe we have. I even made chocolate frosting to go on top!!! Ahh it was so good. When everything was finally finished we feasted. It was fun having the zone together enjoying some good food. It was an awesome zone activity. 

So that was the week. It was pretty hectic and we had way to many things to do because we were preparing for the activityon Saturday and also the Zone activity, but the week turned out pretty good in the end. 

Today we received transfer news. The whole Iganga District is staying the same this transfer. Elder Allred is coming to be the new district leader in Bugembe. So now I am his zone leader! Haha. We heard about what's going on in West Africa. There were 12 or 15 missionaries that were there from Uganda who have been reassigned here. So the mission got a bunch more missionaries! Some of them were sisters. In the Jinja Branch they added a set of Sisters; that Branch now has 4 sister companionships. They also have the Jinja Zone Leaders in that Branch as well. So the Jinja branch has 10 missionaries! Huge. Ebola is pretty crazy. There was an outbreak in Uganda about 2 years ago. Last year I heard stories from some of the old missionaries who were here during it. For now everything is safe here in Uganda! 

Recently it has been pretty difficult for people to get visas to Uganda. For me it was no problem but after my group they have been having a lot of problems.

Have a great week! I love you all. 

Elder LeCheminant