Freaking Out About Snakes and Stuff.

Howdy do! 

This week was pretty hectic and crazy. We had a lot to do and not much time to do it. I forgot my planner today so I don't remember exactly what happened so this wont be very detailed. 

Tuesday in the morning we helped a member with his bricks again. It was fun until the snakes came! Haha dont worry. While unloading the bricks we found a little snake. It took all 4 of us to kill it. After that we were super worried there would be other snakes in the stack of bricks. Then like 5 min later another snake came out! All of us jumped away and kinda freaked out. But we managed to kill it. Luckily we didnt see any other snakes. SO that was pretty exciting.

Thursday in the morning we left for surprise exchanges in Bugembe. Bugembe is about a 30 min drive from Iganga going towards Jinja. So thursday we worked the whole day with the elders there. It was a great day and we did a lot of good work. One good thing I like was that most of our appointments were at the church so we didn't have to go to the peoples houses. They came to us! That's the best way to do it. Also I went to Mpummude and did two baptism interviews for the DL there.

Friday morning we drove to Kampala for MLC. We left Bugembe at around 10:00 and reached the mission office at around12:00. At the office we got a bunch of supplies like pamphlets and other stuff. Then we went to the distribution center and got a bunch of more shtuff that was requested by the elders in the zone. Then we headed to the mission home. MLC started at 3:00. It was an amazing meeting and we discussed a lot of great things. President Chatfield talked a lot about discouragement and how it is one of Satan's greatest tools in his tool bag. One cool thing about this MLC is that we had the ZL's from Ethiopia and Rwanda connected through Skype. Normally they fly in the Rwanda ZL's every other month and then in Ethiopia there are two zones so the ZL's would alternated each month to fly in for MLC. It was costing a TON of money for the mission so this way of doing it with Skype saves a lot of money. Things are getting pretty fancy even here in Uganda! Afterwards Sister Chatield had ordered a bunch of Chinese food. It was soo good! Chinese food is delicious. She even made an amazing chocolate cake and we had it with vanilla ice cream. Food is the best.

Saturday in the morning at 6:30 a bunch of the ZL's that slept in Kampala went to the stake center in Kololo and played basketball for an hour. It was pretty fun. I haven't played bball for a super long time. We left Kampala at around 10;00 and got back to Iganga at around 2:00. We spent some time preparing an investigator called Kiprotich for baptism. We did a split and Elder Latola finished teaching him and preparing him for the interview then I went and did an interview for our District Leader. After I finished the interview we went back to Elder Latola and Kiprotich and our DL interviewed him. Then in the evening we went and had a dinner appointment with a new RM sister. She cooked some super nice food. She even made mashed potatoes!! 

Sunday was awesome. In sacrament meeting the Branch President gave a talk about the Restoration. It was powerful. He even went into detail about the priesthood. The church is true and we are the only church with the true priesthood authority given to us directly from Jesus Christ and through a prophet. After church we had the baptism. It was awesome! 

Today for pday we went to Walukuba in Jinja and played soccer with a bunch of other missionaries. Today is also the end of Ramadan. Ramadan is a Muslim tradition where they fast from dawn until sunset for a month. Today it is ending and it is even a public holiday. Iganga is packed with Muslims so we have seen a lot of it. Muslims are all walking around in their traditional clothing and even they are going to be having huge feasts at night. One thing that was a problem for us is that most of the businesses in Iganga are owned by Muslims so almost everything was closed. So we couldn't really do much shopping and we ran around for a long time looking for an internet cafe that was open because all of them were closed. Life in Uganda.

The video of the glacier made me really really miss the boat! That was a sweet video. 

When I was pulling my laundry out of the washing machine and hanging it to dry I noticed a HUGE hole in the butt of one of my pants. Haha better get that one fixed. Ive been noticing that my clothes are still good but almost to the point of being worn out. Some of my socks are getting big holes in them and my shirts are slightly yellowish. Seeing this makes me feel like I am an old missionary! Only 10 months left! 

Have a great week. Love you all.

Elder LeChem the first the second

Zone Conference, Bricks, and Teaching Gospel Principles

Another week gone as if it never even happened! 

Tuesday we spent all morning getting the brakes fixed on our truck. I didn't tell you last week but we had NO brakes for about two days. They went out last week Saturday at night and then Sunday & Monday we couldn't take it and so on Tuesday we finally were able to. We took it to a petrol (gas) station and had a mechanic look at it. Then after a bunch of craziness he finally referred us to a mechanic that teaches at a technical school in Iganga. He took us to this school and the guy looked at it. It turned out there was a big hole in one of the pipes that takes the brake fluid to the brakes. So it was big time leaking break fluid. So we finally were able to figure the problem out. The teacher guy ended up taking the pipe out (that was a hassle) then they took it and just put a weld over the hole. Then they put it back in and it worked! It took about two hours to get it all done. So we spent the whole morning doing that. It was pretty scary driving in Ugandas craziness with no brakes. But I am a safe driver and was able to keep us out of any danger. 

Wednesday we went on exchanges in the district here. I stayed in the area and Elder Latola went into the other side of Iganga. I was with Elder Mfolwe from Botswana. He is an awesome missionary and we had a great day together. We taught some referrals called Joseph and Henry. It was a great lesson. But Henry was super super excited about everything and kept trying to move ahead and explain things to himself then confuse himself. Then we would help him understand and then he would get super excited again and try to move ahead of the lesson. It was pretty funny. He is a good investigator. 

Thursday we had Zone Conference!! It was soo awesome. We had it at the Bugembe Chapel. It is a beautiful built building. Most of the zone conference was an open discussion. We were able to bring up concerns and things we are struggling with in each of the areas. Then we were able to talk about these things and President Chatfield and the AP's were able to help us resolve these concerns. It was a great learning experience and I left with a ton of new ideas for the work. Afterwards we had lunch. The senior couple for the Jinja Mission District is the Caspersons. Iganga Zone takes up half of the Jinja District. Sister Casperson made lunch. She made Shepherds Pie!!! She even made it in a bunch of crock pots. It was amazing and reminded me way to much of moms delicious food. I was inspired and I am going to make Shepherds pie either this week or next week. It was just too good. 

Saturday we went in the morning for service. We helped a member called David Baffa. We were taking bricks and piling them up. Im not sure what the purpose for piling the bricks was, but it was service and we did it! Haha it was fun though. I accidentally left my camera and work gloves on a log where we were working. I didn't realize it until Sunday after church. I was extremely worried. But when we went back luckily it was still there untouched. That was the first time I have ever forgotten my camera somewhere. It was pretty scary. Its a miracle that nobody went and took it. 

Sunday we had a great time at church. Every thing went very well. We had the District Presidency there and they spoke during sacrament meeting. Then I taught the Gospel Principles class. The lesson was about Sacrifice. It was a great lesson and a lot of people contributed so it wasn't just me talking forever. One thing that my mind was enlightened with is about what we are supposed to sacrifice today. In 3 Nephi Christ taught that we must give up animal sacrifice and instead we are to have a broken heart and contrite spirit. I recommend reading this lesson in the gospel principles book. There are even some examples at the end of the lesson of things that people have sacrificed. In the evening we went and had a dinner appointment with some of the YSA (young single adult) sisters in the branch. Don't worry their mother was home and we had a male member with us! Haha :) It was really fun though. I felt like I was at home just hanging out with a bunch of friends. The food was delicious and there was way to much! I piled my plate to almost overflowing. I love food!  

Today for Pday we didn't do anything fun! We ended up just staying at our house all day. It was pretty boring. But I did make some pudding! I made the white chocolate one. We are going to eat it tonight. Haha the food stories were for you mom! 

Yeah for Joey being gone now! Maybe you can call him Junior because he is Elder LeChemnant the second. Haha I make myself laugh. Thanks for all the pictures mom! I enjoyed them. Jacob is a dork. It doesn't make sense in my mind that Sarah is getting her driver's license! I cant comprehend such a thing. Haha :) the world is definitely going to be different next year when i am back. 

Why are so many people getting married!?!?!?!

If anyone complains of heat, try living in northern Uganda!!!! So no complaints from anyone especially you, Joey. :)

Thats all for now. 

Elder LeCheminant (the first) (the second)

ZL Exchanges and the Primary Program

This was such a fast week! I cant believe its already Monday again. 

This week was great and we did a lot of good things.

Tuesday in the morning we spent the morning at the house because our fridge stopped working so we had to have a repair man come and fix it. Then we went to teach Jared and Robert. We taught them about family history as a followup to teaching them about the temple. In the evening we went to a less active man called Kita. We have been reading The Family Proclamation with him. Its a great document! If its been a while since you have read it then I highly recommend going through it especially with the family!! 

Thursday after our morning studies we went and did some service for a member family called the Sempas. They are awesome! The family has been to the temple and are sealed. Even they have a daughter that is going on mission next month and she is turning 19 in the MTC! That is super rare in Africa! Most African missionaries are older than 21. We were helping them in their garden. We we clearing all of the old maize so they can begin preparing it for planting something else. This coming Thursday we are going back to continue working in their garden. After lunch we taught an RC called Barbra. We have been trying to help her read to Book Of Mormon. We decided to go through the title page with her. I have never read the title page with someone before. Normally we just focus on the Introduction. But I felt that it would be good to talk about the title page. It helps us to learn some important things in the Book Of Mormon. It specifically says that it was not written by Joseph Smith, but it was Translated. That instantly answers a lot of questions that people. Even the rest of the title page answers some very common questions that people have. I found that it is a great resource to use when teaching people!

On Saturday we went on surprise ZL exchanges in Mpumudde. We do surprise exchanges because there was a problem in the past were missionaries were purposefully planning out crazy days just to wear out their ZL's. So we surprise them! It also helps us to see how their days actually go rather then how they are supposed to go. We drove there Friday night and worked all day Saturday. I worked with Elder Okech (from Tanzania) and Elder Hamlett (from Virginia). Anyways, we had a great day except for the fact that all of our appointments fell through. We ended up spending most of the day tracting. It was rough but they learned a lot and I was able to give them some advice to help find good investigators.

Church yesterday was nice. It was the Primary program during Sacrament Meeting! They did a great job. The opening and closing prayers were both given by Primary kids. And they actually did it in English! Even there were two kids who gave their testimonies and two that gave talks. They did a really good job. Even one Primary girl was conducting the music for the meeting.They sang a song  called "The Family is of God." How do I know the name of it?... because I was playing the piano for it. Thursday night one of the primary teachers sucked me into playing the piano for them. I tried making excuses to not do it but they wouldn't accept it so I kinda had to. :) She knew how to persuade me to do it! Her name is Rita and she is an RM from the London South Mission. It turned out pretty good though and the song sounded nice. It is found at the back of the 2014 Sharing Time book thingy. 

One other thing that happened was that the water in our house went out! So today we had to go and fetch water with a bunch of jerry cans so we could wash the clothes and clean the house and shower. I had to do a bucket shower this morning! It kinda sucked!! The joys of being in Uganda were power and water are not reliable at all. Its a good thing we have the truck though. It made fetching water a bit easier :) so we kinda cheated a little bit

Mom I don't know how to garden.. sorry!!! Haha :)

Happy birthday Rick!

Have fun going to the MTC Joey! Too bad your not going to the best MTC. South Africa MTC is the BEST!! There's nowhere like it. Haha, kidding you will enjoy and learn a ton there in Mexico. 

I miss Prince William Sound.

Congrats to the Dyers for the new baby!! That's really exciting.

Have a great week everyone!

Love Elder LeCheminant

An Awesome Week!

So this week was pretty dang awesome!

Tuesday we went and did some service in the morning for a member. Then we went and taught a lady that was just baptized called Loy. She even invited a friend called Sam to come and meet us. So we will be starting to teach him. Later we drove 30 KM to a guy that was just baptized called Jared. He is awesome and comes to church every week! We are continuing to teach him and also a relative called Robert who we are preparing for baptism this month. Its a good thing we have the truck because they stay pretty far away from town. 

Wednesday we had ZDM (zone development meeting). Since it was a zone meeting we the ZL's were in charge. We talked about all of the discussion points that were at MLC last week. It was a great meeting. The zone is awesome!! Later we taught an investigator called David. He also stays a bit far away in the village. It is like 15ish minute drive from town. But he comes to church and is very prepared for the gospel so we are planning to baptize him later this month as well. 

Thursday we went and did some service again. It was at the Relief Society garden. The Branch here has a garden. They grow potatoes, beans, cassava, and several different green plants. It is open for any member who needs food to go and pick something and also for church activities they use the stuff they grow so they can save some money in the Branch's budget. Its an awesome idea! Anyways, we spent about 2 hours digging in the garden. Later we met with Loy and also went out to visit Jared again. 

Saturday in the morning we went to visit an RC called Waiswa. Unfortunately he wasn't there, but we were able to find another guy that stays next to Waiswa. His name is Akram. He used to be Muslim. HE is about 22 and works as an English and Literature teacher at a secondary school in Iganga. He was very well prepared to hear from us. So I believe we were meant to teach him and not Waiswa. Akram even came to church on Sunday which was awesome! After that we went on an adventure to the village! This was not just to the village, but we went deep into the village. We were referred to a member family who moved to the village a few months ago. They haven't come to church because it is a bit far away. They told us it would take maybe 15-20 minutes to drive there so we agreed thinking it wouldn't be very far. We had the RS President and a young boy who was related to the family with us to direct the way. We just continued to drive and drive and they just said keep going. As we went the dirt road slowly got smaller and smaller until it was barely the size of the truck. We continued to go for about an hour!! Then finally we reached their house. It was a beautiful place. Next to the house was a big rock/hill that I had to go and climb. So I convinced everyone to go up it. It took about 15 minutes to get to the top. The view was incredible. We could see green and rolling hills forever on all sides. We also took a bunch of pictures. The family was super happy to see us. We sat with them talking for like two hours. We even ended up teaching a few guys that stayed close by who wanted to hear from us. It was a great experience. It was so beautiful out there that I didn't want to leave. We got back to Iganga town at around 6:00. We were starving so we took a super late lunch. Then we went to visit Jared and Robert. We taught them about temples and the priesthood and missionary work. It was a great lesson. I love talking about the temple!!

I am short on time so I will just stop there for the week. 

Iganga Zone has three districts each with two companionships. Iganga, Bugembe, and Mpummude. The other two districts are right next to each other but Iganga is about a 30 minute drive from each. Bugembe has a new beautful built chapel! Its so nice. Elder Latola and I are both ZL's together. Most of the Zones have the ZL's as companions. But some zones, like Gulu, Lira, and Mbale, the ZL's are in separate companionships. Every zone has two Zone Leaders as usual.   

For 4th of July I didnt do anything. It kinda sucked. In Jinja a bunch of the Elders are from the US so they got together to celebrate. I didn't go because Iganga is about 40 minutes from Jinja and I am the only american so It kinda would have been pointless for the others. But it was still a good day and I celebrated in my heart! 

Mom sorry but my curly blond hair is not there anymore. Now it is just super short African style. Oh and thanks for the new blades and the new shirt. :) But I do have to say that whoever invented Cookie Butter is a genius! That stuff is amazing!!!!!!!! 

So there's the week. I cant remember anything else that I wanted to say. 

Pics are from our adventure to the village. One is me and Elder Latola.

 The other is just a view from the rock we climbed. You can kinda see the house we visited with our white truck parked in front. It is kinda in the bottom middle of the picture.

Love Me

Hello, Iganga!

Well this week was long. 

On Tuesday we spent the day going around saying goodbye to my people. It was really hard. I only made two people cry though! So that was pretty good. Haha ;) I loved the people in Gulu especially my RC's. I hated having to say goodbye and not knowing when I will be able to see them again. Being transferred is not fun sometimes. Then I spent some time packing. I managed to get all of my things into both suitcases and my other bag. It had to pack really carefully so it could all fit. My big suitcase weighed at least 100 pounds!! Haha it was sooo heavy. It took two people to carry. Its a good thing I'm not taking all of that stuff home with me. 

Wednesday morning I woke up at 6:00 am. I finished up packing and then we left at 7:00. The Moore's drove us to Kampala. We arrived in the Ntinda house at around 1:00. The Ntinda house is where the AP's and all the Senior Couples in Kampala stay. I was expecting to stay there for the night and then leaveThursday morning, but of course that didn't happen. As soon as we arrived they told us we were leaving in 30 minutes. Yay for no rest after 5 hours of driving. We then left at around 1:30 and I didn't arrive in Iganga until around 4:30. I was soooooo tired from sitting in a car ALL day. But now I am in Iganga and I am driving!

Thursday in the morning we went and did some service. Iganga is about 85% muslim so tracting is not really effective and mornings are really hard if we don't have any appointments. So we went and did service. We just spent the day going around visiting people. My comp is Elder Latola. he is from South Africa. He is a great guy and is really fun to teach with. Iganga is municipality. So it is bigger than a town and smaller than a city. But it is still considered a village. If you go anywhere outside of town then it is pretty villagey. 

Friday morning at 9:00 we left to go to Kampala. It takes about 3 hours to drive to Kampala from Iganga, depending on how bad traffic is. It was fun to drive in Kampala. It is insane. There's a million vehicles packed on the roads and Boda-Bodas (motorcycle taxis) literally flying by everywhere. Its pretty crazy. We went to the mission office to get some supplies and do some stuff, then we went to the distribution center to get requested things from the elders in the zone. Then MLC started at 3:00 at the mission home. it was with all of the Zone Leaders in the mission. The ZL's from Rwanda come every other month. In Ethiopia there are two zones so each zone switches every month to come for MLC. The meeting was awesome. We discussed about how the mission is doing and talked about some changes. There is one big change. The first presidency sent a letter to all church leaders saying that Lesson 5 in Ch 3 of Preach My Gospel now must be taught before baptism, not only after baptism. So now we teach people about eternal families, service in the church, priesthood/auxiliaries, etc before they get baptized. There was a lot of other things we discussed. The meeting ended around 7:00 and then President Chatfield took all of us out to dinner. We went to a buffet at this super super nice hotel. It was so nice that I felt like I was in a 5 star hotel somewhere in the US, not in Uganda. The food was soooooooo good and we got as much as we wanted. I loved it! Haha Im excited for next month to see where they take us for dinner. We stayed at the Ntinda House on Friday night. 

Saturday in the morning we went to do some things and get the truck serviced. Then at around 1:00 we left to go back to Iganga. The drive was really really long. It took like 2 hours to get out of Kampala because traffic was ridiculous, but we arrived in Iganga safely. At night on the way home we stopped at a Supermarket to get some shtuff. The people that owned it are Muslims from Pakistan. One guy was talking to me for like 30 minutes about Islam and things they believe. He really wanted to tell me about Islam; it all started when I told him that we were missionaries teaching people about Jesus Christ. So that was an interesting experience. Muslims have a lot in common with us regarding beliefs. 

Sunday church was pretty good. It was really weird though; I felt so out of place because I didn't know anyone at all. But it was a good set of meetings. One crazy thing is that a lot of the primary age kids could speak like perfect English!!! That never happened in Gulu. The kids loved me though and were always hanging on me and talking to me. Last night we had to take the weekly numbers for the whole zone and then report them to the AP's. I was the one reporting to the AP's and I read the wrong numbers THREE TIMES!! Haha I was laughing pretty hard because we had to start over so much. Of course I had to mess up on my first time reporting. 

So that was my adventurous week of constant traveling.

I got my box!!! Thanks so much. I ate the whole package of goldfish in like 10 minutes. It was soooooo delicous. My shoes are still doing good but some of my socks are starting to get worn out. They are the ones from missionary mall and they are awesome! 

Enjoy the 4th of July! I probably wont do anything to celebrate because I am literally the only American or white person in all of Iganga!!! But in my heart I will celebrate :)

Enjoy the week! 

Here is a cool sunset picture that I took in Gulu before I left. I also saw Elder Mgijima for the first time since I left Lira forever ago! 

Elder LeCheminant

New Zone Leader of Iganaga!

This week was awesome! We did a lot of great things

On Tuesday morning the whole zone went and did service for Beatrice. We were digging in her garden and were preparing it for planting potatoes. We were working for about 3 hours. It was fun. 

Wednesday we had our District meeting. I felt like we needed to focus on D&C 4. So I assigned every Elder one verse and they each gave a small training based on that verse. It was really awesome. I learned a lot and I think everyone else did too. I also showed a video quote from Elder Ballard. It is found on the D&C and Church History DVDs. The quote was awesome and is perfect for "almost" missionaries or those already serving. I recommend everyone watches it (especially Joey). Afterwards we had a zone lunch at a member's house close to the church. Her family is pretty wealthy and they have a really nice house. The food was soooooo goooood! In the evening we were teaching Jackie. She had borrowed a copy of Jesus the Christ from Elder Allred. She was actually reading it!!!! I was so happy. 

Thursday we taught Joel. He was preparing for baptism. So we were reviewing and everything was good. Then on Friday we had his interview and he passed!! His baptism on Sunday was awesome. He chose Elder Mukengeshayi to baptize him; he did a great job! After church we had a farewell lunch at the Moore's house for our Elders Quorum President who is going on his mission to Ghana. Sister Moore made taco soup. It was sooooo good and reminded me of home way too much. Later we went to visit Joel. The first thing he said was that he is really really happy and he is not sure why. I just told him it is because he was baptized. His mom and sisters even came to the baptism so we are going to be teaching them now and they will probably be baptized in July. 

Today for P-day we went to Chobe. It was sadly my last time there :( We got our transfer news today. Guess what?!?! I am going to be the new Zone Leader of the Iganga Zone. So my days in north Uganda are over. Also my days of walking are over. As a Zone Leader I get to drive. My companion will be Elder Latola, he is from South Africa. He doesn't have his drivers license so that means I am the designated driver! Yay. I am pretty excited but I am sad to be leaving Gulu. I love Gulu. The missionary work here has been amazing and I love the people here. But I am sure I will love the people in Iganga as well. 

So that is the exciting news for the day. Chobe was amazing as always. I got some sweet pictures. 

Tomorrow I will be spending the day saying good bye to people. Then Wednesday the Moores drive us to Kampala. Then Thursday I will be taken to Iganga. Then Friday I will have to drive back to Kampala for MLC. MLC is Mission Leaders Council. It happens the last Friday of every month at the mission home. It is all the Zone Leaders and Sister Leaders. 

So  I'm sure next week I will have something new to talk about! 

I miss the boat dad!! But thanks for keeping me informed. I like it. The pictures are awesome as well. Thanks! 

Yay mom for your new calling! Ward YW President. Looks like both of us got new callings :) And happy birthday! Sorry but I completely forgot :) At least you and dad were able to go out and do something

Have a fantastic week! 

Elder ME

Commitments and One Giant Snake

This week went much better. I forgot my planner today so I'm doing this completely by memory! 

Tuesday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders. It was a great day and we did a lot of finding. We found several really awesome families. One guy has a huge house and a car and he was very humble and willing to learn about the gospel. We found out on Saturday that he is actually the uncle to our branch mission leader. Yay for instant fellow-shipper! I love it when that happens. 

Wednesday in the morning our District meeting was really awesome. We did some role plays and talked a lot about Chapter 11 in Preach My Gospel which is all about COMMITMENTS. I love our district meetings, but not being in charge of them. I always forget to plan it out until like Tuesday night. In the evening we met with my RC called Jackie. I love her family. She is amazing. She had gone to Kampala the week before for a teachers conference because she is a high school English teacher. So while there she went to the Stake Center which has the distribution center. She ended up buying a bunch of movies and books. One of them was Our Heritage. She read the entire thing in like 2 days. It made me so happy inside. Her husband Patrick is also the best guy ever. 

Thursday morning we did some service for about 3 hours. We went and worked in the garden of a member in the Gulu Branch. 

Saturday we started teaching the children of Beatrice, who was baptized last week. She has 3 kids staying at home right now. They will be baptized the first week of July. So we are now working on completing the family. At night we had a zone dinner at a recent converts house in the ZL's area. It was soo awesome! The food was amazing. Before we ate we sang hymns for like 30 minutes. So 8 missionaries plus the family all singing hymns. It was powerful. The hymns always bring the spirit stronger than anything else. 

Sunday at church, we had the confirmation of Beatrice. When she came up to the front and sat in the chair they were asking her who she wanted to confirm her. While they were doing that I got up to hold the microphone because nobody else was doing it. So I was just standing there holding the mic waiting for them to confirm her. Then the Branch Pres turned to me and said she wanted me to do it. I was really surprised! But I couldn't say no in front of everyone. It was the first time I have ever confirmed someone. It went great and was a good experience for all of us. :)

Today for Pday all of us went to a trade fair that is in town this week. They also had a little animal exhibit from the ZOO in Entebbe. It was pretty sweet. They had a lion, leopard, crane, monkey, ostrich, and snake. The snake was HUGE. It was at least 15 feet long. We asked if they could take it out and let us hold it for a zone picture. They said yes. So 3 workers were taking it out of its box. The snake got super mad and struck and bit the arm of one of them. Blood was flowing everywhere and the even some skin on the snake was taken off from it struggling in the box. Haha we were all standing there watching and kinda getting freaked out. But the workers were awesome and didn't even flinch. It took all three of them to carry it out. Then the one that was bit went and took care of his wound. All 8 of us put it on our backs and took tons of pictures. I even held it by myself. :) The whole time a worker was holding its head so it couldn't do anything. It was pretty dang exciting.. Haha I thought this would be a cool story to tell. Dont worry. We were completely safe and the guy that was bit is ok. 

This week is the last week of the transfer :) yay!!!!!

Thats pretty cool about the YW camp. I remember when we did the YM camp. It was a great experience!

Mom I want a family pic with all of the stuff that I sent you. The ties, bags, paintings, etc. You can send it through the email. Thanks! :)

Dad you make me miss the boat. I tell people about it here and they are all super jealous of me. haha :)

The world cup is going on now in Brazil!! Everyone here watches it. Good thing is that all the games are during the night here so it doesnt interfere with the work. I am starting to like Soccer a lot. I am terrible at playing it but I like to watch. Every once in a while we walk by a shop that is showing a game and I just want to stop and watch. Haha sometimes missionary life sucks. TV and music are so hard to stay away from! Today USA and Ghana are playing each other. That's one game that I really want to watch :( oh well

Have a great week everyone. I love all of you. The church is true. 

Elder LeCheminant

A Hard Week With Lots of Blessings!

Well this week was a bit of a challenge. At least things have settled down in Gulu so we can now work until 9:00 again. It was soo hard to have to go home at 7:00! I felt like we didn't have enough time to do anything. We would go out, visit a couple people, then teach a lesson, then only have like 1 hour till we had to go home. It was kinda frustrating. But we did the best we can.

On Tuesday in the morning the whole zone went and did service. We went and helped a member finish the walls of his hut. It was all made of mud. Mud bricks and mud "cement". We had a great time playing in the mud and building his house/hut.

Wednesday and Thursday we were only able to visit a couple of people then had to go home, so nothing happened. On Friday we did exchanges. I went with Elder Allred into his area and our comps worked in my area. It was an interesting day and a lot of the plans fell through.

Saturday was a bit better. In our area we taught an investigator called Joel. He is awesome! He has been living in a village about 15 kilometers away. But he rides his bike for two hours to come and let

us teach him and also to go to church. Then rides his bike back another two hours. Pretty awesome! 

In the evening we taught a new family. They are Job and Kathy. They were super humble and willing to listen to us. They enjoyed the Restoration and were willing to continue to learn more. I hope that they will progress! One funny that happened. Usually here people always like to feed us or give us

something after we are done teaching. Its a cultural thing. A lot of times people just give us some soda. The normal soda is in 300 ml glass bottles. So Kathy went to get us some soda. When she came back I was expecting the little 300 ml bottles. She puts two 1 Liter bottles of soda on the table. One for each of us! I was confused for like thirty seconds and then my brain finally realized that I was going to have to drink the whole thing. I felt like it wouldn't be good to ask them if we could take it home. So we sat there until we each finished our 1 Liter of soda. Holy cow it was soooo much to drink all at once. Me and my comp were just laughing about it afterwards.

Sunday was a hard day. Nothing went right except for our baptism. It seemed that everything was working against us. Church was a huge struggle and even afterwards things were just not going good. I felt like going to bed and crying myself to sleep! But now I have moved on and I am happy :)

Our baptism service was pretty awesome! Beatrice was soo happy the whole time. She went in the water so well and wasn't even afraid at all. I was the one that baptized her. It seems that everyone always wants me to baptize them! Its ok though. :) After the baptism she was given some time to bear her testimony. She did it in the local language because she isn't very good with English. The gift of the interpretation of tongues is real!!! Even though I cant speak Acholi, I was able to understand bits and pieces of her testimony. Even better was that I could feel the strong spirit of her testimony and I knew that it was sincere and true.

In the July Liahona there is a part where it talks about the apostles traveling around the world. It mentions Elder Bednar speaking in Uganda! Haha I was there way back in January!!!

Thats awesome that you were all able to go to the temple with Jose. Every time you talk about going to the temple I get super jealous. I kinda miss the temple a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!! Uganda needs a temple.

Time is up! Have a good week. Enjoy the surprise at the post office! ;)

Elder LeCheminant

Security Alert in Gulu

Wow it seems like a lot of crazy things happened this week!

This week was good but not much happened. In one of the parts of our area kinda most of our investigators were dropped and we were not able to find anyone at all.We used to have tons of people but we have basically stopped teaching them due to not being serious. So it made our teaching pool suffer a lot! We have two people we are currently preparing for baptism in June. Then we have about 5 other investigators.  So our plan for this week is to start working in a part of the area that I have never worked in.  Missionaries haven't been there for at least 5 months. I hope that we will be able to find some good people and build up our teaching pool again.

There is one cool experience that happened. One of the people we are preparing for baptism is called Beatrice. She is an old momma that is amazing. We are preparing her for next sunday. She is like 49 years old and a super humble and fun person to be around. Every time we show up she just gets super happy and has the biggest smile ever. Even at church she is just always happy and smiling. So on Wednesday we taught her the Word Of Wisdom. She understood all of it and was soo willing to give up coffee and tea. Tea is huge here. Its kinda a cultural thing that the British brought to Uganda.
 Everyone drinks some kind of tea and they are always super stubborn when it comes to the word of wisdom. Most people have no desire to leave their traditions. Anyways, Beatrice was really good about it. When we finished the lesson she got up and went to her little kitchen hut and came back with a container of Tea. She gave it to us and told us to take it. I was actually really surprised. Then we promised to bring her a plant called Lemon Grass that she can put in her garden to use instead of Tea. Lemon Grass is a special kind of grass that grows really tall. You pick it and just boil it in water and it makes the water kinda sweet and lemony flavored. Its sooo good!! So on Saturday morning we took her some and now it is planted in her garden. I love that momma.

This week the missionaries in Gulu were put on a security alert. We have to be home at 7:30 at the latest every night. Over the past week there was a huge group of thieves that came up in northern Uganda. They have been causing a lot of problems. I wont go into details of whats been happening. :) But the military and police are doing patrols everywhere starting at 8:00 every night and they arrest anyone who is out. This is in order to catch the thieves. So we go home early now until it settles down. But don't worry!! During the day we are safe and there is no real danger.

Yesterday in the evening when we came home I made a ton of No Bake Cookies. They were soo good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And also last week I made a bunch of banana cookies. They are also amazing. I am going to make some this week but try and add some cocoa powder because there are no chocolate chips here. All the missionaries in Gulu love me because I can bake delicious stuff. :)

Church yesterday was awesome!! As usual I played the piano in sacrament meeting. I have been doing that every week since being in Gulu. Well last week I decided to actually practice a bit. I know ,crazy idea to practice!! Haha I found out that I can play a lot of the hymns two handed just after like 5-10 minutes of practicing. Usually I just play one hand because two hands is super hard. But the hymns for Sunday I practiced and was able to play them two handed for sacrament meeting. It was pretty cool!! I never knew I could do that!!!!! It helped the spirit to be there so much more during the hymns when I played two hands than just one hand. So that was a cool thing that happened. I am still learning a lot of the hymns.

I'm glad that nothing too serious happened to the B-road Trip. Only just tires falling off the car and the car being parked in the side of a building. Haha that sounds a lot worse than it actually was. Life is just moving on! Things are gonna be so different in a year.

Everyone is getting all grown up. Its exciting to hear about what is going on with everyone in the fam. I love you all :)

The pictures are just some that we took at the church yesterday while we were waiting for people to come.

Dad I want some pics of the fishing trip last weekend so I can show everyone what life is like for us Alaskans. And also of home and the mountains and places around. I don't have any pictures from home. :)

Love ME

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