That was the greatest Christmas.....possibly the best ever!

How is it that you can love a place you've never been and people you've never met? That's exactly how I feel right now. I am seeing this mighty change in my son and it fills my heart with great joy. I know that it is because of what he is doing, where he is at, and who he is serving. I also know that he is being blessed beyond measure. What a privilege it is to be in the service of God and to teach and testify of His son Jesus Christ. I give thanks for this season to celebrate His birth and for the opportunity to see my son serve and watch him grow each day. My cup truly runneth over. Merry Christmas!


Merry day after Christmas!

I had such an awesome Christmas this year!  Getting to skype my family was super duper great! It was bitter sweet to see you guys and made my Christmas so wonderful. You all look so good! But super pale hahaha! I felt overwhelming joy when I saw all of your faces and was so happy to call home. Like you, that was the greatest Christmas present. To me, possibly the best ever. I loved it so much. It truly helped me to overcome my homesickness even more and be super happy. I thought it would have an opposite effect and cause my homesickness to come back, but it didn't! I gave thanks to my Father in Heaven for such a chance to see you. I hope I get to do it again! I love being on the mission and serving others during this time. My family is doing well but I am doing the best!

I will be honest, my update today will be super short. I am exhausted and already talked to my family. And my keyboard is the crappiest thing on earth and is breaking my hands to type on it. 

Christmas day was super sweet! After talking to the family we had our first baptisms in the area for a long time and my first baptisms as a missionary! Ruth, John, William and Nora were all baptized. It was so cool to see how happy they were. To see someone's life take a turn for the best because of my missionary efforts was so sweet to see and made my heart so happy. Seeing converts dressed in white and being baptized was one of the most spiritual and powerful things I have ever experienced. I look forward to many more! They will be confirmed next week as members of our church. Man, missionary work is the best! After the baptisms we went to 2 different members to hang out and eat. Brother Sam is on the wealthier end of life here and fed us the BEST food I have had on my mission. It was super sweet! We ate BIG! Chicken, beef, pork, rice, salad, greens, matoke, potatoes, and tons of soda. Then we had a nice cake for dessert. I will add pictures later.

On the way home we found some members using the church property to park cars and earn money for a party taking place next door which is super against the rules and we had to settle business there. It was a crazy and fun twist to our day but all is well!

Thank you for making my Christmas away from home so great! The presents were so awesome. Cuticle lotion and pocket knife were so sweet. I loved it. And the basketball hoop! Cracked me up... I have it set up and play on it when I have time! 

Thanks for the update on everyone. I love to hear what and how everyone is doing. I am doing super well and am improving more and more every day. Today is p-day. We went to the stake center to hang out with all the Elders. Some played sports but I went with Elder Randall and my Zone Leaders to Pizza Hut to treat myself to a good meal. It was super good! It tastes the same as pizza hut back home. It was nice to be with all the elders too!

All is well right now for me. 

I hope everyone has a good new years and week! 

I am so happy to be here and love my mission so much! I hope you have a great week back home.

Love,

Elder McLain

I have come to realize what it means to celebrate Christmas

A little note Colby sent his dad on Christmas. 

Hello Father!

This year has been a different Christmas season for me but in the best way. I have come to realize what it means to celebrate Christmas. We truly are here to celebrate the birth and life of The King of Kings. I have spent these last weeks focusing on giving everything I can instead of expecting to receive and it has made me love Christmas! The Savior is a perfect example of being selfless. As we strive to be Christlike, we too need to be selfless in all we do. That includes giving. The receiving that comes is the blessings of obtaining this Christlike attribute of selflessness. I have grown to love missionary work. The mission has taught me to love my fellow man and be selfless in my dealings with them. I am grateful to spend this Christmas in the service of my Father in Heaven and His Son. I hope too that your Christmas season is full of as much joy as mine. I can't wait to see you when I skype!

I thank you for everything you have done for me. You are the greatest father and best example to me. I love you!

Love

Elder McLain

It's Christmas season in Uganda.....and it's super HOT! Plus I was famous for a day!

Hello!

How is my family? I miss you guys so much! I had a great week this week. It was a super, super slow week. It is the first week of the transfer and my companion said they are always slow. But it is over now and I am happy! Week 2 is said to be super fast too. Wooo!

It is Christmas season here in Uganda! A super hot Christmas season though. I am super sun burnt and its far too hot to be December but I am getting used to it! How is the weather back home? Any good snow?

Well, this week I pondered hard about two quotes. One was given to me by Uncle Scott and the other by a missionary here. Uncle Scott gave me a quote by President Monson that says, "By the yard it's hard but by the inch it's a cinch." When he first mentioned it to me I didn't understand the significance. NOW I understand how true it is. When I think of my mission as a full two years, I get discouraged to see I am just starting. When I look at a transfer as a full 6 weeks I also get discouraged, but am somehow less discouraged as when I think of the full 2 years. When I go day by day, that is when the mission is SO SIMPLE! A mission truly is easy. I have learned that when I think of it yard by yard, that is when it is hard. So thank you Uncle Scott! The quote is so true! The second quote goes like this, "Be the missionary your Mom thinks you are!" Haha! I laughed when I first heard this. As I thought about it I quickly realized that it is also very true! And I am trying my best to be that missionary! My cousin Ryan said, "the hours turn into days, the days into weeks, the weeks into months and the months into years." So I just need to live hour by hour and the mission will fly by. It already is!

Man, I fell sick AGAIN this week. What is wrong with my body?! Africa is beating me up! This week on Tuesday I fell sick with a head cold. I had a sore throat, runny and raw nose, cough, plugged ears and a head ache. nooooot easy to work with. I pushed through and it went away in about 4 days. Everyone asked me if I was sick when I would see them cause I had a red nose, nasally voice and my handkerchief was always in my hand. Haha. I am glad I am okay now!  I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired!

On Monday we ate dinner at a members house. This dinner was a really weird and gross experience. So Mama Felister is an older woman who lives with her one grandchild. Earlier Monday morning, her grandkid and his friends stoned one of her turkeys to death. We saw the turkey dead in her yard as we passed in the morning and went and told her. Super crazy. Later that night we went to her house for dinner and noticed one of her goats was missing. We went looking for it and found it laying in a shed in her backyard. It was dying and dying fast. This goat is really young and white and super cool so I was bummed out. We left it there to die and went in for dinner. Guess what was for dinner...... turkey! We asked her which turkey it was and she said it was the one her grand kid stoned.  WHAT?! We were all eating a super gross turkey that laid dead for hours in the sun before being butchered. But at the same time, Sister Felister is super poor and only has like 4 turkeys so we had to finish it. We couldn't leave any food left. So that was terrible. Right as we were about to finish eating, we heard a terrible noise from the backyard. We went out to find the goat taking its last crying breathes and then watched it die. Man, it was pretty sad. Elder Nambale then grabbed the goat by the legs and dragged it out to the dirt and just slit its throat. I was super confused and grossed out. Mama Felister asked if she could eat it and we assured her it was not safe to eat. Man, Ugandans are crazy!

On Wednesday we sent Elder Nambale off the go home. He took a bus home to Eastern Uganda and gave us a call that night to introduce his mom over the phone. We are so happy for him! Nambale was a great missionary who served hard until his last day.

I am gaining weight here. Both because I am exercising and lifting every morning and I am eating like nothing. My waist is already getting smaller. Haha.

My glasses broke :( Already.... Good thing I have a backup pair. Maybe I will need to get another pair soon. Again, Uganda is beating me up.

We got two new Elders in our apartment. One is named Elder Randall. He is from Southern Utah from a small town East of Cedar City. I can't remember the name. A super duper nice Elder who plays guitar for us and loves to talk. I enjoy him a lot. Plus I am happy to serve around an Amercian. The other is Elder Osei-Tutu from Ghana. He is wild. Just another awesome missionary. They will do wonders here in Makindye. We are super happy to have them.

I want to share a spiritual thought this week from D&C. It is D&C Section 38: 7-9 "But behold, verily, verily I say unto you that mine eyes are upon you. I am in your midst and ye cannot see me; But the day soon cometh that e shall see me, and know that I am;... Wherefore, gird up your loins and be prepared. Behold, the kingdom is yours, and the enemy shall not overcome." Wow! I love those verses. Our Savior is in the midst of us! He is watching over us every single minute of every day. He knows our every action. We need to be prepared for the day of his coming. Not even the angels in heaven know the day or hour of his coming. So gird up your loins, go to work, serve the Lord and be prepared for his coming. The kingdom is ours!

I love all of you so much. I continually give thanks for the blessing and prayers I receive. I pray that all of us can be prepared for the coming of our Savior. He cometh quickly! Uganda is getting more and more prepared every day. I love this country and these people so much. God loves all of his children more than you could ever imagine. I am grateful to be here.

Family, I love you and miss you. Be safe and strong!

Love,

Elder McLain

p.s. I forgot to add a funny story to my email.

This week my companion and I were walking past a school graduation for 3rd grade kids. All the children and parents saw me and started freaking out. A random man ran out to us and said it would make the school so happy to have a white "Mzungu" in their graduation picture. I laughed and accepted the offer. So my companion and I stepped up in front of a crowd of about 300 people and stood in the back of their graduation picture. My companion and I will forever be in this picture when the kids look back and see that day. It made me laugh so hard. Hahahaha. They love white people here!

Last thing I forgot to add!

Last night I woke up to this noise by my ear. It was about 2 am. I was sitting still then I felt it crawl onto my ear and onto my hair so I jumped up and grabbed my flashlight and THE BIGGEST cockroach was just crawling all over me. I smacked it off and then lost it. After about 5 minutes of looking I gave up and went back to sleep. Gross!!!

K love you! Bye!!!!!!!

He will bind up your broken heart, dry your tears, and set you free

This kid and his letters! Almost weekly I get a text or email from someone saying how much they love Colby's letters and appreciate how honest and expressive he is. It warms my heart to know that others feel the same way I do. I appreciate the kind words, the prayers in his behalf, and the love that is extended to him. It definitely takes a village to raise a child and he is blessed with the best of family and friends!

Hello and welcome transfer 2!

Wow, a wonderful week in Uganda. The week absolutely flew by and I have completed my first transfer. Nothing on transfer news, I am staying in Makindye with Elder Ndamane.

Like I said earlier, this was a super good week. It was the first week where I experienced little to no homesickness! I can thank my mission president for his help and advice. He is such a great man. So, no offense family but I didn't think of you much this week and it helped me out a ton! I still love and miss you of course and would pay $1,000,000 to see you all right now. :)

Thank you again for a good week of letters. I love reading your letters so much! Sounds like a normal, cold Provo right now. I am just going to rant a few random things I remember from this week that I want you to know:

 Mom, I met Elder Smith this week. He is the one who Elder Wilson said I look a lot alike. Sure enough, we look a ton alike! He is actually my new Zone Leader so I will be serving around him a lot this transfer! He is a super awesome missionary.

There is an elder in my mission just one transfer older than me. His name is Elder Ellsworth and he is from Houston. He said he knows the Guajardo family! He is a great missionary that will FOR SURE be a leader in this mission.

Thank you SO MUCH for the packages. Both from mom and caitlin. They brought me to tears I was so happy. Thank you!!!

I spent time in Katwe this week. In fact I live a lot closer than I even thought. My area overlooks Katwe and members in Katwe attend Makindye Ward. So, that is cool. Dad is right though, I am not on a Queen of Katwe fan boy hunt. :)

A funny thing. Uganda sells a ton of fake designer clothes. My companion doesn't know any of it is fake either so he sees Versace sandals or Gucci bags and he just thinks they are the coolest things ever. But the fake Gucci bags are like $15 hahaha so I just let him think they are real. He loves designer stuff and is super stylish"".

I met a man this week while knocking doors. When he opened his door he had a massive painting of the Chicago skyline and I freaked out and asked him why. He said he is a painter and his life goal is to visit that city. I didn't mention that my sister lives there because I hate to put myself on a podium here. But anyways, he painted it himself and it was super cool! Unfortunately he is muslim so we continued on and will probably not go to his door again.

I have been getting really bad bites since day one here. The whole time I was thinking mosquitoes just loved me. The other night I found a bed bug on my sheets and came to the quick realization that bed bugs have been feasting on me for 6 straight weeks! Ew! These bites are even scarring my arms and legs. Dont worry, we had a mission worker come kill them and clean my bed up. So the last few days have been much better. But my bed had the bugs when I got here so it has been 6 weeks of bed bug bites! They hurt!

That is it for my random things. I will say again that I had a super good week! We had a good amount of investigators come to church and will be baptizing at least 3 people on Christmas. Maybe even more. Two sad things:

Alex and Honesty are having a hard time approving marriage without bride price from her parents and so their baptism and progression will be put on pause for at least a month. I have a feeling I will be transferred before they are baptized. They will be baptized though. No question.

The Tanzanian family that was so prepared for us was declined permission by their father to continue progressing. So we dropped a really good and powerful family! It was a big upset for me and my companion. It's okay though, we will keep on looking!

This week was Mission Tour on Tuesday and our Area President, President Hamilton, came to Kololo to speak to us. It was super awesome! I love speakers now and he really motivated me to go baptize the whole country. In short, he explained that he served in France long ago. He said that when he left to go home he thought that France was a hopeless country to spread the gospel in. When he left there were no stakes and very few members. Now today there are like 13 stakes in his mission and every ward has a dedicated meeting house. So he told us that we are in the position he was in on his mission. We might feel like the church is small and that it is hopeless and useless to serve here, but that we are the foundation of the mission work in Uganda. He promised us that the church would excel far more than any of us would imagine and just to keep working hard! I came to realize that that is super true! The same goes for Dad's mission. Brazil has exploded with the gospel. So Uganda will come in due time!!

Mom, thanks for showing my mission pics off to people! I am happy that people are loving it! I will keep trying to take and send pictures! Tell Connor and Josh that I am so excited for them and am praying for them to do better than me at the start! Keep Connor updated on the things I took because I was well prepared. To answer your questions:

1. We have a market. Like imagine a Days Market post zombie apocalypse. It is sufficient though and has everything! I can get milk haha but it is kinda sketchy. I drink it and use it every day and am used to it now though. No whipping cream or half and half. You only can get that in town and it is SO expensive. Same with cheese, SO expensive... Hamburger meet is super expensive too but veggies like potatoes, carrots, onions, and more are so cheap and a woman sells them like every 10 feet. So veggies and fruits I can get... Curry powder and things to cook over rice is what I need. And a recipe on how to make it good cause I am terrible at cooking I found out. They have chapati which is like tortillas so I would just substitute for that.

2. I have an oven!

3. I am okay on Nesquik. Milk isn't the cheapest thing and tastes weird with stuff. I do have an idea though, powdered gatorade! That would be sweet.

4. Please send spices! They are super expensive here for some reason and I cant afford to buy that stuff.

5. I haven't heard much about chocolate but I'd assume it'd be spoiled when it gets here.

Alright, I think that is it for the week. Tell everyone I say hello and that I can Skype in only a few weeks! I think I am going to skype early morning here on Christmas so it will be christmas Eve for you guys... That's what I've heard works best. I love you all! Thanks for the love and prayers! Uganda says hello!

With SO much love,

Elder McLain

p.s.  We received some training from my mission president and someone else on how writing home can cause homesickness and the trick is not to focus on or write through the week what you are going to write on mondays. So I tried it this week and I will be honest, I had zero homesickness. I truly had no homesickness this week. Even when I would think of home, I would just be happy and excited to be here. So my letters may depreciate in quality but I will try hard to keep writing and make you happy! Hey don't worry. I am no baby. Even if I was homesick or depressed for 24 months I would stay here! And I am not! I was for a week or two but I am running strong now! I love the mission and Uganda!

There is a quote from Elder Holland. It says, "I promise that because of your faithful response to the call to spread the gospel, He will bind up your broken hearts, dry your tears and set you and your family free. That is my missionary promise to you and your missionary message to the world." -Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

I love that quote! It brings tears to my eyes! It's my favorite quote so far on my mission because it brings me true peace!

Alright, time is up! Love you so much!

Talk to you next week.

Giving Thanks in Makindye

Candy! Yeah! 

Colby's area. A lot like Katwe village he says.

Long-haul trucker.

The mall in Colby's area.

Thanksgiving dinner.

Solitary Thanksgiving celebration.

Tender Mercies

Hello everybody!

I can't believe this transfer is already over! We are continuing to work hard here in Makindye as my companion and I are for sure staying together for the 12 week training period. Man, I had a WONDERFUL week! Missionary work is truly the most powerful and rewarding force on this earth today. This week definitely had its ups and downs but overall it flew by and was full of tender mercies.

Our mission president told us on the first day that "Obedience brings blessings, exact obedience brings miracles." As I have exercised this thought, I have seen these miracles!

I will briefly give an example of two tender mercies this week. One of which is small and the other is bigger.

On Tuesday we found out that Elder Nambale (a missionary in my apartment) was out of money because he wanted to buy some things before he headed home at the end of this week. Sadly, he was low on food and was eating small, weak meals for the week. One day he ran out of bread and had only peanut butter and jelly. That was about all of his food for the week. He really needed bread and had no money. The end of the month was and is close and we receive our monthly money soon but all of us are too low to help out. That night my companion and I went to an older woman's house name Sister Felister. There, after our lesson, she stopped us on the way out the door and handed us a loaf of bread. She told us "I think you will need this". Having no idea that only hours before Elder Nambale was praying for food and specifically bread, Sister Felister provided us with a full loaf. When we returned home we gave him the bread and as he accepted it he said, "I knew that if I was faithful in my work the Lord would provide. Though Elder Nambale heads home in just one week, he is still pushing hard and knows that the Lord will provide. I loved that moment.

The other tender mercy was on Saturday. A young boy came running to me to touch my hands and say some words to me in English. I was having a rough few moments and was annoyed with the boy so I wasn't being too kind back. As he walked with me for some time, trying to talk, I gave him a pass along card and told him to give it to his parents in hopes that that would make him leave. Sure enough the boy ran off with the card. Only 10 minutes later a woman called me and said that she wanted to meet "her son's new Muzungu friend" and have us share our message about Jesus with her. My companion and I were a little surprised that a pass along card actually worked because many missionaries know that they are kind of a lost cause. We continue to use them every day though. Later that day we found time to teach the family. They are from Tanzania. It is a mother, 3 daughters and 2 sons. The father is still working in Tanzania. They loved our message and even told us they were speechless to have us in their home. They came to church on Sunday as well. At church the Mom exclaimed to us in very, very broken English that she has been waiting to find a church like this her whole life and wants to work as much as she can to be baptized. Every one of the children accepted a baptism date to work towards December 25th as well. They love us and we love them. Her children will be a powerful future for this church as well. Like Dad's story last week, this family comes from humble circumstances but is very well raised, smart, literate, and all the children speak wonderful English. Pass along card miracle!

So this week I wont be doing a day by day update because I shared those two stories. The days were very normal and busy. I had a great week but got a little homesick on Thanksgiving and as I prepared a small Christmas package for my family. Thanksgiving was not celebrated in my apartment because I am the only white Elder. All others are African and really couldn't care less about the holiday. I splurged a little that night and bought chips and chicken and ate it alone in the living room around 10 pm. I will attach a picture of the celebration.

I did find out that you are right, I live very close to Katwe and have even recognized two areas that were in the movie. The train tracks they always walk around go through my area as well. Crazy!

How are the Jazz doing? I am constantly curious of the new team and hope we can finally do some work for once! Keep me updated on that. Also snow reports I am curious about. I heard not much snow is coming down.

The people we are teaching are continuing to do well. Alex and Honesty are progressing super well and even came to church even though it was raining the HARDEST I have seen in my whole life. I was scared the church would fall over. Alex and Honesty walked to church. Sadly, we found out that 3 of the couples we are teaching are not married and that includes them. Alex said he needs to pay a bride price of 10 cows and some few goats to her parents before they can legally marry. That is a lot of money here. Bride price prevents most couples from legally marrying and makes our work very hard! We are working with them and even got our mission president and bishop in to help get some money for Alex. I will keep you updated.

They just announced that all apartments are moving to 2 man apartments as well so in the next few weeks I will probably be moving somewhere closer to Ndejje and Masajja into a smaller apartment. Woo....

Well that is it for this week. I am so happy that the week flew by and I really enjoyed it. I am grateful for this work and the miracles that I saw this week. I love you all! Thank you for everything. Dad, Happy Birthday this week! Sunday right? Enjoy it and eat some cake. I will be there in spirit!

Love,

Elder McLain

This Week in Pictures

Goat and fries. Yum!

The hill of repentance conquered daily.

Elder Ndamane being goofy.

Colby enjoying passion fruit juice, while his companion nurses his shin wound.

At church with one of the bishop's sons. 

And the bishop's other son.

At Sister Josaphine's for Sunday dinner. Says Colby, "Bless that woman, she saves us every Sunday night. She fed us rice and beans and I destroyed the plate. Her beans are the best in the world."

The Greatest Indicator of Character

Each week Tim and I write a letter to Colby. Mine is the motherly how are you doing, are you eating, love you sort of letter. Tim's is the fatherly message with the spiritual counsel he needs to guide and uplift him and give him strength while he serving. I love the thoughts and messages that he shares and thought this one was applicable to each of us and especially to those who are out serving a mission. 

My thought for you this week comes from Elder Bednar and Elder Neal A. Maxwell. In a training meeting attended by Elder Bednar, Elder Maxwell said this, “There would have been no Atonement except for the character of Christ.” This impressed Elder Bednar deeply and it became a subject of his own personal study for some time. Later, Elder Bednar gave a talk at BYU-I called “The Character of Christ” from which I’ll share a quote:

“Perhaps the greatest indicator of character is the capacity to recognize and appropriately respond to other people who are experiencing the very challenge or adversity that is most immediately and forcefully pressing upon us… Character is revealed, for example, in the power to discern the suffering of other people when we ourselves are suffering; in the ability to detect the hunger of others when we are hungry; and in the power to reach out and extend compassion for the spiritual agony of others when we are in the midst of our own spiritual distress. Thus, character is demonstrated by looking and reaching outward when the natural and instinctive response is to be self-absorbed and turn inward. If such a capacity is indeed the ultimate criterion of moral character, then the Savior of the world is the perfect example of such a consistent and charitable character.”

Elder Bednar then went on to cite numerous examples of how the Savior was always reaching out to those in need even when he was suffering deeply.

As you are in a new place with such striking contrasts with your home life and are experiencing the challenges of being a full-time missionary, it is easy to understand how you might focus on how difficult things are for you now and on thoughts of home. But, you have been called to serve with all your heart, might, mind, and strength. Serving with all your heart means serving as the Savior did, by looking outward and reaching out to those in need of the message that you have to offer, and forgetting yourself in His service. “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” Pray that your heart will be filled with love for Uganda, its people, and especially for the people you teach. When you love Uganda, its people, and the people you teach, you will no longer feel homesick, but instead will be filled joy in serving the Lord.

I am very proud of you Colby. Hang in there! Things will get easier and better. The best is yet to come. You have so much to offer.

Looking forward to hearing from you tomorrow.

Love,

Dad

You just push through the struggle

One month down. A few more to go. It's just time, fast or slow. Mondays make it all better. We laugh when Colby says "this email will be shorter than most." He doesn't know how to write short letters and that's just fine with us. Write on Colby.....write on.

Hello family and friends,

Wow, another week down ?! I have been in Uganda for a month now. Time really flies. Every single missionary tells me that it only gets faster and I am starting to believe them. This email will be a bit shorter than most cause I am running out of time. Sorry!

First, I would just like to say THANK YOU to everyone that wrote me this week. I am sorry if my responses were short but I truly appreciate every email I get. Some I take pictures of to read this week and so I might respond next week. I would also like to thank everyone that shows my family love too! You guys are the best.

So, this week was a pretty normal week on the mission. I tried some new things and experienced some success and set backs. That is what the mission is all about though! I will be honest, the week went by extremely slow for me. Some days seemed to last forever. Early in the week I fell sick with a sore throat and small fever. I powered through it and worked though and it went away in about 3 days. The next day after I got better, I woke up super nauseous and had some bowel problems. That lasted me two days. Again, I never took a sick day. Just worked through it and got better. It is hard to work when you are sick and it makes the days long. So that is why I had a long week. As of now, I feel normal again which is nice.

Our days usually consist of 4 or 5 lessons taught and about an hour or 2 of door knocking. My companion only eats breakfast and lunch and so I dont eat dinner until I get home at 9, which I am okay with. Our area is big and so it usually takes us 30 minutes to an hour to go between teaching appointments. Makindye and Masajja are very hilly areas. I am glad I have some running experience because it helps me all the time out here. I am starting to dislike soda and have moved to juices. The juices here are amazing. Especially a juice called Butunda, or passion fruit juice.You should find a recipe and make some, you would love it. We get it out of plastic bags. A half liter is 500 UGX which is about maybe 20 cents or less. Also, I have grown to love rice and beans and eat that at least once a day.

A day by day update:

Monday: After emailing last week, we did some grocery shopping and then headed to FHE. It is held at the church and used to bring all of the YSA's in the area together for some fun. We have Samosas and Butunda every week which is super good. I look forward to it tonight! Last week I found out as I got there that I would be hosting and have to teach a lesson. BLAH! That is missionary work at its finest. So I came up with a lesson in .5 and it went well!

Tuesday: Tuesday was district exchanges. I went to the Makindye side of the area with Elder Nambale. He is a powerful missionary from Uganda (weird right) and he goes home in 2 weeks. Working with him and living with him can make things tough cause he is super eager to go home and always talks about it... But we did a full day of door knocking, literally. Ask Dad and Tab, not easy to do 8 hours of knocking doors. We taught 2 good lessons but both people have since blown us off. That night I ate goat for dinner and it was super good! I will eat more and more.

Wednesday: We had a big day planned with many good lessons but most fell through.We taught Rammy though and that went well. This was the peak of my sore throat and fever and so wednesday was tough. We also taught a man named Eric, but he didnt really listen and would never respond to us so we just wrapped up quick. Since then he wont respond to us.

Thursday: Woke up sick and nauseous. We were out of toilet paper too so that was tough... This continued through the day and I used many random toilets (or rather holes in the ground) through the day. They are super gross. We only taught Alex and Honesty for the day and then did random knocking and visited some members. When we got home at 9 we closed the day and I went straight to bed. Side note, when you get nausea and diarrhea they say not to take medication because your body is trying to get rid of the bug. So you just push through the struggle.

Friday: I slept in till 9 this day to try to overcome the sickness. After, I got up and did studies and then my companion was frustrated with my sickness so I just got ready and said a powerful prayer in my behalf and headed out. Not gonna lie it was not easy. Luckily my prayers were answered and by 2 or so I was doing much better. We taught Rammy again and visited Alex and Honesty. Both lessons were really good! We used the Joseph Smith First vision video with Alex and Honesty to help them and they understood it much better. I smell baptism in the near future!

Saturday: In the morning I was a bit sick again. Luckily we got toilet paper. Haha. It went away by the time studies were over. In the morning we went out to Ndejje to teach Ruth. Man, far trip to see her. I forgot to mention her in my progressing investigator update. She is a young woman from Ndejje who has been coming to church for a while. We just started teaching her again and she is progressing nicely. After we got home we ate lunch and then did some door knocking. Later we went to a dinner appointment at Brother Davids. He is the 2nd counselor in our ward. They culture here is to start cooking once the guests arrive so dinner appointments usually take like 3 hours. Not a bad thing for me to be honest. Since my companion is vegetarian he prepared fish...... uhhh my companion also doesnt eat fish so he just ate rice. I had to eat his fish servings. The style of fish was super weird. I will avoid eating it again any time soon. It comes from lake victoria and is sun dried and then deep fried. So it kinda tastes like fish jerky and is super tough. They serve it everywhere. I dont like it much at all. The power went out when we first got there so we ate in the dark and then I shared a spiritual thought from 2 Nephi 32 3-5 (I think) on read ponder pray and enter in by the way and you will know all things what ye should do. On the way home I bought some drink that is like expired, chunky milk loaded with sugar. Wont be buying it again soon. Not good.

Sunday: Sunday morning was the first time this week that I got hit with homesickness. I kept thinking about Tab and the dudes watching the Jazz play basketball and working on the cars. Man I miss it... At church I met a man who served in Zambia and was companions with Luke Sagers. I dont know Luke Sagers much apart from being a good basketball player for my high school but it was still really cool to have that personal connection with someone for the first time! He sent a picture of me to my Mom. I am sure she loved it :) Later that night we taught Alex and Honesty again. They love when we teach them so we do it a lot. I really love them. After, we forgot to buy dinner and so we called Sister Josephine again. Bless that woman, she saves us every Sunday night. She fed us rice and beans and I destroyed the plate. Her beans are the best in the world. I will ask her to cook my family a pot if they come to get me. I also want her to teach me how to cook beans.

So that was the week. Not a bad week. I overcame homesickness for the most part this week which was really nice. Sadly, I did get sick in other ways though. That's okay because I am all better and ready for this week! I have 1000000 mosquito bites right now and am hoping that the Doxy is putting in work. I have also noticed that toiletry supplies here are really poor which has caused me to ration my body wash and shampoo use as well as deodorant. It is all okay. The mission is teaching me so much that will bless my life. I can already tell.

That is it this week. Thank you to everyone that wrote me and supports me. I love you all!

Love,

Elder McLain

This is the man Colby met who was companions with Luke Sagers. He happened to post this on Facebook and I randomly came across it. A sweet surprise!

These people are wonderful!

Colby sent this in an email to his dad. These are the people he is teaching.

My current progressing investigators:

Alex and Honesty. These are a wonderful couple. We found them on accident while trying to locate a member without an address. As they answered the door, we began to introduce ourselves and even taught them about the restoration that moment (which is a common thing here). After the lesson, Alex was very interested but his wife was hesitant and she is a strong catholic. Catholics are difficult to teach out here and they always try to prove us wrong (one random guy tried to tell us that adam and eve partaking the fruit was NOT part of gods plan and for that they were punished harshly). So as we continued, Alex was coming to church and keeping his commitments while Honesty was hesitant. He asked many powerful questions every visit and she stayed quiet. Honesty doesn't speak much English so her husband translates her questions. They are from a village in Western Uganda. So, we teach them a few times a week and I really love them! Alex wants to be baptized but we are just working on timing for him and getting him ready. As for his wife, this week she opened up a lot more and told us that ever since we have been teaching them, she has seen small blessings in her marriage and daily life. So she has started to read the Book of Mormon and said she would miss her Catholic church on Sunday to come to ours. I hope she does! They have a baptism date set for December 11th and I am sure we will be baptizing Alex on that day. His wife may need to be pushed back a week or two.

Rammy: Rammy is a great man. We found him by walking down the street and stopping just to say hello. When we realized how friendly he was, we asked him to listen to our message. The next day we taught him the Restoration. He was hesitant at first, mainly because his English is extremely poor. He moved here from Rwanda only 3 weeks ago (I believe he divorced and left his family). He talks often about how alone he feels and how we are his only friends. I think that's what keeps us coming back. When we give him assignments, he gets really excited because it gives him something to do. So we bring a Congolese member named Emma (Male) with us to translate to French for Rammy. Once we started to bring Emma, Rammy really started to progress. He came to church the last two weeks and is eating up the Book of Mormon. Sadly, this last visit he told us he has been a Pastor for 11 years and so many things (like the plan of salvation and 3 degrees of glory) are really hard for him to accept but that he will continue to pray and ask for more understanding. With him, we get him French material to read which is neat. He has a baptism date for the 11 of December as well.

Esther and Bryan: They are a young couple that is so, so nice. We taught them 2 lessons and found them by knocking doors. Sadly, Bryan and their young daughter got Malaria last week and they have been in the village with their family ever since. So they are not progressing right now but for an acceptable reason. I hope in about 2 weeks that they will come back to town. Many young families come out of the village (village meaning most any place outside of Kampala or Jinja) to work here in the city and go back frequently to visit family. So timing can be tough.

Tony and Beebe: This is a Congolese family that is BIG. As in they are all fat (acceptable to call people here, in fact they take it as a compliment) and also in size. They have 3 kids. We taught them the first lesson and invited them to come to church. Sadly they did not come but they called us and asked us to come back tomorrow to teach them more about "our bible" or the Book of Mormon. I have a good feeling about them

So that is it for our progressing investigators right now. We have many more we are teaching but they are either playing with us or not keeping commitments in some way. Right before I got here, my companion and his old companion taught a South Sudanese family that is polygamist. They are now in the hands of the mission president but want to do what it takes to be baptized. Tough situation.

I am really pleased with the work and get super excited when people progress. There is NOTHING cooler than seeing an investigator say that the gospel is blessing them. I love it.

I love you! My weekly email will be a little shorter this week because I have written some longer friend and family emails. Miss you!

Love,

Elder McLain

More Pictures from Makindye

Fried crickets! Yum!

Scenic sunset

Hanging around after a lesson

Preaching the word

Dinner time

Colby's apartment is down this street

With the people

Colby with the Bishop's daughter. The kids love him because many have never seen a Mzungu (white guy) before.

Workin'

On the pitch

The hill of repentance

Before church meetings at the chapel

Prayer is so, so wonderful!

Three weeks in and there is already a mighty change of heart. Blessings come to those who lose their life in the service of others. 

Hey everyone,

This week really flew by! I am back on the jammed keyboard so sorry again for typos... I am amazed, I feel like I just emailed yesterday! I am really loosing myself in the work and noticing a big difference in my attitude towards my mission and the people! I am finally feeling like I want to be here! I look forward to busy days and good meals now, it feels great! Don't get me wrong, I still have my days, or moments where I get down in the dumps or wish I was at Del Taco with friends or grocery shopping with mom and dad, but overall I am improving. I thank everyone for the thoughts and prayers on my behalf, I can really feel the answers and blessings! Thank you thank you.

So, a few things... Dad, I really loved your BYU Devotional talk. I have listened to it 3 times now and will listen to it plenty more! I loved it so much and agree with everything you said. I haven't realized the importance of the companionship of the Holy Ghost until the mission. Now, I pray for it about 50 times a day, haha. Cafe Javas is THE BEST!!! Its american food. Sadly, it is about 10x the price of any other meal, so I cant eat it often. Tell your friend Dan that I will think of things to include as he comes and I look forward to the day! That will be so so awesome. Tell Jeremy Severe that they only have 4 or 6 missionaries in Ethiopia now. They are having some war problems and closing many areas. They might even close the country. They are sending way more into Rwanda now. Rwanda is known as the promise land in our mission cause I guess its like Uganda but way cleaner, safer, better food, nice apartments, less people and more to baptize! I hope to go there one day.

Mom, you continue to comfort me with your emails! I love the updates on friends and family. I am doing much better. I miss my friends! Tell Austen I say good luck and to write me while he is out! I think you mail packages to the mission office and then my Zone Leaders pick them up weekly and take them to me. So mail them there I believe. Tell Brother Vaughan I say hey! And that there are a billion cool land cruisers here and I think of him every time I see one. He would love them. Also, I just barely got your letter you wrote to me in the MTC! Hahaha, I'm not sure what happened but thank you for it!! I love hand written letters!

Thanks to the rest of the family for writing me! It may not seem that big to you but it makes my week! Your letters are so awesome and I love reading about how you are doing! Keep them up! I love all of you so much and think about you every day!

Oh, by the way. My area is called Makindye but my companion and I teach in Masajja, Najjanankumbi and Endejje. So look there. That is our area.

So, I will summarize the week now:

Monday: After emailing we went to FHE and had a really good lesson on taking Christs Yoke upon us. It was really neat! I wish I could go into detail. Then my companion was feeling sick so we went home and got to bed early. I started Jesus the Christ that night by James E. Talmage and it is consuming me. I love it a lot right now.

Tuesday: We went to the mission home early for a training that was extremely powerful. We just talked about things we need to do and get in the habit of as new missionaries and I learned a lot. We got a new A.P., Elder Schweitzer and he is a great, great, missionary. He taught us some great things. We had some good food at the mission home and then I went home. I was happy to see all of my MTC brothers. I love them. Once home, we taught a member a small lesson and went grocery shopping very quick then went to bed.
'

Wednesday: I started running in the morning. I dread morning work outs but running helps me to wake up fast so that I am alert during studies. So I run in the mornings now.We had a District Development Meeting and talked about improving the area. Then I ate a PB&J for lunch. Really a few because I eat SO MUCH on the mission now. You'd be shocked what it takes to fill me out here. After we met with Brother Jerrad, a member, and went out to teach a few lessons. It was a pretty successful night. We found a man named Rammy from Rwanda who just moved here. He speaks french so Jerrad helped us translate. He is loving our teaching. We got him a french Book of Mormon and he said "give me one week to read this, thank you" haha. So we are moving quickly with him!

Thursday: We had a zone leader exchange this day. It was really cool. Our zone leaders came to our district and each went with a companionship. So we got Elder Chifamba. He is from Zimbabwe and is a really powerful missionary. I learned so much from him on not being hesitant to talk to anyone! That day we got 13 referrals from contacting. It was crazy. I tried Pilau for lunch and it was super duper good. Look it up. I have had it twice since. I was a bit homesick in the morning but I have noticed that I am homesick almost every morning and then not at all by night time. That is usually how it goes.

Friday: A really normal day in the mission. Not much extra happened. We taught many lessons and also got rejected a few times. Appointments fell through and others came up.

Saturday: It was a good day. From Saturday, I started to really feel like this lifestyle is normal. I feel at home here now and the work is getting to be normal. It is a good feeling. We got rained in at the apartment for a good 2 hours. Sometimes it is annoying but other times it is nice. I was tired and so I read some of my books and then we went out when the rain stopped. On the way to one appointment we saw a woman lifting some barrels and so we helped her. After, a kind man saw us helping and bought is waters. It was really nice and made my day. I love service on the mission!

Sunday: Church was good. I enjoy church here because it is so different. We had a good discussion on the Abrahamic Covenant. After, we got some lunch and then started a two and a half hour walk to a dinner appointment on the far side of Endejje. Man, it was looooong. On the way home we got a taxi. I paid for my companion and myself. After about a minute, the taxi started making a funky noise so my companion started freaking out and made us get out. Then we were about a 2 hour walk from home and had no money. So we walked. 

Monday: Today we deep cleaned the apartment. It is much nicer now. And then we got some Pilau for lunch and now I am here!

So, all around it was a really good week. Our numbers boosted this week in all categories too. The hard work paid off in many ways.

So, this week I wanted to briefly talk about prayer. Prayer is the most powerful tool we have. And we all are capable of it! It is literally a direct communication with God. You are crazy if you don't take advantage of such a powerful tool! It can help you in any way you can think of. Pray for blessings, help, comfort, gratitude, anything! I have come to realize that God truly answers my prayers. Each and every prayer I have presented to him has been answered. As I pray more seriously on one topic, I feel comfort and help there. And as I change to another topic, I see the same results. Prayer is so, so wonderful! It has helped me more than anything else on this mission and I invite every one of you to get in to the habit of regular prayer. You would be a fool to put such a thing on the shelf.

So, that is it for the week! I am really happy that I am doing better. The mission is getting better for me every day. I look forward to the next 2 years! I love all of you and thank you for everything you are doing to help me! See you in no time.

Until next week.

Love,

Elder McLain