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
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