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!