Colby in Kampala: I Feel Like This Is The Reason I Was Called To Serve Here. I Love With Everything I Am

Hello family and friends!

I want to begin by saying I was overwhelmed by all the emails and love I received for my birthday. You have no idea how much it meant to me! Thank you for making my 20th so great.

It was a really good week this week. I have started to love this place so much and the work here. I am happy to say that my transfer news is great! I am staying in Beklobet for another transfer and getting an awesome companion! His name is Elder Tesch from St. George. He is so awesome. We served in the same area in Ntinda and have been on exchanges many times so we get along extremely well. Plus he loves cars and all that so we have things to talk about! I am just really excited.

This week a lot happened this week in Beklobet. We are working hard and seeing great blessings. In the last week we had an amazing investigator come our way. His name is Ermiyas. He was told of the church by a non-member friend and was able to contact us. He came to church on Sunday and asked for a baptismal date. He loves the church and is so great. He speaks very good English as well. We have taught him twice now and he literally said he was tired of seeing all the traditions of men that all Ethiopians believe in. He wants to find the true church. We hope and pray he will progress to baptism! Another amazing miracle has been the progression of President Desta, our Branch President. When I came to the area I was told by many that he is a strict and tough man. He is the Police Commander over all of Addis Ababa and has a hard time showing love. In the past he has really been hard on missionaries and the branch. I chose to start fresh with him and do my best to change that. He has changed incredibly. I have prayed and asked to know what I can do to help him and I have learned. I began showing incredible love to his wife and children. Before, missionaries only visited about once or twice a transfer. Right now we visit twice a week and hold Book of Mormon reading with them. Every time we see him he embraces us with a big hug and always says he loves us so much. He is an amazing man and far from the President Desta I have previously heard of. I really feel like this was the reason I was called to serve here. I love him and his family with everything I am. It has blessed my life to meet and serve them.

There are a few members I have grown to love so darn much here. One of which is Desta's family. Another is a woman by the name of Sister Weynshet. This woman has to be the most faithful saint of all time. I am so impressed by her faith. When she was a child she was beat by her caretaker so badly that she went blind in both eyes. Since then she has made her way to Addis, graduated college, and now works as a caretaker and takes in other blind girls. She gets them through school and on to a better life. She is amazing. Right now she is taking care of 6 completely blind girls. As I said she is also fully blind. She cooks, cleans and raises each one on her own. Can you imagine? Blind?! We go visit her a lot. She lives far in a place called Shiro Meda (google it). It is up in the mountains and really cold. Every Sunday she taxis from Shiro Meda to Lancha for church. I want to help them out so bad. Right now a house of 7 girls including her self and it is just falling apart. There are leaks in the ceiling everywhere, walls torn down and much more. I wish we could help in any way. I think we are going to try and do a zone service at her house soon and just fix everything up. Recently we started teaching one of her blind girls named Emiyu. She is amazing! The first time we taught her it was a simple spiritual thought from Mark. The second time we taught about the Atonement. By the end of the second lesson she was frustrated that we weren't sharing more about our church! She came to church on Sunday. Sister Weynshet, blind, brought Emiyu, also blind, to church by a 45 minute taxi commute! She loved church. We are visiting her tomorrow and will talk about baptism. Like Weynshet, Emiyu was beat as a kid by her mother. She grew up in a village far from Addis and was extremely poor. When she was beat so bad that she became blind, her family disowned her as a child and made her their maid. She was a servant for her family for years and at 14 was brought to Sister Weynshet by her aunt for a better life. She is 16 now and in 3rd grade. Her heart is so strong. I love her!

I ate some bad food this week! Ha! Twice we had just horrible meals fed to us by members. It was funny. I have gotten really good at just throwing things back and finishing them. This meal was gag worthy with every bite. It was stomach fir fir. Fir fir is when they take injera, break it up and soak it in a broth then you eat it with nonsoggy injera. Its not that great. But man, when they add sheep stomach and intestines it becomes a whole lot worse! It was just soaking in stomach juice and tasted awful! I finished it all though while my comp (who is from Africa) struggled to finish one bite.

Well I gotta go. Thanks for wishing me a happy birthday! I Love you all!

Love,

Elder McLain