Colby in Kampala: I am Illegal

Hey everyone,

I don't have a lot of time so I will just write something short. I had another good week. Beklobet is a fun area and Elder Tesch and I are doing really well. Right now, as mentioned last week, I am not legal to proselyte or do any missionary work besides visiting members. I should be getting my visa stuff figured out this week and soon I will be able to do real work again. I can't wait for that. Only member visits in a branch of 15 active members is not easy and definitely doesn't give us much to do!

Well this week was pretty slow because of all of that but we had some fun things happen. We tried to re-activate a returned missionary that has gone less active by visiting her a lot and being nice to her. Things were going really well for about a week and she realized that she was doing wrong and needed to improve. On Friday we made a little chocolate pie and took it to her house at 6 (the time she asked us to come) and no one was there. We didn't know what to do with the pie because we couldn't take it home on the train and so we just lightly tossed it over her compound wall and it landed okay on the ground. That was all we could think to do. Ha. Well she called us the next morning and said it made her neighbors really angry that we tossed the pie over and stayed around the compound too long (10 min.) and so she was also frustrated with us. She hasn't come to church in a while and I guess making her a pie and giving it over the fence was a bad idea. We learned that the hard way.

Another thing that was fun was we took a long walk with the little school girls. I was on exchanges with Elder Richardson and we got off a bus in Sidist Kilo to walk up to Shiro Meda to see Sister Weynshet. When we got off some little girls came up and started talking to us in Amharic. We responded to what we could and walked with them the 30 minute walk to Shiro Meda. On the way I found a little popsicle stand and we bought some for ourselves and the little girls. It was fun. I would have given them something to give to their parents but again I am not legally aloud and would rather not spend years in Ethiopian prison.

A little history of missionary work that is quite surprising.....The gospel has been here for a LONG time. Longer than Uganda and Rwanda. It was the first country after Kenya to get the gospel I believe back in the 80s... I could be wrong. Things blew up fast and they had like 10 wards and branches all with over 100 attendance, 30 missionaries and 5 senior couples. That lasted for a while and is now just on an extreme decline... Right now there are actually 8 missionaries in the country. It has been reduced from 12 to 8 just since my time on mission. It is now a district, barely, and has 4 branches. Things are just not too well here right now. And with every companionship having one elder with legal visa issues, there is no work being done besides member work. Its rough! We do need more missionaries. I would hope that each branch could get two sets of Elders soon. Maybe as office Elder I can sway President Collings that direction. Haha. But we are all high in spirits and I still love this place more than any other place I have ever been. Possibly even more than home. President said he has great missionaries serving here right now. That is a compliment.

Ermiyas left Addis for a week and doesn't get back until this Saturday. He told us he is with his Book of Mormon and Bible and studying them every morning still! That was nice to hear. He is great. He is reading things online though. He asked us over the phone this week how Nephi was baptized and if he had the priesthood, as well what Christ's name is in the Old Testament. We just explained that we would tell him when he gets back. Emiyu is doing really well. She is just progressing along perfectly and accepting everything great. She should be baptized this Sunday or next! Baptisms in Ethiopia are a big deal! There were 11 last year in Ethiopia.

I got to watch a portion of General Conference this week. There were some great talks given. We watched it at Brother Conner's house. He works for the Army and is stationed here. He bought us Root Beer and we ordered a pizza. Yeah... pizza, root beer, and conference on a laptop. Spoiled rotten missionaries here!

That is it for me. Sorry it is short. Hopefully more things will happen when I am aloud to proselyte. Also watch out, I get a truck again soon! Have a good week my friends and family. Love you guys!

Love,

Elder McLain