Colby in Kampala: Bad Sushi.....

Hey guys,

This was a pretty good week. I had some really fun days and a few sick days. What's new though.

We spent a bit of time helping our friend Abel teach some English classes. I really enjoy this. LDS missionaries in Addis Ababa don't have the best reputation. With the help of some previous missionaries and rumors among the crowd, people don't see us the way we would hope. So we are doing what we can to change that. We find that English class allows us to talk to a couple hundred people at different times and show them that we really are just some normal people without any guile or bad intention behind our missionary efforts. A lot of people are really grateful for the help we give them. They say their biggest set back for learning English is a lack of confidence in speaking. When they speak to us and we speak to them it softens them up and helps them build confidence in themselves. All around, English class is really fun. I will miss helping and being around our man Abel. I've made some best friends here for sure.

On Friday we had a pretty normal day. We went in to the office to do some office work. There I met the Megenagna Elders. They had some food given to them by a member. It was pretty much rice and curry. Really nice. We ate it for lunch and things were good.... for a little. Later I started to get horrible acid reflux. Like soooo bad. I was in a ton of pain just laying on the couch with my chest and throat burning. I've had acid reflux before but this was a new level. I don't even think this was acid reflux I think I ate a piece of Satan and he was just hanging out in my chest. I hope my worst enemies never get this feeling. It was the worst! During the pain I managed to get all of the food out of my body via the throat spillway. Blew chunks for a few hours. It lasted through the night leaving me with hardly any sleep. When I got up in the morning I called the Meg Elders to see if they were okay and low and behold Elder Richardson lightly kicked the bucket and was head first in the toilet too. Yep... So the rice and curry was good but not great! I am all better now. I titled my email "bad sushi" because whenever I throw up I think back to this time my family was on vacation and I saw a guy projectile vomit the worlds amount of throw up and his friend just put his hand on his back and said "bad sushi?"

We had a baptism this week! Sister Weynshet was baptized on Sunday. It was a great baptism and all things went fairly well. We got there in the morning for our coordination meeting with the Branch Presidency and President Desta told us that Sister Mulu had the key to the closet with all the baptismal gear. Well shoot, Sister Mulu is inactive. No clue why she had the keys but it was bad because we had no access to the baptismal suits! So Elder Tesch and I had to leave church at about 9:20 after taking the sacrament and taxi to Megenagna Branch to borrow baptismal suits and be back in time for the service. The trip took about 2 hours but we did it. So the service went great. Weynshet is so awesome. She is a 49 year old born and raised Orthodox woman. By the way 49 here is like mega old. Sorry Mom and Dad... Hahaha. Anyways, she had no problems investigating the church. She just loved it from the beginning. Before even sharing about the Word of Wisdom she told us she was aware and had stopped all coffee and tea. Just a really great convert to the branch. We are happy!

Today I heard a bunch of commotion outside of our house. I ran outside to see what was up and right outside our gate was a man on the ground in tears just getting thrashed. Turned out he was stealing from this van next to our house and was caught in the act. They grabbed him and took him out of plain sight and beat him pretty bad with a stick and all that fun stuff. That's how they handle it here. We stepped passed the beatings and headed to the shop by our house to buy a soda. On the way back we saw them picking him up off the ground and whipping him like a horse telling him to leave. Just like that the bloodied up man was let loose. Interesting morning. Following that we were walking down the road and saw a guy being pretty rough to a girl. If there is one thing I absolutely hate about Ethiopia it is the way they treat their women. They think it is completely okay to be rough on them. This guy was grabbing her and she was resisting so he shoved her into a wall and started yelling at her. I couldn't handle it so I ran up and grabbed the guy and pushed him off of her. I then told him if he lays another hand on her I will be the first to handle him much worse. I didn't intend to speak poor but I am tired of seeing women thrown around into the dirt here. I have seen women just brutally beat here just for being women. Geeeewhhiiizzzz.

Well, it is the last week of the transfer in the area. It is likely that I am leaving Beklobet so I am going to soak it in this last week. It has been a great area full of challenges and blessings. I will miss it! I am gonna wrap up for the week. Thanks everyone for reading my emails. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoy being here. That'd be hard though!

Love,

Elder McLain