Colby in Kampala: Eight of us guys just floating out here entrusted to carry the work

Hey everyone,

I hope everyone is having a good week and the weekend was great. My week was really good. A lot went on this week that kept us fairly busy. PS I dont have spell check on this computer and my spelling and grammer is just low quality these days so I apologize for any mistakes through the email.

So because of Zone Conference the Elders in Hawassa came to stay with us in Beklobet. They got here on Friday and helped us with some lessons. It is Elder Cooper and Elder Neff. Both are born Ethiopians adopted to the US and are back here for mission. Elder Cooper came on mission with me and is one of my good buddies since the MTC so it was awesome to spend the time with him. He caught back on to Amharic very fast and can translate lessons so he helped me teach some new investigators we haven't been able to teach due to language barrier. That was a huge blessing. It is also cool to hear Amharic with an American accent. It helps me to know better what I can say. We got to meet with Eskeder. She was the referral from a woman in Utah. The woman in Utah has been sponsering Eskeder through school and into College. Finally she felt like it was time to introduce her to the church. So Eskeder came to church yesterday and we were able to teach her the Restoration. It was a pretty great lesson but also hard to teach. Mainly because I would teach in English, Elder Cooper would translate. Then he would teach in Amharic and I would just listen my best to know what he said and hope I could start up in the right spot when it was my turn again. Hope that makes sense. My descriptive English is garbage these days... Haha.

Zone Conference was great. President focused his thoughts on Constant Finding and Exact Obedience. He showed us a lot of statistical charts from the church that show our missions monthly progress up next to the South East Africa Area progress. It was cool to see that our mission is above the rest of the area in almost all statisitics. Not that numbers matter but success of course is important. Some things we need to work harder on is making sure our New Investigators are baptized. Our mission struggles more so with new investigator to baptized convert ratio. I believe it is 11:1. Our Investigator with a Baptismal date to Baptized Investigators is 3:1 and our Investigators to Attend Church to Baptized Investigators is 2:1. I think that is cool. We ech set a baptismal goal with our companion for the rest of the year. We decided on 3. So he then explained if we are going for 3, that requires roughly 33 new investigators, 9 with a baptismal date and 6 coming to church. With those numbers we could achieve 3 baptisms before 2018 in Beklobet. It was neat to see the statistical side of missionary work. Again, it is not a number race but not setting goals is not having hope and "trying" our faith as you (Dad) explained in your spiritual thought to me.

President Collings was in Ethiopia from Friday to today. He left this morning. He doesn't travel with his Assistants. The main reason is visa problems. It is hard to travel international without preparation. That is why you usually find out about 3 weeks early if you are leaving your assigned country. So the Elders went from 6 to 8 here. And even next transfer it is possible we go to 10! He wants to put 2 more Elders in Hawassa. That would be cool. We are progressing! Honestly the work in the country is going a lot smoother and better right now.

I do also think I have grown an inch on my mission. I think I am at 6'3" now. Don't count me on it but I seem to be taller than those that say they are 6'2". Cool! I was also telling mom that my weight is all over out here. I came on mission at 135 lbs. In Masaka I peaked at 160 lbs. Now I am down to about 140 lbs. The reason is simply that the food is just not nutritional. Not much comes out of eating injera every day and walking everywhere. So, I hope I don't get much skinner. Next stop is some adult weight, still need to get some of that.

On Friday I went to Debre Zeit to perform a Baptismal Interview. It was a wild ride there. We couldn't find any transportation there and it conflicted with out office work so we got a personal taxi to Debre Zeit and it was expensiiiivvvveee. The church covered it of course but I felt bad cause taxis here are sooo expensive. It was an hour ride out to Debre Zeit to a 15 minute interview and an hour and a half ride back. I love the ride to Debre Zeit so much. It looks a lot like the typical Africa you think of. Grass lands and those flat trees and wild animals. You should look up Bishoftu and see the rural areas out there. Another really cool place in Ethiopia is called Wendo Genet. It is sweeeeet there... After the interview we went in to the office to do some work. I finished before my companion so I got on and watched my previous skypes home and Christmas 2016 and Mothers Day 2017. Wow, not much to say but that my first call home was super goondie. I was a weirdo back then hahaha. Anyways, I look forward to calling home in a few weeks! I think I am a little more normal now so look forward to seeing me!

The times can be tough here in Ethiopia. I often forget I am a part of the Uganda Kampala Mission. We are so secluded from the main group and it causes us to be out of the loop with everything. Right now it is the 8 of us missionaries to the entire country of Ethiopia. There are about 100 or so in Uganda and probably 20 in Rwanda. Here in Ethiopia we havwe little to no communication with the other countries accept for emailing on Mondays. Our network is too poor to call or text and right now there is no senior couple with us in Ethiopia. So the 8 of us guys are just floating out here entrusted to carry the work. It can be tough out here!! But I like it at the same time. Ha!

Well everyone, have a good week. If you are bored, feel free to send me an email. Sometimes it can be nice to hear from friends. Love you guys!

Love,
Elder McLain