Celebrated 21 with spaghetti and meatballs in Bardege

Hey there!

Thanks for all the emails. Sounds like everyone had an eventful week! I had a pretty good one. Luckily I didn't get sick this week, haha. I think it is the first full week in Bardege that I was able to proselyte the whole week with no interruptions... Nice!

Thanks for all the Birthday wishes! Even here I didn't do much of anything... hahaha. We just ate at a restaurant on Saturday evening. I got spaghetti and meatballs. It was alright! Looking forward to the food from home though! Can't believe I am 21! Sounds wild!! Can't wait to come home and celebrate with everyone!

The week was good. We were able to find a lot of new people to teach. It is weird to think that these people won't be able to progress in time before I get home. We extended some baptismal dates today for after I leave. Weird! One of the big changes this week was a change in the branch presidency. President William was released and President Mike Okello was called! It is a good change. William is an amazing president and many of the members are really sad he is released but Mike is awesome, young and ready for it. So we had President Richard Okello from the Mission Presidency up here in Bardege to make the change because President Collings is in Rwanda. Or was.... It was nice to see President Richard and his wife Martha one last time. Fun note, Martha is a member from Ethiopia who at the time I served in Megenagna was not married yet. We would go to her house all the time. I am sure you remember me always mentioning her... She ended up marrying President Richard and now lives here in Uganda! Sunday night we made an appointment to visit with the former branch president, William. We just wanted to go over and check on him and make sure everything was well and that he was handling the release from his calling well. We were a bit nervous but he ended up just being a ball of funny energy when we went over! We ended up spending the better part of an hour there just laughing, talking about his mission and eating! It was a really good time. In my short time here in Bardege I have become really good friends with him. At the end of our time there he brought in two friends and referred them to us! We were able to share a small thought with them and set a return appointment. 2 referrals and a dinner appointment was much more than we expected out of the visit. It was great! 

Fun note about President William... He served in Cape Town, South Africa and knows one of the Kaufusi sons... small world!

Let me see, for work in Bardege.... it is kind of weird. Gulu is a developing area.  I think they are trying to cover up a lot of the effects of Joseph Kony and the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) by making the place look really nice. Because of that a ton of people work construction. They are paving many roads, digging and making roads wide, building government buildings and a lot of other stuff. Many others are farmers or produce drivers. Many bring things to and from South Sudan. Those are the jobs I can think of...

Wow! Doctor appointments! I think the only ones I really need are teeth and knee. I want to check my knee out and make sure I am healthy to start running again. I am REALLY eager to start running when I get home. So I hope that one will be soon! And I am already mentally preparing for like 50 cavities in my teeth. Not looking forward to that one. My teeth have been pretty destroyed out here. Always finding rocks in my food and all that stuff. We will see how the dentist goes! Might just have to pull all my teeth! Hahahahah jk...

Saw some pictures from home! The cars are looking awesome. I miss that stuff! Rorie also looked like she had fun at Homecoming! I miss school dances. She is really lucky to still have them! 

Well, that is pretty much it for the week. Look forward to seeing everyone soon. 

Real soon.

Love,

Colby

Birthday dinner

Spaghetti and meatballs

 On our way to Kampala!

120kph wind to the face!

 This baby refused for me to put him down... 

There are really big spiders in Gulu 

I found one in my closet. Took precautions and killed it.

 baby

 "An improved toilet is a family's pride." 

Gulu

 Ivan and Innocent

Little girl from the branch at church

My time is winding down!

Hello from Gulu! 

Wow another week down. My week was a bit slow. One of the slower weeks I have had up here but that's okay. I still enjoyed it. Not the best but not the worst. The week started with me being a little sick. Nothing bad, just an upset stomach and frequent bathroom trips. The hard thing about that is proselyting.... Even if it isn't too bad it is hard to get out and get some work done. Gulu isn't like most places. Bathrooms aren't the easiest things to come by. Hahaha. Through it all we were able to get some work done. The end of the week was a little better. We mostly spent it visiting members and seeking referrals through them. Finding in Gulu isn't as easy as it is in Kampala. The best way to do the work is through referrals from members. Fortunately the members here are pretty good at helping us. 

Walter's family is doing well. They actually didn't make it to church this Sunday and we aren't sure why. But his brother Bosco came. That was a big surprise! Bosco told us he saw Walter and the family on the way to church but I guess they just never made it. Hmmm.

We were also able to get a hold of Vincent and locate him! He was in Kitgum for a few weeks with his family and finally made it back to Gulu for work! He was happy to see us and we were also happy to see him and start teaching him again. He has received a baptismal date too for mid October.

Lastly Morris. Morris is still doing really well. We are still consistently sharing with him and he is progressing great! We plan for his baptism this Saturday! 

We have other investigators that are struggling to keep commitments or come to church. Just working through with them...

I heard about those fires... that is really sad! I can't really believe it. How close are they to our home? Seems like it is kind of burning everywhere around us? I dunno. My companion has had family from Elk Ridge get evacuated... Sad! I would just about die if I couldn't come home to our house!! I hope they get them under control very soon.

Well everything is good here. The work is going well. My time is winding down! Looking forward to coming home but I am gonna miss this place. Don't worry Africa, imma be back in full force soon enough!

Well, that is about it for me again. Hope you all have a great week. I will see you soon!

Love,
Elder McLain

This is my street where I live

(under that beautiful sky!)

 Gulu has nice sunsets!

 Baptism of the other Elders investigator Jimmy.

Messing around at the supermarket...

Happiness........spending the week seeing all my friends in Kampala and Ntinda!

Hello!

Woosh another week! This week was a really fast one... Unfortunately we hardly spent any time proselyting in our area due to Mission Tour in Kampala... All around though it was a good week!

Wednesday morning we took the 6 hour drive down to Kampala for Mission Tour. It was sooo awesome because we got to stay in Ntinda!! And Elder Kubheka is serving in Ntinda right now so I got to be with one of my best friends in a former area! It was a fun few days. Wednesday night we attended institute and I was able to see all of my friends and members there. It was so great! Thursday was Mission Tour with Elder Koch from Brazil! That was a really fun time. He is very powerful and direct so we were taught well. His teachings were centered on finding the elect and then how we progress them. His wife speaks very little English. She struggled with the language through her training but Elder Koch didn't hesitate at all to just correct her English and make her say things properly. This was only to help her learn English better so it was out of love. After Mission Tour was over we were able to go and see more people in the Ntinda area and even eat a meal at one of my favorite member Josephine's house. That was a blast. Thursday morning we got ready, ran some little errands and headed back to Bardege. So Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were just taken up by Mission Tour.

Saturday we had a good day. We had a lot of catching up to do on people we weren't able to see due to our trip to Kampala. In the evening we found a family of 5! Walter, Jennifer and 3 kids. They are super powerful. They loved our first lesson. Walter and 2 of his sons were able to make it to church yesterday too. The whole family accepted a baptismal date for the 29th of September! Our area is slow but sure!

Church was good. We had a turn out of 5 investigators! Walter and his kids, a neighbor to Walter and one other man named Morris. Morris is a super smart man who works here at the internet cafe we email at. I believe I told you about him last week. He is still doing great and progressing well. 

My companion is great! He is really outgoing and hard working. A fire ball of energy. Loves making people laugh and cracks jokes all the time. The Bardege Branch loves him and so our relationship with the members is great. I'm pretty lucky when it comes to companions. 

Great story......Elder Akrong (Nana) is the former companion of my companion Elder Godfrey. Before Elder Akrong was transferred he traded ties with my comp. One morning I woke up and saw him and was like, "Godfrey I had this same tie back home!" We then put two and two together and figured out it was given to Akrong by mom!! ahhahaaha 

          

         

Well, I think that is about it for me. Hope you have a good week!!! I miss you all and look forward to seeing you very soon! 

Love,

Elder McLain

This is real......

Back home again!

 Driving again for a bit, right side manual. 

Love it so much :)))

 Doing work!

New shades!

My first week in Bardege

Hey hey hey!

My first week in Bardege is down and out. It was a great week and full of entertainment. I loved it. I can really tell that I will work well and enjoy these last few weeks of my mission.

We are super far North! I've known of Gulu and Bardege my whole mission and always heard that it was really far away. I didn't realize just how far it was until we casually buckled down on a 6 hour road trip! I realized you could almost almost almost drive to St. George and back in the same time. Though the distance is much much less. It is so far though! The branch is pretty solid. Like always there is a bit of confusion. The branch is about 90 active members in number. Some are really powerful and others are just a bit confused, haha.  Church was interesting yesterday. It was fast and testimony meeting. Some people gave really powerful testimonies. One impressive testimony was a recent convert named Concy. We taught her on Saturday and she asked us at the end of the lesson how to bear a testimony. After teaching her she told us she wouldn't do it during sacrament. We encouraged her but also said it is no problem if she chooses not to and that she shouldn't feel compelled by others to do so. She ended up doing it anyway! It was her 3rd Sunday as a member and she bore a pure testimony about the gospel and how it has blessed her so much. I was really impressed. There were others that were a little wild. 

Our teaching pool is small right now. This is because the Elders before me had baptized most of their investigators and didn't continue to find more. That is very okay though. We only have one really promising investigator. His name is Morris. He is the owner of the internet cafe I am emailing in right now. We taught him about the Book of Mormon my first day here. He loved it and by the end of the lesson asked a few questions. In those questions he was referring to himself as a Latter-Day Saint! It was really cool. He already has a good strong testimony and is progressing well. He even said that he heard we aren't supposed to drink and smoke and that before he met with missionaries he spent months breaking both of his drinking and smoking habits to prepare himself for baptism. Again, before meeting with missionaries. At the end of our first lesson he asked if there were any other health things he was to avoid. We briefly told him about coffee and tea and others and he just said, "wonderful! I will stop all of them. I am glad I now know I should not take them." He's amazing!

My new companion is awesome. His name is Elder Godfrey from Blackfoot, Idaho. He is really cool and I enjoy being with him a ton. He will be my last companion so I am officially like 12/12 on good companions! haha how lucky am I! And my apartment is meh. Not too bad not too good. It is pretty old and has a lot of weird stuff about it. The shower is pretty much done for. I don't really care at all about any of it though (at least I have a shower!) because it is only for like one more month.

We email at this little place near our house called Taks. You could probably google it. It is a fun little place. Definitely not nice like most of the places I have emailed from but hey I can still send email! I do feel like I am in the village now......haha

Bardege area is the type of fruitful area where it is small enough that most of the villagers know of the church and often times some random person will just walk up and say, "hey I will be at church this Sunday to learn more." Seriously... And they do come! It is very easy to find people to teach here. They literally come to you! I love it. Mom and Dad you will for sure have to see this place when you come! And check out Chobe Safari Lodge. Miiiiiight be a place you want to come visit for one or two days when we come. It feels like paradise there. The type of place you just don't check the time the whole day. Sit by the pool, go on a safari, go hiking, fishing, and a lot more. It is so nice! We visited there and it was beautiful.

I was also really surprised to hear about my admittance to BYU. I had prepared myself to not make it in and was getting prepared to have a backup plan ready. But I'm so excited and can't wait!

I really like the thought you shared Dad. Often times throughout my mission I have served around missionaries who just go gaga over "deep doctrine" (not that that is bad though). They read these deep books and do overbearing amounts of study on them. I myself have never cared to do that. I often times read the Student Manuals the church provides with the corresponding scriptures. Right now I am in Ether in the Book of Mormon and Galatians in the New Testament. I have a goal to finish both before I reach home. My studies are usually simple and focused on the doctrines we are to teach, just like what is mentioned in vs. 19 and 20 of Mosiah 18. It seems when people get too caught up and focused on this deep doctrine that they lose focus of what is actually important. I find it interesting that literally ALL we need to do is constantly repent, be baptized and have faith in Jesus Christ. It is so simple! 

Alright, that is it for me. 5 weeks and I will see you all! 

Love you so much!

Love,

Elder McLain

* A little tidbit Tim found:

When you look up the Bardege Branch in the Meetinghouse Finder application on lds.org, it becomes quite clear that you are on the northern frontier of the church in central Africa – no one is further to the north than you and the branch in Bardege (not including Ethiopia). It sounds like an awesome little branch. I did a Google search for Bardege Branch LDS and a link to their Facebook page popped up. It is really fantastic! Lots of pictures and posts of people anxiously engaged in the Lord’s work. 

The Nile River

 Rebecca's House

 Our neighbor's house

 Grass hut neighborhood

 Teaching at a neighbor's house

Church compound

 4 inch spiders no joke!

 District picture with Elder Ankrah, Elder Payne and Elder Godfrey

 Cheezin

 Me and my new comp, Elder Godfrey

Gulu town

 Barnum, Mbaki and I

 Goodbye to my favorite restaurant in Nsambya

 Transfer van

 My seat.........

 Feeding a baboon some chapati

 He wouldn't get off the car...

 Giraffe

 Giraffe giraffe

 Giraffe and gazelles

Elephants

Bardege is the best!

Got a brief note to let us know he had made it to his new (last) area! I love how he always finds the good in everything, even in the most humble circumstances. 💕

Hey! 

Very brief update on Gulu: So I am not actually in Gulu! I am in a smaller village-ish town called Bardege. It is only a 10 minute drive from Gulu but I can easily say this is my most village area. I teach in mud and grass huts! The area is AMAZING!!! The people here are so friendly. The language is hilarious and awesome. It sounds like Chinese. But they also speak great English and have the same accent as South Sudanese people. It is HOT! The sun is penetrating here and I can feel it already.. haha. The food is meh and the options to buy are few. We have a little market to buy veggies and things but all of the luxuries I am used to for the last year of my mission are definitely not here. Things like soda variety, good soap, dish and clothes washing, cleanish water, restaurants and things like that. Here it is just huts and huts and like one little supermarket... haha! I cannot WAIT for you guys to visit here. You two will love it ! Already I think I like it more than any area I have been in. It is the best!

I will give a full update on Monday but I gotta run. Thanks Mom and Dad! Love you!

Love,

Elder McLain