Colby in Kampala: 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.