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

i am getting transferred far

I received a message from my missionary this week. This is what it said.......

i

am

getting

tranferred

far

it is 6 hours north

small village

it is where dads friends are doing their drone transportation to Juba, 

South Sudan. I am closeish to South Sudan

the people there are TALL and DARK black 

He said he was sad to be leaving Nsambya. He wanted to finish here. They were planning a big birthday celebration for him. He wanted to stay but knew there was a reason he was going. It has been one of his favorite areas to serve in. 

And then he sent this.



hey guys!

This is the end of my 16th transfer. Here in Uganda we serve for 17 transfers (6 week transfers). So that officially leaves me with 1 left! I am shocked it is here this fast. I have been spending the last 3 transfers (4 1/2 months) in Nsambya. The area has been a highlight of my mission and pretty much the best! I love every day here. The members are active in the work and really cool people. I feel as though my adjustment to home will be  easier because of the ward here. I truly love this place!

I received some news on Saturday that I will be heading to GULU! It is in Northern Uganda near the South Sudan border. Don't know if you remember KONY 2012 or Joseph Kony? That was in the Gulu area. Luckily the place is really cool and peaceful now. I look forward to it! My companion is named Elder Godfrey.

That is all the time I have for the week. Sorry it is so short. Love you all and talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder McLain

With Mbaki, Josh and Kenneth

Aisha and Elder Brewer

BODA

ghetto rifle

Elder Hunter and me

We walk......and walk........and walk........and walk

I GOT SOME DR. PEPPER!!!

 Cool busses

 Found a mirror

 We played the Jelly Bean game. 

I ate Dead Fish Jelly Bean and Dirty Socks. Not good ones....

Prayers for my dear friend Elder Kubheka

Hello all,

This week was good. It was a cool week with some fun and powerful experiences. Some I will share to all and one I will share only with my parents... Let me hope I can remember it all. I wish I could have just taken a picture of my journal entry for one day and sent that to you. Oh well.

The missionary work for the week was really cool. The highlight was going on a 24 hour exchange with Elder Mbaki. He is awesome! We worked in my area so that was not a change but it was great to be around him. He is from Cape Town, South Africa and shares a lot of the same interests as me. I think one reason I like South Africans so much is because a lot of my weird and unique interests are shared with many elders from South Africa! We worked really hard that day but also had a great time talking about cars, anime, Premier League soccer, jellyfish and much more. It was a good day. 

We spent a lot of the week seeing members. Both Elder Barnum and I got the news that we are likely leaving Nsambya next week. I was pretty shocked myself to hear that I would leave and go to a new area for only 6 weeks. If I'm not mistaken the same thing happened to Tab on his mission and he said it really messed with his brain to try and learn a new area, members, investigators and work while knowing at the end of the transfer he would be going home. I will just wait until this Saturday to hear if it is true. I hope not! I love Nsambya. Many of the Embassy families came back from their summer holidays this week and I got the BIGGEST surprise on Sunday!! I walked into the church compound to find the Moore family from Ethiopia!!! They moved here to Kampala and are in Nsambya ward now. I missed them a lot and was so happy to see them. Another reason I hope I don't leave!

Horrible news came to me last week. As you know, Elder Kubheka has been my closest friend through my mission and will be through my life. He was raised by great parents but his father passed away when he was young. Having a single mother made his aunt and uncle step in to help. So they raised him and he lived a lot of his growing up years with them. He got a call this week that they were in a very serious car accident. His uncle died instantly and his aunt made it 3 days before also passing on. I was heart broken myself and felt so bad for him and his family. Keep them in your prayers.

That was a really cool story about Brother Anderson. I didn't know he had such an influence on missionary work or even in the church! That was great to hear. It is sad that he passed away though. I never really knew him very well but I know he was a good man! 

Crazy news from home. Zak is now home! And Tab moved home. And Rorie started school! Happy for Noah and Ellie. And the Liptrott's are coming to America! Can't wait to see all of the family! Sounds like things are good at home.

Well, that will be it for the week. Thanks for all the emails and support. Have a great week! 

Love,

Elder McLain

*The pictures below were posted by Sister Collings on Instagram. Colby thought we'd get a kick out of him "raking" the leaves with a broom. He said it was dang tough work! Hahahaha

Colby and his companion

Colby's companion Elder Barnum

Sometimes you have to go to the end of the road and turn around and start over again

Hello!

Another week has passed! As always, a pretty good week for us. Suuuuuper slow but good. My companion got sick on Friday with some serious stomach stuff that kept him in the bathroom most of the day. That actually put us down most of Saturday and all of Sunday. We even weren't able to go to church... That was my first time missing church on my mission and it felt super strange. It was also a bit of a challenge because we had investigators there that we couldn't support. So I hope it went good! I had fun and we got some good work done so I am content with the week. 

Well, at the beginning of this week we had a pretty small teaching pool. We had many that were just not progressing and we decided to stop meeting them. Others we had progressed and baptized. So we had only 4 or 5 people at the beginning of the week. This week we were able to find 9 new people. It was great! Many are really good and interested too! So I will tell you about them:

Samuel and Family! - We met Samuel while knocking doors. We were walking down this little road and there was a compound with many houses in it. We peeked through the crack in the gate and saw a younger girl cleaning the porch so we knocked . She let us in and pretty much just ushered us into their home as though they were expecting us. The Father welcomed us in and sat us down on the couch. It was probably one of the most casual welcomes I have had. It was literally like he was just waiting for us and knew we were coming! After chatting for a while they were more than happy to accept our message. We set an appointment to teach the whole family, Mom and Dad + 4 kids, this Thursday! 

Moses and John - These two were contacted when we found Moses sleeping on the ground as we were walking down a road. He woke up as we were passing and we greeted him and moved on. At the end of the road we turned around and started knocking the doors again. We had no success until we again reached Moses. As we talked to him he awoke and sat up. He was happy to hear from us. His brother, John, came out of their house and sat with us. They told us that their mother passed away a few months back. Their pastor told them some words that weren't so comforting about her "current state" and it angered the two of them and now they "hate" God. We gave them a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and will be returning tomorrow to talk more about it. We are looking forward to it. 

Fiston and Kawunga - Fiston is from Burundi and Kawunga is from DR Congo. They were both found on the way to visit another investigator named Emmanuel. Kawunga called us over and told us he is pretty much a mess. He drinks and smokes and hates the fact that he does it and just wants help. He tried other churches and none of them cared about is addictions and struggles. We of course do! His friend is Fiston who has actually come to church a few times. We are meeting them again on Wednesday.  

That is pretty much it for new people right now. Others we are teaching are still doing pretty good. Emmanuel is having a little problem with the Word of Wisdom and so we are working with him to overcome it and progress to be baptized. Vicky is doing great too and we are still teaching her! It should be a busy week coming up. We have our work cut out for us so keep us in your prayers. 

Welp, I am excited to go on some fun hikes and join you guys on your trips when I get home! Have a great week!

Love you all! 

Elder McLain