This week has been very hot. Like even
hotter than normal I think. From like 10:30 to about 6:30 I feel as though the
hair on my head will burst into flames. I wish that I could trade you some of
my Ugandan heat for your guys winter cold, and then no one would feel too
hot or too cold. I've learned how to tell people "It's way too hot!"
in their local language, Langi. So every time they ask me if im hot I tell
them "ping leat leatturu" (pronounced "ping lee-et lee-et-toro"),
and then they instantly think that you are fluent in their language
and their mind is blown. It's pretty funny. I've memorized all of the typical
greetings and stuff like that, but I've also learned a few other phrases that
I've found useful, like how to invite them to church, or how to ask them
to pray, and just small stuff like that. They always think
it's awesome if you can speak the local language and I've found that
it often helps them to feel a little bit more comfortable around you. The only
problem is that if I get transferred there's an almost
100 percent guarantee that I'll never use Langi again.
Because there are three Zones in Kampala there are some people who stay in
Kampala their whole mission, or most of their mission. So by the end of their
mission they can be fluent in Luganda (the language of Kampala and
the unofficial language of Uganda). My companion right now has spent
about 7 or 8 months in Kampala so he knows quite a bit of Luganda, which helps
if we find someone who has moved from Kampala to Lira.
This week has been difficult with one of our
investigators, Ruth. She was coming along really well, keeping
commitments, reading the book of Mormon, heck, she was even asking us if
we could teach the rest of her family. Then the week right before she was scheduled to
be baptized she called us and asked us if we could rush to the
hospital. We got there and she took us to her father who was sick with malaria
and was so sick, the disease had put him in a coma. I would have guessed he was already dead
except that he was breathing heavily and he was sweating terribly.
Ruth asked us to give him a blessing so we did, and right afterwards her
father stopped breathing as hard and he seemed to be a little bit
more calm. We all felt a bit better afterwards so Elder Cardon and
I tried to comfort the family and left soon after giving the
blessing. Thirty minutes later we got a call back from Ruth telling
us that her father had past away. We felt awful that he had died but
then even worse when we heard that his burial would be that weekend in a
village about 20 kilometers away. There was no way that Elder
Cardon and I would be able to attend the funeral and it was so difficult to
have to tell her so. We haven't seen or heard from Ruth since then,
but we hope that if we just give her some time then she'll come around.
On a positive note for this week, we had more
of our investigators and recent converts come to church this Sunday then we've
had in the past. We even had this one young lady, named Gloria, who saved up
her money for two weeks to be able to travel the 20 kilometers to our church by
taxi. When we saw her we didn't recognize her so we went up and
introduced our selves and asked where she was from. When she told us and then
told us how far of a travel it was my mind was blown. We asked her how she had
heard about the church and the story she had told us was pretty amazing. About
3 months back some missionaries from Gulu had been prociliting in town and had
given a pamphlet about the restoration to guy, and wrote their phone number on
the back of it. The guy who they gave the pamphlet to didn't live in the town
of Gulu but he actually lived in the same village that Gloria lived
in. So when he traveled back to his village he took the pamphlet with
him. At some point he needed money and tried to sell the pamphlet that the
missionaries had given him to a local baptist priest in their village for some
extra cash. The priest bought the pamphlet but rather than use it he gave it
away to someone else, Gloria's father. I guess that the priest was looking
through it one day and Gloria's father saw it and became interested so he asked
if he could barrow it. The priest let him so the father took it home, where it
was then Gloria's turn to find it. She began reading through it and read it
from front to back. She even showed the pamphlet to me (yes she still has it)
and there are notes written all over the pamphlet by her. You can tell that
she definetly studied that book from front to back. She then prayed
about what was written in the pamphlet and found that it's message was true.
From there she called the number on the back of the pamphlet and got in touch
with the missionaries in Gulu, and was directed to the
closest LDS church to where she lives, which is ours in Lira. My jaw dropped when
I had heard this story, I couldn't believe how much the Lord had
guided this small booklet to be able to bring someone to the truth. It really
was an amazing story. The only problem now it that I have no idea how missionaries
are going to be able to teach her if she lived that far away and if it's that
difficult for her to come to church, but either way she is pretty amazing to be
able to come this far just to seek after truth. We left her with a book of
Mormon and with a few other booklets (Plan of Salvation, Gospel of Jesus
Christ, and the testimony of the prophet Joseph smith pamphlet) and
encouraged her to read. But to be honest I don't think she needed
any encouragement to read at all.
The next transfer is going to be weird. To be
able to adjust to the MTC becoming a two week long course instead of a three
week long one, we are making our next transfer only 3 weeks long. This also
means that everyone's return dates for this year have been shifted.
Some missionaries are going home 3 weeks late and some are going home 3 weeks
early. This applies to all missionaries going home this year (2013).
It's definitely
going to be a big change for some missionaries.
Thank you for all of
the wonderful and supportive emails. I always enjoy hearing from you
guys.
Love
-Elder Grilliot
No comments:
Post a Comment