In ten days I will have spent 9
months in Africa, which seems incredible to me. Time has flown by faster than
ever before, it seems like just yesterday that I was leaving my family behind
in Chicago.
A lot of things have happened since
I left home, but probably the most noticeable is that I have lost a lot of
weight. Just about an hour ago I found a scale in Kampala, and for the first
time since I left home I weighed myself. I now weigh 98 Kilograms, which for
those of you who don't know is about 216 pounds. Since I left on my mission I
have lost 49 pounds. To put it in simple terms I have lost about half the body
weight of your standard Ugandan male. BOOM!
My new companion and I are doing really
well. I really enjoy training, and I'm learning a lot. My son (that's what I
call Elder Sherwood, who I'm training), is awesome. He was born to be a
missionary. He is one of the first 18 year old missionaries to enter this
mission; he only just graduated high school about a month ago. He's full of
energy though and he's been able to help me become a better missionary.
Together we were able to find some really cool people, for example these two
guys called Wilbur Force, and his brother, Sunday (but we nicknamed him
"Sunshine" because he's always wearing a rainbow colored hat). They
are super legit guys, and always excited to learn. We found them just by
knocking doors, and they let us in right away. From the moment that we gave
them the Book of Mormon they just kept on reading. We would ask him to read a
chapter, and when we come back they would read four or five. They are just
really good guys, and I look forward to seeing them baptized.
We also found this really cool
South Sudanese family. We went to their house while we were just knocking on
doors one day and their guard answered the door. So we just walked in and
started teaching the guard outside of the family's house. We were teaching him
and at some point the book of Mormon came up and he started turning the
discussion into a debate. In the end my companion and I just felt like leaving
because it seemed to just be going nowhere, so we both shared powerful
testimonies and then got ready to leave. As we stood up to get ready to leave
we turned around and saw the whole South Sudanese family standing right behind
us, turns out that they were listening to us the whole time. They all look
deeply moved and looked as though he were going to cry. They told us that they
know that we were messengers from God and he begged us to stay and tell them
the same things that we were telling their guard. I'm not sure if it was our
testimonies or something that we said about the Book of Mormon or the gospel of
Jesus Christ, but something that we said to that guard had deeply touched the
whole South Sudanese family and made them want to know who we were. We have an
appointment with them tomorrow, and It's probably the appointment I'm looking
forward to the most this week.
Love you guys, keep up the
missionary work at home and I'll keep it up out here.
-Elder Grilliot
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