Work is Moving Forward By and By

Hi Family and Friends,

Water has steadily begun coming back. Sometimes it is on, and other times it is off. But usually we have had water when we need to cook or take a shower which is a blessing. There are some parts of Lugazi that still up to this time don't have water at all, like the place where the church is for instance (still can't fill up a baptismal font). But where our home is right now the water is fluctuating. The reason why water is such a problem right now is because Uganda is experiencing their dry season right now, we haven't had any serious rains in several weeks. The ground is super dry and the sun is really powerful.
  The funny thing is that when water go's out it doesn't really effect most people in Uganda. They usually don't have running water in their homes anyway. The way that they get water for cooking or washing is by going to a boar hole and pumping their own water from the ground. If they want to drink the water they just boil it.

   All year round the weather is pretty much the same except in just a few months. February is considered the driest and hottest month in Uganda. If you can remember last year this time I was serving in Lira and I was melting. I am so great full to not be serving there right now.

   Yes, Ugandans are very superstitious, especially the older generation of them. But not so much that it interferes with teaching the gospel to them.

This last week was transfers, however my companion and I stayed the same. A new elder from South Africa came in named Elder Nozintaba. So right now I'm the only American Elder in Lugazi. It's my second time on mission being in a home with 4 Elders and being the only American, it can be a bit lonesome at times just because their culture is often similar to each other while the American culture it different from theirs. I have also noticed that while I am not serving around American's my accent slowly changes in a dramatic way. I start enunciating words much more.

   Our teaching pool has shrunk a lot in the last week so we have been doing a lot of trackting and finding this last week. Finding in Lugazi has just one minor difficulty, English barrier. More than in any area I have served in, people here in Lugazi, "Not speak English". It can be an even bigger problem with members of the church who might have friends who are interested in the church, but because they do not understand English they are deterred from coming to an English speaking church. Gathering referrals and trackting, are the ways that I have always worked on finding people, but in the last 3 months my testimony of these two ways of finding are beginning to dwindle. We have started to work on contacting more, it is one of the easy ways of knowing instantly of who knows English and who doesn't.

   Either way things in Lugazi are doing alright, and the work is moving on by and by.

-Elder Grilliot

NO WATER

   This last week went pretty nicely. My companion and I had a baptism this last week. The whole city of Lugazi has been out of water for the last 2 or 3 days though so we had to take the baptism to the chapel in Mukono (about a 45 min taxi ride). My companion, myself, our branch president, the baptismal candidate, and her fellow shipper all got into a taxi to Mukono to perform the ordnance there. It was a really nice baptism though, it was the first time I've had a baptism in an actual chapel, rather than in a dumpster filled with water behind our meeting house.

   And yes, Lugazi has been out of water for the last 2 and a half days. We have 3 or 4 jerrycans filled with water in our garage, that we have been using so that we can take bucket showers. We have also had to buy a lot of bottled water this last weekend, which hurt our wallets a bit. I don't know when water will come back on, but I hope that it comes back soon.

  It has been a pretty decent week thus far, and I have high hopes for next week as well. 
Love you guys!

Lesson Learned: Stay out of the Gutter!!

    Since I have reached Lugazi I have not yet had any baptisms, but we should have our first baptism this upcoming Sunday. We've had a lot of disappointment since I gotten here as far as investigators go: people who were golden investigators becoming too busy for us to teach them mostly. In Lugazi that seems to be one of the biggest challenges that I have experienced. Most people who live in Lugazi work either in Kampala or at Jinja. It's a long bus ride in either direction. Most people leave for work at around 6 or 7 in the morning and get back at around 9 or 10 pm. It's extremely difficult to find the time to teach them that will help them to progress. But in any case we are trying new things to see if we can find more people who have more time on their hands.

   The water that we use for the sacrament is bottled water. Like the bread they have to buy the water for the sacrament. So I have never had to worry about the water being impure.

  

I know that it's been 2014 for a while but it feels so strange that it is that year. The year 2013 flew by so fast, I almost feel like it didn't exist. That plus being in Africa and on a mission, I have absolutely no clue as to what happened during that year in the outside world, or what is going on currently. In a way that's good though because it helps me to focus on my calling, rather than what is going on in the rest of the world.

   This week has been pretty nice. It started off a bit rough though. On Tuesday when I was walking I fell into one of the gutters on the side of the road (not like our gutters back home, but it's like a 1.5 to 3 feet drop, with rocks and trash at the bottom) and cut up my leg pretty badly. I also punctured a large whole in the front of my shoe as well. But I got it figured out. I took it to a cobbler today and they superglued a piece of rubber to the front and then sowed it to my shoe with string. It looks pretty ghetto but it gets the job done. The rest of the week went by pretty smoothly, though.

   Good to hear that the family is doing good. Nice to hear from everyone.

-Love Elder Grilliot

Teaching at a Clinic and Sloppy Joes

Things are going well in Lugazi. Were teaching some cool people, having some fun in the sun and stuff like that.
  One of the people that we are teaching is a guy named Joseph. He's a doctor in Training, he works at his fathers clinic in Lugazi. He wants us to do some service at the clinic, like to give a presentation on the danger of HIV and AIDS. Maybe I will go and teach a bunch of kids the law of Chastity instead though. It will help them more...

  Fast Sunday was a really nice experience this month, I made Sloppy joes for all the missionaries in my district. It was a really nice way to end a fast. Thanks mom and dad for sending the sloppy joe mix.

  I hate to say it but i honestly can't think of anything interesting to write about this week. I know that it's going to annoy my parents but I don't have any good stories to tell or anything this week. I've just been immersed in the work I guess.

  Love all of you guys though, and thank you for your prayers.