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