Healing the Sick

  This has been a pretty nice week. My companion have been hard at work this last week, and we have been able to accomplish much good.

   There was this super old guy that we had been teaching for the last few weeks. He is 78 years old. He has great-great grandchildren. He has 3 teeth. He's an old guy. But he's really funny and really smart too. For the last few weeks since we had met him, he had been reading everything that we had given to him, from pamphlets to the Book of Mormon. He had been doing everything that we had asked of him to do. However, there was one small problem, he was having difficulties coming to church (he had been going to his church for over 30 years and was very attached to it). This last week when we went to go visit him he was having problems with his health (a really bad flu) and hadn't been able to sleep properly for the last week because of it. We sat down with him and had a really powerful lesson about the Book of Mormon. At the end of the lesson we committed him to come to church, and he told us that he might make an effort to come to church if it wasn't that he was sick. We asked him that if he were to feel better, would he come, and he told us yes, but that he doubts that he would be able to make it due to sickness. From there my companion and I offered to give him a priesthood blessing, and he accepted. That happened on Wednesday of this last week. On Sunday we were surprised to see him walking into church wearing a nice striped suite. It was a pretty cool thing to see, and it built my faith in the power of the priesthood. I hope that he continues to progress as well as he has been doing so far.

   Been a good week though so far. This last week My Companion and I were doing service: We were filling up and carrying Jerry Cans from peoples homes to the well and back. As I was walking back the quarter mile to someones house with two filled up Jerry Cans there was an old Lady who saw me and yelled out to me "You're so strong! Why don't you marry me!" It was really funny the way she said it, and my companion and I laughed all day about it.

   It just started raining again today, for the first time in like a month. It felt soo good. I hope that it was a sign of the dry season's end and the beginning of the rainy season.

   Love you guys have a great week!

No Water in Lugazi

   Water has been out in Lugazi for 5 days in a row. No rain in sight. The whole of Lugazi looks like a desert. I don't know who has it worse right now, me in Uganda (hot and dry), or you guys in America (Cold and freezing). With the exception of a few minutes each day, we receive no water in our home, or in the surrounding homes. We are praying for rain. This is a famine indeed.

   We went to Kampala today. Just wanted to pick up a few things there. Went to a supermarket called Game, (the African Walmart) and they had a sale: 1,000 shillings for a large bag of doritos! Yay!

   Other than that, things are going well. Sorry ran out of time emailing today, but I love you guys, and I will write you next week.

RE: Dad's Letter  

   My shoes are holding up alright, I think that they will last me to the end of my mission. I fixed up the hole in the front and side.

   My companion is adjusting to Uganda pretty well. It can be hard for him at times (Like when water go's out and stuff) but he's pretty good at adjusting thus far.

   Ya most of the time my companion and I get along. Just a few times when we have some small contentions.

   Yes, I am picking up the language. Webele nyo, sebo

   I am one of the only whites in Lugazi. There is this super old white guy though who lives here too. He can be found at times waddling around with the support of his cane. We don't know why he is living here in Lugazi and I've never tried to talk to him but when I see him in passing I tell those around me that he is my Grandfather.

   In General we focus our teaching on families, on the people who can support themselves (have a stable job), and those who speak English. We do teach people outside of this category but not often. Teaching single mothers can be difficult too because you need to have a priesthood holder with you to teach them, so with having a small branch with limited priesthood holders it can cause some difficulties.

   I have heard a little about South Sudan but not much, I just know that there are not any senior couples there as there once was, and that there is a lot of bloodshed up there.

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.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

 This week has been a pretty nice one. I've been working hard and I feel like we are really preparing the souls of the people around us to have the restored gospel in their lives. Don't have a lot of words to share with you guys but they say that a picture is worth a thousand words. So I'll just send a few thousand words attached to this email.

Enjoy!

 pic. 1- The Mountain

pic 2- behind me you can see my whole area that I work in

pic 3- me and some waterfalls

pic 4- I was feeling lonely

pic 5- A little slice of heaven

pic 6- Some Ugandan Children

Yes I think that I got a package from Craig and Maria... It was either from them or from Grandma/ Grandpa Weber. I did get a letter from them too.

No I'm not homesick. I really love the missionary work and everything like that. I'm not trunky, missing the family and stuff. I will miss missionary work a lot when I'm finished. But receiving American food in a giant package is bound to remind you that living in a third world country for two years is not easy. I've never been homesick or trunky my whole mission. I just miss the luxuries of the first world. (Speaking of which do you guys still know if you are going to come down and visit Uganda at the end of my mission? My mission president wants to make sure that you are still planing on it so that he can get approval from the area seventy).

I really Like the area. We have a few things going well in our area right now. I also really enjoy the companion, He's a goofball (in a good way) and we get along really well.

It was only the Kampala Stake that saw David A. Bednar. About half the mission (those serving in Kampala) got to see him. The other half only got to hear stories of his power and authority. I was one of those unlucky missionaries that missed out of seeing him.