Facing Opposition & General Conference Week

    This has been a difficult week for my companion and I. We worked really hard but faced a lot of opposition as well. Were thinking of changing strategies this week. We need much more member referrals and so rather than put our efforts on trackting were going to utilize the Conference that we watched this week by making members feel much more accountable to their God in doing member missionary work. Not that the work is going badly, just that it's starting to slow down a bit.

   This week we had the opportunity to watch General Conference. There were some great talks there. One of my favorite was Edward Dube in the Saturday Morning(?) session. The people in Uganda were so excited to hear an African General Authority speak. He was probably the highlight of conference for many Ugandans. My Favorite talks were by Richard G. Scott in the one of the Sunday sessions (they kind of just blend together because we watched them back to back) and another one (I can't remember who it was) that talked about teaching, and teaching by the spirit. It was nice. OH! Another favorite was from Russel M. Neilson(?) in the Sunday Evening Session. He talked about self mastery. It was a good talk. I missed the Priesthood session though. They didn't have a time that it was showing at the church for us.

   Overall I'm excited for this upcoming week, I have a good feeling about it. Thanks for all of the Love that each of you send my way. I really do feel your prayers give me the strength that I need.

My Sabbath was alright, We watched Conference this Sunday. Power went out during Conference though. Fortunately though we had a generator that kept Conference going.

Answers to Mom's Questions

Dad,

Thanks for the NFL update. The other day I had a nice little surprise as I walked into a local supermarket and saw playing on the TV a collage football game from 2010. It was the first time I had seen any football on TV in about 11 months. It blew my mind.

Thanks for the money as well it is well appreciated.

I'm training for the 2nd time in a row now. My new "son" just gave his father your email so you might be getting an email from his sometime in the future.

Mom's Questions:

Tell me are you in a new area or are you still in Seeta?

1- Still in the same area. I kinda wish that I had left though, I enjoy change.

Do you still have someone to do your laundry for you?

2- Yes I do

Tell me something interesting or funny that happened to you or your companion this week?

3- Kind of a funny story: so this week I was skipping along and I tripped and fell in a nest of wild honey badgers. After they ripped off my face I befriended them and they all came to church and got baptized. Hope they didn't get baptized for the wrong reasons.

On a spiritual note what did you learn this week?

4- I don't know what I learned this week but I know I've learned a lot!

When are you going to send us pictures on your card?   We will send you a new card for the camera if you let us know what kind you have that needs replaced.  Are you taking many pictures? I know you probably don’t take it with you every time you go out for fear of it getting stolen.  Glad you are having fun on your p-days.

5- To be honest my Camera and the card in it got stolen last week. During Church I left my Camera on my chair while I went to help out one our branch members for a few minutes, then when I came back it was nowhere to be found. I was pretty upset. But don't send me money to buy another I don't want you guys to go broke!

What are the holidays that people there celebrate that are uncommon in the U.S.?  What do they do to celebrate these events?  As you know Halloween is coming up and all the craziness that comes with that holiday.  I’m sure they don’t celebrate Halloween, do they?

6- October 9th was Uganda's Independence day, so a few people celebrated it but not many people. Oh! and There was a Muslim holiday this week. It's called Eid al-Adha (you can look it up). I met a Muslim family this week and they invited us to celebrate with them. We wanted free food, so during our lunch time we went and chilled with a Muslim family ate their food and then ran off. My companion and I called it Eid day for short.

Are you still working out every morning with your companion?

7- Yep, I use a jump rope every morning.

We are planning on sending you handwritten letters and photos of the family for Christmas, what else do you need or want in the package? Would $ be the best or is there a little something from the U. S, that you miss and would like for Christmas?

8- Money is awesome, but getting a box full of American Chocolate and Candy is also really, really, really, really, beautiful. Either one will make me happy.

Are you good to take your malaria pill consistently? Be smart and be consistent okay?  No more scares like that! 

9- Yes I take the pill everyday

Tell us about the missionary work/teaching pool and how many investigators you have right now and how they are coming along.

10- Missionary work is going well. Things are looking good right now. We have a little over 20 investigators with a baptismal date and a little less than half of them are progressing. The thing that we are really focusing on is getting people to fellowship. I'm not sure if it's because the church is new or if it's just because of Ugandan culture but people aren't great are being friendly to new people who come to church. Lots of times I have to specifically tell people "hey there's this guy sitting over here, it's his first time to come to church. Can you go and greet him and make him feel welcome?" I've learned to make sure that I tell at least 5 members to do that to each of the investigators that come to church. If I don't make the members greet my investigators, sometimes no one talks to them (other than us missionaries) and then they have no desire to come back to church the next time. Forging friendships is something that I am really pushing members to do with investigators. It can be difficult.

P-Day Fun

     This has been a nice week for me. Things have been moving slowly recently though. Probably just because this is the last week before transfer news, and it's very likely for me to leave Seeta this transfer. My companion and I have still worked hard this last week though, but I feel a little bit more tired than usual. I don't know whats going to happen with transfers (until tomorrow) but most likely I will leave and go somewhere else and my companion will stay here in Seeta. I've felt like I've done a lot of Good here in Seeta. I've baptized lots of good people here and I'm going to miss them if I leave.

    Last P-day was pretty awesome. We have a member of our church (named Ronald) move away from Seeta to a new home in a place called Numugunga (I think that's how you spell it) It's near to a town called Lugazi. But last P-day we went to his new place which is out in the Jungle. It was awesome. We hiked up to the top of a nearby hill in the jungle and looked out at all of Uganda. It was a sweet view. We even got to see monkeys and these killer ants too. Then one of Ronald's friends who live out there had told Ronald that if he brings white people to his place that he would give us all the jack fruit that we want (because this guy has never met white people up close). So Ronald took us to this guy and we ate a ton of fruit until we couldn't eat any more. It was a fun P-day. I'll see if I can send some pictures.

    This P-day was also pretty awesome. We had a zone activity and we all went to an amusement park called wonder world. Even though they only had three working rides, it was still pretty cool. One was the bumper cars (they only had three working cars), they had a ride that was like giant swings that spun around in a circle. and then they had this big pirate ship that you sat in and then it would swing back and forth like a giant pendulum. It was fun to watch the African missionaries ride the rides because many of them had never ridden amusement park rides before and it was a new level of Excitement for them. We were the only people in the whole park too which was kinda cool.

     Thanks for each of your emails and for all the love that you send my was each week.

Answers to Dad's Questions

     Many of you guys have asked about General Conference this week.

Unfortunately though I won't get to see conference until the end of this month. I really look forward to it though.

     Dad sent me some Questions to answer this week so I think that I'll just answer it for everyone this week.

Q:So is there any big news in Uganda?  What do people generally talk about when you chat with them about current affairs?  Anything?

A: Mostly just about how corrupt the government in Uganda is. I rarely get any news about what is happening back home. I heard some rumors about the government being shut down in America, but that's about it.

Oh and the shooting in Kenya was pretty big for some time too.

Q:Anything you would like us to send you?  How are you doing on contact lenses?

A: Money? Pictures from family back home is always awesome to get (and handwritten letters as well).

Q:How are your shoes holding up?

A:I came on my mission with two pairs of shoes. One of them are trashed, I've been meaning to repair it but I haven't gotten around to it. The other pair is still holding strong though. I walk about 6 miles a day (at least), so they can get worn down pretty fast.

Q:Did you do anything fun with your birthday money?

A: I just ate really well for about 3 weeks. It was like a breath of fresh air being able to eat American food again.

Q:Who is your favorite member of the ward there, and why?

A:I have a couple of favorites but one of my favorite is a guy named Erasmus Ichode. He's getting ready to serve his mission in Sierra Leone soon. He really likes working with us missionaries.

At First You Don't Succeed...

This has been a pretty good week thus far. My companion and I have been hard at work this week. We have been really effective this last few weeks in finding families and progressing them. I've been able to see the hand of the Lord as I've been obedient and diligent in the work.
    We had a baptism yesterday for a lady named Kathy. It was a great baptism but we had some difficulties at first. As we were filling up the baptismal font, the water went out for the church. By the time that the baptismal service had begun, the font had only about a foot and a half of water in it. So when we went out to the font, rather than finding it filled like we were hoping, the water could only just barley reach our knees. As I got into the water to baptize, and Kathy as well, I realized that this would be a struggle of a baptism. I tried many times to fully immerse her in water but to no avail. Her foot would come out on accident, or her arm, or something else. In the end we had her sit on the bottom of the font while I laid her backwards into the water. In the end I had baptized her like 7 or 8 times.
     It always seems like the ones that you are expecting to come to church don't come and the ones that you don't believe would come do. We met a guy this week named Trevor Williams, or as he calls himself "Pastor" Trevor Williams (on weekends he gos out to preach the gospel on the street from a loud speaker). When we talk to him he always starts rambling about crazy things that don't make any sense, and every time we see him
he's asking us how he can find a good wife. But he wants to be baptized super bad and this Sunday he came to church. The way he speaks and stuff is really funny but I really admire his desire to follow Christ. This was his first Sunday to attend Church and it was kind of funny for me to see how he reacted to everything. He really liked the Hymns that we sang, and when one of the members of the congregation went up to give their talk, he whispered in my ear "I'm going to go speak next", and I had to let him know that he needs to wait for next week to go up to the podium (testimony meeting). He also gave me a free pen on Sunday, alerting me that the spirit directed him to give it to me. He's a goofy guy and I don't think that I'll forget him. I hope that I get an opportunity to see him get baptized.
     Overall we have a lot of people that we are progressing right now, and we have a massive teaching pool as well. Things are going pretty well right now but I've been busier than ever before just to keep up with all our investigators. We go on splits 2 or 3 times a week to see all of our investigators and still have finding time. It can be a problem sometimes, but it's a good problem to have.
     Thanks for the emails this week its good to hear from so many of you. Talk to all of you later!

Feeling the Guidance

Q1: What is something this week that happened that you could feel the guidance of the spirit.

A1: So one night this week I had one such experience as I was walking home one evening. As my companion and I were walking along a long dirt road I felt like I just wanted to street contact one more person before heading in. So as I walked back to our apartment I looked down the road studying peoples faces for who I should talk to. As I looked at those around me on the road and those who were passing by there was one mans face that just kind of stood out of the crowd. It wasn't that he was ugly or something, but just that I could feel influenced that he was who I needed to talk to. So I went up to him and I handed him the only pamphlet that I had left "The Plan of Salvation". As I go up to this man and introduce myself  I explained very simply what the plan of salvation was and was about to just leave it like that (with our phone number on the back of the pamphlet) when this guy asks me "if God really loves us that why would he let bad things happen to us?" He wasn't asking this question in a taunting way, but in a genuine heartfelt way. My companion and I sat down on the side of the road and spent the next 20 min explaining the purpose of life and why bad things happen to good people. He explained to us some problems that he had been having at his work and in his family. And we tried our best to help him see that the gospel of Jesus Christ was meant to make everything right in an imperfect world. He didn't have a phone (it got broken and he didn't have money to replace it) and we we couldn't get his address (there's no such thing as addresses in Uganda) but we gave him our number and directed him to the church. I never met that guy again but I do feel as though we gave him a little bit of comfort during a rough time in his life, and I'm glad that God directed us to be the angels that were needed for this man.

Q2: What are you studying in your personal scripture study.

A2: In my personal scripture study I've been studying Isaiah, and 2nd Nephi a lot (I've read 2 Nephi before but now I'm going through it more slowly). I also study Preach My Gospel everyday.
 

Q3: Have you had a tender mercy happen to you this week and if so what was it?

A3: Nope, haven't seen any

Q4: How often do you have any interaction with your mission president?

A4: Aside from emailing him each week, I see him in person about 4 times a transfer (when I go to the mission office on P-days, or during zone conferences).

Q5: How often do you have zone conferences?  Do you usually play a sport and eat, what do you do for zone conferences?

A5: We usually have a zone conference once a transfer (if not then it's every other transfer). This last Zone Conference we had a member of the second quorum of the seventy come (Keven S. Hamilton). He spoke to us for a few hours and then we had lunch after. Then we went back to our areas and went back to work. It was pretty cool.

The Swahili Couple

   Answers to Dad's Questions:

1- To answer your first question, yes. I have run into Elder Bitter a few times. Just briefly here or there but I have seen him. Also yes the Mission Pres knows that we are cousins, so I doubt that we will serve together unless there's a strong prompting that we need to do so.

2- Driving on the left side won't be to difficult to adjust to. Any time I'm in a taxi or other vehicle I'm always on the left side. Since I've been in Uganda for about 10 months now I'm pretty much used to keeping left when walking and stuff.

3- it pronounced set - ta

4- We are also getting lots of new missionaries but as for new areas that are opening up not really. For a brand new area to be opened they would need to open a new branch first because it's not like the states where there's a ward/branch in every city. So they're trying hard to get some new areas and new branches opened up in this mission in the next few months.

5- For Ugandans if they don't get malaria at least once a year then it's unusual. For missionaries serving in Uganda about 1 out of 3 will get malaria at least once on their mission.

This has been a pretty good week for me, but also kind of disappointing. I've had to drop a lot of investigators this week, people that have not been keeping commitments. You just have a sense of sadness when people are not being serious enough about the things that you know will help them. But we've also had a good week in seeing the Lord work certain miracles in the lives of a few.

    For instance in the life of one of our less-active families. Richard and his wife Winnie. My companion and I had gone over there to their house several times last transfer to talk to them and try to bring them back to church, but with very limited success. But then one day as we were leaving their home my companion asks if they know anyone else that we could teach. I never thought to ask them for referrals just because, you know, they're less-active. But sure enough there was a lady next door that had been having questions about the church. Unfortunately she couldn't speak any English at all but she can speak Luganda and Swahili, so we had the family translate for us to her. Long story short we managed to get a Swahili book of Mormon, She and her partner have read all the way to the book of Alma, they have come to church like 5 or 6 times (and have even started bringing Richard and Winnie) and we have given them a marriage date (because she and her man haven't been married yet) and a baptismal date. It is kind of crazy to see how God has prepared people for the gospel and that anyone can refer you to them, active or not active.

     Sorry my computer was super slow today in loading my email so I don't have a lot of time to email you guys, but thanks for all the support that each of you send my way.

-Elder Grilliot