Well Hello Everyone!
There is so much to say and not enough time! First off I would like to talk about How I am adapting. The first little bit on a mission you feel inadequate. You are in a new place (on the otherside of the world), you are with people you've never met, your living conditions are hard to get used to, people don't understand you, they use a whole different metric system, we are the only mazungu's (white person) for days, and the way you teach is no where near what you know from the MTC. It is an incredible adaptation process. Now I actually feel like my little home is where I belong and that people can understand me with my new accent. I am starting to learn the area! haha you just need to remember things like, take a fork left at the mango tree and then a right at the long haul (out house) then continue until you come across the pigs and then it's the 3rd hut on the left. That is literally what our area book looks like! It is so hard at first to find out how people will comprehend you. anything you say they will just nod there head even if they can't understand you. I have learned how to teach the Doctrine of Christ (faith,repentence,
When people back home said, you are going to baptize everyone you meet, they were wrong. The people here, if you ask, will almost always let you speak with them. After you meet with them you find out they are muslim... And we cannot teach muslims... they believe that if they kill a christian they will be glorified! also if anyone from a muslim family leaves the church they can kill them. You might think that would never happen, but it does... and that's why it is a rule! Also everyone here has multiple kids but no wife. That's an easier concept to handle, but there are also people that have multiple wives and we have to explain to them, that they have to chose one... It's actually really hard to find legit investigators... But luckily Elder Christian Lloyd and I have been able to find many legit investigators and will have 6 baptisms this sunday just in our area. That is awesome! not because of us. Glory be to God. "the field is white, ready to harvest"! I have a firm testimony in that. On a mission you really understand that saying. As missionaries we do nothing but tell them about the gospel of jesus christ, and from there the spirit and heavenly father take over. We are Teaching a young man named Walter. I have never met anyone who is more ready, and accepting that this young man. He is prepared! He wanted to be baptized after the first lesson! we gave him a book of mormon to read and the next time we came back he explained the name, where it came from, why we have the book of mormon, and who Joseph smith is better than 90% of members could describe it! He Is ready and a perfect example of "the field is white". We have been teach 2 young girls named Mary and Shira for a while now. Their uncle john and mary's mother are already members. I love their family!!! They were supposed to be baptized this last sunday, but the saturday night we were talking about the word of wisdom, and mary told us she had tea that day..... and then somehow we figured out that john sells blue movies(pornographic videos) for a job. We explained that he had to stop and get rid of the movies or the spirit wouldnt be with him and he wouldnt be able to use his preisthood to baptize mare and shira... after we told them they need to repent and change and that the baptism had to be post-ponded marey was in tears... It made me so sad... but i know that it will make the experience so much better and it's what they need!
I went on splits at the beginning of the week. I was so nervous because I didn't know all of the area and we had lots of appointments that day.... It turned out to be the best experience of my mission so far. I had to take the lead, so to speak. I lead the way and pretty much taught the lessons. In the scriptures it says,"to speak my word, you must first obtain it." it also says in D&C that you will know what to say in the exact moment. I can testify that those sciptures are true... I was able to teach and be an "intrument in the Lords hands". I saw the glory of god unfold before my eyes... Elder Oberhansley came with me and he told me from the start of that day that he was pretty much just going to observe.. I was praying the whole day that the spirit would be with me and that I would have the lords help.... We taught 10 lessons that day and found 4 new investigators! Everyone we taught understood and we spoke in the clearest most powerful way I've ever experienced... in those lessons I was not nervous and didn't have to think about what to say. I know that everything that happened was because of the spirit. I know that god was using us as instruments and by using us as intruments we got to see peoples hearts change and soften. I felt the spirit stronger than ever before!
Now to a funny story.... so we do service every tuesday and thursday morning and sometimes saturdays. We always are digging! using these ugandian hoes... I don't know why but I just wanted to dig and dig! I was working as hard as I could, even when my district was taking breaks I just wanted to keep going. as a was digging I snapped a hoe in half... Everyone laughed and then I grabbed another hoe and began to dig again. And then I snapped another hoe! I didn't know what was going on! I ended up snapping 4 hoes before I just said,"okay I'm done. everyone was busting up laughing... from this experience I got the Nick name THULK... a mix between THOR and HULK! haha the enyabo(women) we were working for just looked at me and said,"you are much too strong for Uganda." haha it was pretty funny, but I felt bad…
There is so much more to share, but this is all the time I have! I love All of you and thank you for your emails and prayers!
-Elder Halladay
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