week 12: mpumudde, uganda

Wow this transfer has really flown by! I feel like Elder Matarirano and I were just trying to figure out how to say each others names! Although we only had 2 baptisms this transfer, it has been so successful. We are teaching 2 awesome and powerful families! one of them has 6 children over the age of 8 years old and we have set a baptismal date for the parents and 3 of the children! Also we have another Wedding planned for May 18th! So that will be so awesome! They are farmers that stay in the Gadafi Barracks. Missionaries aren't aloud to go in the Barracks because they have been arrested there. So we teach them at church. They have came the last 2 weeks to church and I am so excited to see there progression! I really love Mpumudde and the people here and I will be sad if I have to leave here.

Also We met a super awesome kid named Ongome Wyclife. He is 19 years old. He hasn't seen his family since he was 10 years old. His mother was part of the whole Kony abduction thing and his father left him. He has been living on his own and has a job at a little wooden hut barber place. He has only completed Senior 2 because he has no funds. Senior 2 is like 6th grade. The way we met him was from one of my Recent Converts, Walter. he gave him a restoration pamphlet the day before we met him... And something amazing happened... When we met him for the first time, he stated and repeated the Restoration so perfectly... Even to the point of saying, Peter, James, and John died with the priesthood and so the priesthood was taken from the earth until they appeared to Joseph Smith and Restored it back on the Earth through him... Honestly I was in shock and my jaw was probably hanging on the floor. this guy is super powerful!

We did service this week... Haha we went to the edge of our boundaries and then walked 5 KM! that is like 3 miles to get to this garden to dig. We were out in the bush!!! Honestly it was the Jungle. We found this random school while we were there too... It took us about 5 hours to do this service project... super crazy. We walked about a total of 20 miles that day…

Yesterday Betty was Baptized! It was so awesome and she was so ready. She is a nurse that has a little shop by our home. She is super smart and learned so quick. Her mother should be baptized very soon as well. There was supposed to be 3 more baptisms, but President jackson put a hold on them because of a confusion with the family line. Honestly about 80% of the people we meet and teach want to be baptized but they can't because their education level is to low and they have Muslim relatives. It makes me so sad.... I also interviewed a boy named Muzaham for baptism this week. The kid is super legit and I got to see him enter into the waters of repentance. I love missionary work!

On a crazy note one of the freakiest things ever happened 2 days ago... We were walking on a dirt road and out of no where a 7ft long lime green snake slithered across the path like 4 feet infront of us! I literally was frozen with fear and my companion scream and ran off... It was a huge Green Mamba, which is super poisonous... The worst part of it is, the place it slithered off to was an area full of children... That thing could kill them so fast... That was my first snake encounter here and I was freaked out for the rest of the day! 

Things are going really well though. I love my mission and love the way we are required to live! I wouldn't trade this for the world! I love my father in heaven and his beloved son Jesus Christ. I have developed a strong testimony and an advancement of faith as I am Serving him. I love you all so much and am thankful for the influence and examples you have been.

Elder Halladay