2 Months!!

I know it’s crazy. Already two months and
I’m done with my first transfer here in Uganda.

I also will be getting a new companion
on Wednesday. His name is Elder N or something
and he is from South Africa. It will be interesting
changing things up a bit.

You were asking about people’s names here. Most
people’s first names are biblical, like David,
Immanuel, Jacob, Martha, Mary, and than they
have an African last name that I usually cannot
pronounce.The children here speak Lasoga.
They usually don’t pick up on English
till they go to school or have more experience with it.
That’s why it is hard to understand them when they
get older and speak English because it is not their first
language.The busses here aren’t too
bad. Everyone gets their ow n seat and you don’t
stand in them. You just pile in and they flip down
chairs sothey can fit more people into there.
Today we didn’t have to get on a bus to Jinja
though because we yelled for some guy to give us
a ride,just down the hill to the busses but the
guy said he would take us all the way to Jinja.
We than found out that he was aspiring to be the
mayor in Bugembe. We figured this out because he
kept stopping and talking to people and they were
calling him Mayor already. The church music here
consists of thus everyone singing acapella. The
keyboard is broken so they just sing…
really slowly they sing. They never sing the songs
that are supposed to be fast and upbeat that way.
They usually just sing them really slow and
solemn. So this week was good. On Thursday
Elder W and I made a visit to the Kampala
hospital because he ran out of
asthma medication and he
was having chest pains. I guess he had an
infection in his lungs and is taking medication to
clear it out. That day seemed so long. It cost us
4000 shillings to get from Jinja to Kampala.
It was weird being in that big of a city though.
It was cool going to this place called Shoprite
though because it’s just like an American
Supermarket. I was sad to see they didn’t
have Dr. Pepper there either though. I had
to use the restroom too and it was ridiculous.
I had to go up two flights of stairs, I got frisked
(for the second time after entering the store
in the first place), and had to walk down another
hallway to eventually find the bathroom.
Those kind of nicer places have
guards everywhere with big AK-47’s.
Friday was good as well, just taught
and met with some people.Saturday was hectic
because the zone leaders were gone and we were
scrambling to get baptismal interviews done.
The DL and his companion went over to
Empummede to interview the 3 baptismal
candidates there and to get their 2 baptismal
candidates interviewed as well. We also
had to scramble to find time for them to interview
our 2 baptismal candidates, but it all eventually
worked out. So Sunday we had 4
baptisms at our church. 2 of them were from the
other companions in Bugembe and 2 of them were
Elder W’s and I.The two we baptized were
E and H. E is the brother of a member
named A who actually baptized him. His
dad S l is a member too but
inactive. E is so smart and I love the guy.
He’s always looking out for people and told me
he wouldn’t begetting baptized if he didn’t know
it was absolutely true. He’ll be teaching us soon!
He’s 24 years old. And H has been waiting for a
few weeks to be able to get baptized. She
was so happy to finally get permission from her
mother who was hard to get a hold of since she is
15 and all. She’s very smart too and can almost
recite exactly what we taught her even weeks
after the lessons. Also on
Sunday we had a Family Home Evening at the
S ’s which was cool. The whole zone was there
minus the zone leaders and the made us
an American style picnic dinner thing.
It was pretty good and it was good seeing all
the missionaries from the zone again. They even
brought us all home which was nice because riding
a bus home at 9 a tnight doesn’t exactly sound
fun to me. So the week has been good and Uganda
is always interesting like always. It’s hard to
explain to people how us missionaries aren’ t
regular mazoongoos. We’re not rich. Oh you
will also see the pictures I took of my new pants
that I had custom made for 20000 shillings.
It’s crazy you can get pants made from scratch to
your size for 10 dollars. You can also get a suit here
for 50 dollars. It’ s pretty awesome and I’ll
take advantage of that later in my mission. You
will also see the pictures of my new haircut.
DID IT MYSELF! Yathat’s right. That was some
complicated business. I also had to have Elder D
help me fix the back a little because I couldn’t
get an angle to cut it with the scissors very well.
He also helped me shave my neck. The only
problem I had was I messed up a tiny bit over my
ears but hopefully my hair will cover it up in a
day or two. It’s justa little off by my
sideburn and ear. But, I was impressed I didn’t
completely butcher my hair. It’s funny though
because I also cut Elder D ’s and Elder W’ s hair
while I was at it. They liked how I did it too so
I’m glad. I did accidentally blow out the motor or
something in the small trimmer I had
with the buzzer. I plugged it into the wall without
the power adapter and it just fried. Same
mistake Clay made I guess. Kind of sucks but oh
well. But that is my week so I hope I filled you in
on everything. Oh I also took a few pictures in
Kampala, and of some guy I saw wearing
a Minnesota Vikings shirt I thought was awesome.
The taller African guy in the baptism pictures is
our Branch President, President M. T
I’m thankful
for all the support you give!
Love Elder Welch