August 9th Good week

To start things off, people don’t say they
churched it up around here,
that’s just me and I’ve copyrighted it.
Another good week. I found out
this last week that the DR Congo mission
averages 47 baptisms a week and our mission
only averages 9 per week. They do have more
missionaries but we’re going to work on
getting more as a mission. I thought it was
interesting to think that we probably had a
third of the baptisms in the mission just
last Sunday. Speaking of those, they
were all confirmed this Sunday and they are
all awesome. We also had another baptism. 
Shehas a kid as well named M who is only a few months old and is
adorable. The newborns around here are so cute.

But next week we should have three baptisms
again? I always overestimate though.
One of them is A who we’ve been waiting to
hear from her mother about the baptism.
A member talked to her mom and
she said it was cool so we’re going to
have him sign the form and hopefully her, and
her friend B will be baptized next Sunday.
Also next week is a guy named E. His brother,
A, and father, S, are both members already.
E is a smart guy and he’s ready
to be baptized! He’s always trying to help
us out someway. Even this week we were by the
place where he was making samoosas and I got a
sprite and he came over and took my money and
brought it to the guy and then even opened
my bottle for me. It’s the little things that
make you able to tell which people are truly
Christ like. E just wants to do everything he
can for anyone, even if it’s a simple act of
kindness.

The children here don’t speak English except
for a few phrases.
They’ll say “how are you” “good morning”
“good evening” and other
similar greetings, but when you try and talk
to them about other stuff
they are just totally confused.

We get from one city to another by buses usually.
From Bugembe to Jinja we just take a bus on the
main road which hold about 40 people.
It costs usually 300-500 shillings for the 10-15
minute ride which is like 15-25 cents. From Jinja
to Walukebe we usually take the bodas
which will charge you about 500 for the 10 minute
bike ride there. Weusually just walk back to Jinja
from there though. Speaking of Bodas I
know I said we weren’t supposed to take the motor bodas,
I needed to get up to our place
to get extra garments for the baptism pretty quickly.
So only inemergencies will we use them.

FHE’s are usually somewhat run by us just so the
members get used to holding them themselves and
learning that it’s important and something
they should have as a family each week. On Monday’s
though we do one at the church and it’s usually
just the youth of the church. Last
Monday we had like 20 youth, which over half didn’t
go to our church,and it was really fun.

I feel bad for you guys and the weather there
but at the same time I don’t because you at least
get air conditioning! Here it’s just hot
walking around and you get a little burned.

We get fed by the church members when we have FHE’s
at their homes. Usually just some kind of drinks
and something to snack on like chipatees or samoosas.
Sometimes they will feed us rice and beans or
something similar to that.
The one thing that sucks is lately the power
has been turning off quite a bit so we’ve been
hanging out at night a lot by candle
light. It’s not very fun either to go to bed
without the power for the fans because it’s too
hot to sleep. We’ve also had to kill a bat in
our house so that’s what the picture of that is.
Oh and the other picture of me pointing at the
camera and stuff is with my new white
shirt and new tie I bought here. The shirt is
fitted well and the tie was only about the
equivalent of a dollar and twenty-five cents. I’m
also getting some custom made pants from some
guy for 20 thousand shillings, so just 10 dollars.
The Branch President, M, and
District President, G, convinced me to get some.
They both like to dress pretty well. President is
the man.

On Sundays at church we sometimes have to
teach the gospel principles
class. Actually almost every time. But,
as missionaries there we don’t
like to answer the questions, we usually
just sit there and wait till
some of the members begin answering. It’s funny
last week the five people who answered the
questions the most in that class weren’t even
baptized! The three were baptized that day, E
for next week, and Sister T who has had all
the lessons with her husband and stuff but
they live together with two kids but aren’t
married. Around here it is
a problem with people living together before
marriage because they haven’t paid the dowry yet.
The church is trying to get these people
to just get married.

the run down of my week.

Monday and Tuesday we just had lessons and
FHE’s so nothing too new. Wednesday though we
were told that there was going to be a zone
meeting at our place! We freaked because we
didn’t have a lot of information and they were
like, it’s starting at 11 when it was like 9
in the morning. So we quick cleaned and grabbed
every chair we couldfind in our place.  Well 11
passed.. then 12.. then we get a call from the zone
leaders telling us to come down and we would eat
before the meeting.
We eat with them and eventually get back to our place.
It was just us and the zone leaders for some follow
up meeting on the zone training
last week. It last literally 15 minutes…

Thursday was pretty basic but Friday a member
named J O hooked us up with a great investigator.
It was his friend D from down where he lived.
He’ll be a great member and is set to be baptized
in 2 weeks. Brother O is one of the best resources
we have and we realize that the best way to get
members into the church is through
the members! The people we contact hardly ever are
interested or come to church but when they are
someone’s friend already they are almost
converted already! We are going to work on getting
more investigators
this way.

But that’s my week and I hope you guys are
doing great still. The church is true. It’s evident
by just seeing the change it makes in
peoples lives around here. They start to be happier,
dress nicer, and to treat others with more respect.
They almost become more driven as
well and want to take better care of their families.

 I hope all is well and that you keep
studying your own scriptures and receiving
your own personal
revelation!

Love,

Elder Welch