I'm back again with another report from the Jinja Uganda Area!
This week was a really busy week but it turned out to be a good week. I have a few stories.
This week we cooked the fish I bought. It was pretty awesome! :) I froze the fish since we bought it on Monday and we knew that we would not be able to cook it until Wednesday. After thawing it, I took it out of the warm water and it was as if it was alive! Crazy!
Then I cleaned the fish and sliced it open. I finally decided to stuff it with onions, lemons, seasoning, pepper, salt, and a little bit of sugar. I don’t know what led me to put sugar inside of it. It was a random impulse. A thought popped in my head saying that it would help it crystallize and make a nice crisp outside.
After stuffing the fish full of goodness, I grabbed the biggest pan we had in the house. I set the fish in the pan. The fish was too big! I was a little irritated by this fact. What should I do? Finally the thought came to me to cut off the head. With the dullest knife in the world, I did the deed. It now fit the pan.
I lit the oven and dropped that bad boy in and let it bake for a little while. After about 45 minutes, the apartment smelled amazing! I decided to check on it even though I was told to cook it about an hour. It was cooked perfectly. The meat was tender and moist. It tasted unreal! It didn’t look as cool without the head still attached but it was still an overall success.
Next story for the week: My companion and I decided that we would go on splits with the Njeru Elders. We called Sunday and told them that we would be coming out to visit them on Tuesday. We let them know that we would be working with them the whole day. Elder Kanthunkako (my companion) split with Elder Smoot and I split with Elder Dimingu. We were having a successful day. At 2:00 p.m. we were to meet with the other companionship for lunch.
We decided that it was time to head to the meeting spot. We were walking with traffic so that we wouldn’t get honked or yelled at. When all of a sudden, WHAM! I got nailed by a motorcyclist that decided he wanted to drive on the shoulder where people walk and was driving in the WRONG direction. I was talking to my companion not paying attention because I thought we were safe. Boy was I wrong! He hit me head on and nailed me!
When the motorcycle hit me, I just spun in circles as if I was a ballerina. Finally I was able to plant my other foot standing there in amazement. Elder Dimingu was stunned and was staring at me. He finally said, "Uhhhh are you okay???"
I moved my body cautiously, eventually realizing that I was TOTALLY OK except for my shoulder was a little sore where he hit me. :) I then turned around. The motorcyclist had somehow not crashed and was still flying down the road occasionally glancing back. He must of really wanted to get somewhere! Go team! No injuries, just another weird story.
This week my companion and I continued to teach a few of our best investigators. Out of all the investigators, the ones that I want to talk about are William, "Julius, James, Janon", and Ronald.
William is the man that we will not be able to baptize because he is leaving for China soon which doesn’t allow enough time to teach him everything. But he has asked that we continue to teach him until he leaves. He plans to get baptized when he returns from China.
William is a stellar guy. He is a middle aged man that works really hard and is successful. The best part about William is his spiritual capacity. Every time we teach William he has questions that go far beyond the average person. He also reads everything we give him. As we were teaching him this past week, my companion and I had come up with the idea that we should get a hold of all the different Ensigns, Liahonas, and any other church publication we could find. So while he is in china, he could read and learn and continue to grow in the gospel.
After teaching him, we told him about the different publications that we would like to get for him to read while he is in China. He just sat there quietly. I started to get nervous worrying that it was a bad idea or something. Finally he smiled and said , “I would love that.”
He then explained how he had been reading a few of the publications when he visited the church in Kampala a few days ago. He had wanted to get a hold of some more but did not know how to do it. It was such an awesome feeling to see his desire to learn more. I was happy!
Julius, Janon, and James are three people that live together and are all from the same village. Last week I had told you of only Julius and Janon. However this week Julius and Jannon (for short J&J) introduced us to one more person that lived with them. The person that J&J introduced us to was James. James is just like J&J but he is just a little bit shyer than the other two.
Teaching the three J's (Julius, Janon and James) is one of my highlights of the week. They are welcoming and receptive to the gospel. They never appear bored or try to entertain themselves. They are always engaged and happy to see us.
We recently taught them the word of wisdom and talked to them about tea especially. The next time we visited, all of their tea packets were gone. We asked them about them and they told us that they have no use for them anymore. In Uganda, tea is the breakfast drink for everyone. They don't really eat breakfast, but instead just take a cup of tea. Someone so willing give up tea is just awesome. Usually it is a lesson that we have to teach time and time again to help them understand the importance of the principle. The three J's only needed to be taught once. Nice.
Ronald is a person we have been teaching since the first week of this transfer (that was a weird way of saying we have been teaching him for about five weeks). We have been teaching him about two to three times a week and he has been coming to church regularly. This past week he had decided that he was ready to be baptized. We had taught him everything, he has a testimony and he has been keeping all of his commitments. Also Nice.
This past week Ronald was baptized. It was an excellent baptismal service. Some baptisms will only generate a small turn-out. This time there was a good turnout which is great for the person being baptized since it is a once in a life time experience. It was a great time to have many people there, hearing great talks, and everyone singing nice and loud. I was happy for him.
It was a fast week -- a little bit stressful but turned out really nice over all.
I have no complaints.
Church is true.
Thanks everyone for your consistent emails. It is awesome :)
Love ya all,
Elder Bitter
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