Too Much Water, Except Where You Need It - January 13, 2014

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying life.

I had an awesome week interspersed with some funny events. I cannot tell them all so I will just share my water stories.

On Friday we were doing our weekly planning when it started pouring rain. Now when I say pouring rain, I mean streams from the sky. Everywhere you looked it appeared as if water was running down a window because there was so much rain. It was impossible to see!

Lucky for us just as we finished our planning, the rain stopped. This was a relief because it is not fun being soaked through walking around talking to people. As we left the house for our first appointment, I instantly realized that getting to our appointments today was going to be a challenge!

It had rained so much in such a short period of time that everything was flooded. Our entire proselyting area had 6-12 inches of standing water while other areas had a flowing river, walking had become a test. After thinking about what we should do, we finally came to the conclusion that we would use the ledges on homes and the walls around the homes to get to and from appointments. Just imagine what we looked like—two white guys’ bodies mashed against someone’s home, tip-toeing on the ledge that protrudes off the outside of their home (it is about three inches wide) or jumping from security wall to security wall so that we do not have to walk in the flowing river of water below.

The water challenge aside, this week was AWESOME! My new companion (Elder Stewart) and I have spent a lot of time trying to find some new people to teach and it has been going really well. This week we found a family open to the gospel and they welcomed us into their home. They were still willing to meet with us after the message of the restoration. Happiness!

To top that great experience, Brother Kennedy was baptized. We have been teaching him for a quite a while. We kept pushing off his baptism because we really wanted to make sure that he was ready to make this life time commitment. This week he was finally ready! He made the commitment and was baptized! It was a very spiritual baptism. A lot of people attended the baptism which made it even more special. The other elders in Kabowa baptized a family at the same time. This resulted in an awesome turn out.

My second funny story about water relates to the baptism. We had filled the font earlier so we were ready to go. The tap was turned off and the hose put away. After church was over, everyone filed into the room for the baptism. Brother Holmes and I were doing the baptizing. Brother Holmes (a guy from Canada that is starting a business in Uganda) was standing at the door smiling and happy. After chatting with me for a minute, he jokingly said, “Well Elder after all your work, all we need is the water!” We laughed and opened the door to the font. Then the words, “Oh crap!” slipped out.

Someone had pulled the plug and had drained the entire font! I just stood and stared. I felt paralyzed! After feeling sorry for myself for a moment or two, I said, “Alright, Steven get moving.” I ran into the room where everyone was waiting and grabbed our chorister and told him to sing hymns until I told him to stop. I then grabbed all the people in the ward that were older than 18 and told them we needed to fill the font now! So we used every single water device in and out of the church filling trash cans and pouring them into the font.

Those poor people had to sing hymns while we filled the font. With the combined effort of four missionaries and a bunch of Ugandans, we filled that font in about thirty minutes. Impressive. Normally it takes a few hours. What a blessing that it worked out. Great baptism service.

I am out of time. Got to go!

I love you all and hope all is well!

Sincerely,

Elder Bitter