Power of Persuasion - June 2, 2014

Short Story: I thought that I would tell you about our house in Lira and what we have been doing today. So the house in Lira was trashed when I showed up! I don’t know what it is about the houses I get put into but it seems that I always get placed in houses that need a lot of work—cleanliness, electrical problems, sink problems etc. (Recall: Last apartment had only two electrical plugs that worked in the entire house. I fixed them all so that now that house has full power, working electrical sockets, sink that drains and a clean place.)

So these past few weeks, I have been persuading the elders in the Lira house that cleanliness is important. They all agreed but it took a lot more persuasion to get them to dedicate some time to cleaning and getting it into proper working order. Well this Monday was the day!! We all got to work and it feels great! I wish that we had taken some photos of the house before and after but sadly I did not do that so I will just have to let you imagine a dirty nasty house transforming to an awesome clean nice house.

This week was a really awesome! My companion and I had to make a trip down to Kampala this week to take care of some stuff. The trip takes about 5 hours or so (10 hours round trip) just depending on weather and traffic. Fortunately we made it there without any major problems in traffic etc. We were really glad to get to Lira so that we could get back to work!

We followed up on some of the people that we have found in the past two weeks. We have good news about one of them. He has really begun the process of conversion. This brother’s name is Johnson. He is awesome. He really wants to learn about the gospel. Anything we have asked him to do, he just does it without any hesitation. He is a dedicated guy. He owns an internet cafe which is wonderful because that means that he is very flexible with his time. He has a lot of people working for him which is nice for teaching him but even more importanly it is great for the ward.

To have someone with a flexible schedule that is committed to doing the Lord’s work is a wonder. He will be a great blessing to the church and consequently, his life will be even richer. I just remembered that when we found him he said that he had been looking for the true church ever since he and his wife separated.

It is wonderful to watch him as we teach him a new principle. He will sit quietly, ponder and then tell us he will need to pray about this. Incredible! And when he sees us at the next program, he always tells us how his reading and praying went regarding the principle that we taught him at the prior lesson. It is an awesome thing to see.

So this past week my companion and I have really been trying to not only continue to teach those that are on the way to baptism but also to find and continue to build the amount of people that we can teach so you never have that moment when you look at your investigators’ list and there are none left. hahaha. We have been trying new areas and letting our minds be open to all possibilities. As we have been doing this it has been going really well. There are a lot of people here that are ready to be taught and hear the gospel.

This is a wonderful place to serve and most people that serve here just love the work. The thought is that this is the place to find and teach every day. I have found this to be true. I am really enjoying it!!!

Well that’s all for today. I sure love you all and hope that all is well back home!!!

Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

Sincerely,
Elder Bitter