Well hello everyone! I’m here again tuning in from the
internet cafe with good internet and bad keyboards. Let’s see how this goes!
Ha-ha.
I guess I will start with the bad news. My memory card is
corrupted. I lost about 500-600 photos this week. All the photos from the past
6 months or so are gone. Unfortunately I won’t be able to post any pictures on
the blog. Sorry guys.
So this week was awesome! Things are moving quickly and forward
as well.
This upcoming Saturday will be a big day! This will be
the first time on my mission that a whole family will be baptized all together
at the same time. Tony and his family are ready to be baptized. They are anxious
and looking forward to it. The family members that are old enough to be
baptized are Tony and Delish (the parents), Solomon, and Shannon.
I am really looking forward to the baptism. Here is a
little about Tony and his family. Tony grows cash crops for a living. When it
is not farming season, he fixes shoes so that he still has work. The parents
have already finished dowry (paying cows to the wife’s parents) and they have been
married in a church. A church marriage is unusual. I am so happy about their
commitment to each other. It is easy to break off a dowry marriage in Uganda
but a church marriage is very difficult to discontinue.
Another reason this week was awesome is because I finally
broke out my second pair of shoes!!! WOOT WOOT!!! My original slip-on Ecco shoes have taken
quite the beating. Here is a brief eulogy about those shoes of mine. So these
shoes have been walking the streets of Uganda for 18 month and have consumed
enough shoe polish to shine all the shoes on the west coast.
These beauties’ original sole lasted for about 6 months.
After six months, I went to one of the local shoe guys and had them remove the
original sole and sew on a new Chinese made one. Well these Chinese specials
don't last very long especially when you are walking a lot every day. As time
went on, I was paying about 10,000 UGX (about 3 US dollars) every three months
to have a new sole put on.
Then I arrived in Kabowa. A shoe guy there added an
additional “tire sole” for double the price. Well these tires lasted for about
8 months and they were still holding strong but one problem started to occur.
Because I had removed the sole from my shoe so many times the leather had a ton
of holes from all of the different stitch jobs. So those little holes slowly
joined forces and became large holes until I started having large holes in the
sides of my shoes.
Every time I walked, my feet would get wet because they
weren't sealed anymore due to all the holes in the shoes. So I broke down and
took out my other pair of lace up Eccos. They are awesome and it is so nice to
have shoes that look good again!!!!
Yesterday the Lira Branch had a new all-time high for
sacrament attendance! Yesterday there were 93 people at church. This is a huge
increase from previous sacrament attendance. A few months ago there was on
average between 58-70 people at church. This week was legendary. I really give the credit to our awesome branch
president (President Patrick). He goes out of his way to warmly welcome each
and every person who comes to church every Sunday.
The other reason the branch is doing well is the members are
so willing to help any new person that comes to church. It is awesome to see
the church grow so quickly. Things are really going well thanks to the members
and the leaders.
Well that's all I got for this week,
Sure love you all,
Elder Bitter
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