Week 66

Wild World - Cat Stevens

Our Baptismal Service

This week has been pretty normal. Last time you heard from me I was in Kampala for an

I promise these ones are not missionaries,
 they are monkeys next to the nile

extra unanticipated night. We left Kampala at like 5:00 AM and got back in time for our lunch appointments. President Oyet and his family hosted us for our Christmas Lunch. We saw some nice scenery on the way back. It was a pretty memorable Christmas Morning as we crossed the Nile (It gets a lot bigger as you travel north... Imagine that!), saw an Elephant cross the road, and found some monkeys and baboons playing frogger (or Crossy Road) in front of our truck. I didn't really take any pictures over the course of the week though, so you get the ones you missed out on last week of this wild world we live in. This week has been pretty Routine. I will tell you about the people we Baptized last week.

Pictured you will see ten people we had prepared. Six from our branch (Adyel) and four from Lira Town. Elder Tshimanga Baptized Violet. Violet has been faithfully attending church and paying tithing for years. She had previously been turned away from baptism for various reasons, one being that her father has two wives. We found no reason that she should be denied baptism and helped her prepare. At the time of her confirmation on Sunday she had tears of Joy running down her face. She has been waiting for this for so long... I couldn't hold back the tears myself.

Lucy was also baptized. We started teaching her when we were approached on our first week by Sister Ephrance (The Relief Society President), and Elder Sibinda and Elder Mbaki finished teaching her when they entered the area.

An Elephant Crossing the Road

Lillian was the mother of a young member named Daniel. He is preparing for a mission himself. He helped us teach her along with his siblings Mirriam and Isaac. Elder Gilbert ended up baptising her.

I Baptized Isaac, Mirriam, and Lydia. As I said before Isaac and Mirriam are a part of Daniel's Family. They are powerful kids. Lydia is the Girlfriend of our Elders Quorum President, Brother Isaac. I still remember our first and second lessons with her very clearly. At the end of our first lesson we invited her to be baptized, and I felt really good about December 22nd even though we could have made it a week sooner. She was shocked at the idea. "I'm just so happy", she said "That's my Birthday!". The next time we saw her, we followed up to see if she had prayed and received an answer about what she taught. She had prayed, but said she wasn't sure if she had received an answer yet. We discussed for a few minutes about how we receive answers to our prayers, and how the Holy Spirit testifies to us of the truth. Soon she was very confident in her newly found testimony and hasn't doubted since!

I hope I have done their stories Justice. I simply can't express how special it has been to be involved in the conversion of these amazing Brothers and Sisters! Each individual has had a very specific and fine tuned experience in finding the truth, and I am grateful for the privilege I've had to watch the process!

I Love You guys, Have a great week and a Happy New Year!

-Elder Winn

At the Nile