Trips to northern Uganda and southern Sudan

We have assigned the first missionaries in Gulu, Uganda - where a branch was organized one year ago.  It's always exciting in the mission to open a new branch, and the members there are very grateful to have the missionaries with them.  Already, there are people being prepared for baptism.  Gulu is rebuilding after many years of being at the center of the rebel warfare in northern Uganda.  It is a five-hour car drive north of Kampala, so is somewhat isolated from the center of the population.  

We also flew to Juba, south Sudan, to visit with some members and others there.  We have been there twice before on our way north to Nyamlel, but this time wanted to meet with the members there.  We have heard that there are a number of members in Juba, but they are not organized together so we were not able to meet with most of them.  We were able to hold a simple sacrament meeting for a small group of Sudanese people who have been studying the gospel for eleven years and waiting for the opportunity for baptism.  Thankfully, we have just this week received notice that the registration of the church in southern Sudan has been approved by the church authorities, so we think that in a couple of weeks the legal status will be finalized.  We are looking forward to organizing a branch in Juba in the next few months.

We were touched by the faithfulness of this small group of people, who first learned about the church from a Canadian member while they were living in Khartoum, and have studied together every Sunday by themselves for all these years.  Their knowledge of, and commitment to, the gospel was very humbling.  It will be a great joy to bring the blessings of baptism to them.

Juba, also, is recovering from decades of warfare, and is a busy town with many Ugandans and Kenyans coming there for work.  Many of the local people do not know English, so the work force is supplied by these foreigners to a large extent.  As more Sudanese return home from abroad,  this situation might change.  All those who are members of the church in Juba now are either from other countries or Sudanese who were baptized in other countries and have returned home.

It is wonderful to be part of the opening of the church in Southern Sudan, and we know that the work will go forth with the help and guidance of the Lord.

Trip to Rwanda

We drove to Kigali, Rwanda this weekend to participate in the Kigali Branch's first anniversary celebration, which included the baptisms of nine people in Lake Muhazi, near Kigali! The branch is growing fast, with 18 baptisms in just over a year. It's thrilling to see the progress here, and to feel the wonderful spirit among the members.
Rwanda is a beautiful, green country with many hills which are all covered with terraced farming. It looks very much like southwestern Uganda. We will be starting some humanitarian work here in the next few months. The accompanying pictures are of our trip to Kigali.

We also went back to southern Sudan in January, to begin church humanitarian work there. Ten boreholes will be drilled near Nyamlel, where we met with the several village groups which are studying the gospel. Southern Sudan, like Rwanda, has great potential for the gospel to continue to spread, if the current peace can be maintained. We love our visits to these wonderful people who are so anxious to learn about Jesus Christ.

Our missionaries in Uganda and Ethiopia continue to find and baptize people also, and the branches are growing in strength as well as numbers. We are starting new church buildings in both countries this year. We have two groups of members going to the Johannesburg temple from Uganda in May, and one group from Ethiopia going to the Ghana temple in June, plus more groups next fall.

Holiday season 2008

Our second Christmas season in Uganda has come and gone, and we have enjoyed the simplified but meaningful celebrations of the Savior's birth which are part of the mission field experience. The missionaries in the Kampala District sang some carols at the District Christmas party, and shared the nativity story with the Primary children in the various branches. Many of the people here return to their villages during the holiday season to visit extended families, so the work slows down for the missionaries somewhat. We enjoyed a mission Christmas party with all of them on the 24th.

The last couple of transfers have seen larger numbers of missionaries leaving and coming into the mission, so we have had a large turnover. We have been focusing our last two conference trainings on the Savior's attributes and His atonement, with the purpose of helping the elders and sisters understand the foundation of their testimonies of His gospel. Their faith in the Savior is strong, and they share their testimonies with courage and enthusiasm.

Our mission experience is half over now, and we are beginning to recognize how many more things we want to see accomplished in the next 18 months. We are expecting to hear soon that the church has given permission for legal recognition in Rwanda, which will enable us to rent a meetinghouse and begin some humanitarian work there. We will also be starting some humanitarian work in Southern Sudan in the next couple of months. We continue to hope that the Kampala District will progress toward stakehood in 2009. It is an exciting time to be part of the missionary work here in east Africa.

We love the people of Uganda and Ethiopia, as well as Rwanda and Sudan. They have all suffered much in the past couple of decades, and we see the restored gospel as a wonderful ray of hope for all of them. There is a great desire among many of the people here to know more of Jesus Christ. There are traditions and hardships to overcome, and those who are willing to commit themselves to the gospel are strong and very faithful members. As an example, we visited the Gulu branch in northern Uganda last weekend. The small branch there is growing, as people are finally beginning to move back to that area after hostilities ceased several years ago. It will be a fertile area for missionary work when the branch is strong enough to support full-time missionaries.

Mission work

The work continues to grow here at a slow but steady pace. The missionaries find many to teach, but focus on preparing people well and making sure of their commitment so that they will remain strong in their baptismal covenants. It is very important that they understand that our church is not just another pentecostal-type Christian religion. There are many of those in Uganda, and a common question we are asked is, "Are you saved?" Since we have a different understanding of what that phrase means than do most Christian religions, we qualify our answers in the hope of teaching the 'faith without works is dead' doctrine.

The missionaries have been working hard to get referrals, and have had some good success with that. They have also been visiting some who have become less-active in the church, and we have seen attendance at most of the branches increase significantly in the last few months. Land has been purchased for four new chapels - three in Uganda and one in Ethiopia. Work will start on at least two of them next year. We are hoping that the Kampala District will be sufficiently strong within the next year to organize a stake here.

We have begun a humanitarian project in southern Sudan, consisting of several bore-holes (wells), several hundred wheelchairs, and school supplies for the many orphans in Nyamlel. We will also be starting some humanitarian work in Rwanda after the first of the year. Hopefully we will be able to put a humanitarian couple in Kigali within the next year.

It has been interesting to be something of detached observers of the American news for the last year and a half. While the U.S. elections and the economic woes have certainly been in the news here, it seems that we look more for the local news and those things that will impact the members and missionaries here. When you are living in a country where ninety percent of the people don't have electricity, the global workings of the stock market seem very distant.

We are nearing the halfway point in our mission, and are grateful daily for the things we are learning and experiencing, which will have an enormous impact upon our lives forever.

Trip to Sudan

We had a special opportunity last week, on assignment from the Africa Southeast Area Presidency, to visit some groups in South Sudan who have been learning about the Church and are interested in receiving more information about it. We were warmly welcomed by about 2500 + people, who greeted us with songs and dances and many handshakes! They sat and stood in the hot sun for a couple of hours, while President Christensen's two assistants, Elders Camuso and Metemi, and we taught them about the gospel. It was an extraordinary experience to be able to teach to that huge congregation, and to feel of their great desire to learn more about the Savior. We were touched by their gratitude for this first official visit by a representative of the Church. There are six or seven congregations of 'members' (none of whom has been baptized) in the villages near this town of Nyamlel, where we were. Many couldn't come that day due to distance and the flooding of the river separating some of the towns. After our general meeting, we met separately with those leaders who could speak English. President Christensen handed out books and pamphlets, and instructed them to be the teachers among their people.

We are filled with admiration and love for these people, who have endured the longest civil war of the twentieth century, as their country has tried to negotiate a system of government for a pre-dominantly Muslim north and a pre-dominantly Christian south. As always, the people in the villages are hurt the most, where families are torn apart and daily lives are disrupted for an entire generation. Many, now, are finally returning to their villages and trying to rebuild their simple lives. They look to the future, not the past, and we are so grateful that for many, the teachings of Jesus Christ will be a part of that future. It will be a prayer of our hearts from now on, that the country will be stable enough to allow for the establishment of the Church among these great souls.

Pictures of Gorillas and Esther's Visit

Gorillas and Esther's Visit

In May we drove to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park with three other senior couples, to go gorilla-tracking. We stopped at Mburo National Park for a day on the way, where we saw lots of zebra, antelope and even hippos. Bwindi Park is on the Congo border, and is one of only two places where the mountain gorillas are still found. It has about half of the current population of mountain gorillas, the other half being divided between three national parks on the Uganda/Congo/Rwanda borders. We stayed at a very nice tented camp, and hiked for a couple of hours before we came upon the group we were tracking. It was just incredible to see them up close in their own habitat - gorillas are quite mesmerizing in their quiet, steady stares.








In June, we had a much-anticipated visit from Esther, who was here for two weeks. She arrived exactly one year to the week from when we had left San Diego to drive up to Utah for the mission presidents' seminar. It has certainly been an eventful and fulfilling year. Esther caught us up on news of grandchildren, as well as her own activities since her move to Utah in January.

We enjoyed a trip to Murchison Falls National Park with her, where she was able to see some of the great wildlife we have here in Uganda. She had to laugh at me, however, when, at the end of a day of seeing lions up close, getting charged by a hippo, watching giraffes cross the road and other wonderful sights, I happened to remark, "I'm so glad you got to see the crested cranes!"
I will post a picture so you can see why I love these birds so much!

We also had a mission activity (soccer and volleyball games) and a zone conference while she was here, so she was able to meet the missionaries and see some of our daily activities. She even got to witness a Uganda wedding at one of our churches.