"I will live to remember you guys"

Before I get to Elder Buyers' email from today I want to share something I came across on the Facebook page of one of the members from his area in Lira, Uganda. Included is the caption that he had with the picture.

"I will live to remember you guys." 

I thought it was an amazing example of how he is touching the lives of the people that he is meeting.

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Hey Everyone,

Not too much to say about this week.  We are just working as hard as we can given the visa things.  Attached is a picture of how our time goes when we can't make plans to see people.  Don’t worry, it doesn't happen as often as you would think.

Rwanda is good.  It is a lot different from Lira.  Maybe it's just because I have been away for so long but it actually reminds me a lot of the states.  Not the Rigby life but like in the cities and stuff.  It's actually been kind of tough adjusting.  You get comfortable in one place and start to learn the language, build relationships, and all that stuff then it all just changes.  It’s getting better though.  Attached are some pictures of our house and room. 

Yeah I’m feeling better.  I woke up with a little something that has been lingering but I don't think it's anything big. I was able to weigh yesterday and I’m down to 180.

My comp is pretty good.  I spelled his name wrong the first time it's Elder Ndlovu.  This is his second transfer so he is still kind of unsure of himself especially when it comes to making plans and stuff.  I have kind of been leading the area even though he has been here longer.  Things are getting better though.  No worries.  He is from Swaziland. 

Today we went to the Genocide Memorial.  It's a museum that takes you all from leading up to the genocide to the aftermath and stuff.  It was really interesting and (I'm not sure what words to use) it was just shocking.  They had rooms full of pictures of people that were killed and things.  It’s a crazy thing that happened here.  Fun fact for ya, it is illegal to ask a person what tribe they are from.  Everyone is Rwandese.  

Not much else to talk about.  I hope you all had a great week and will have another one.  Love ya.

Elder E.E. Buyers

No Power..

Well I almost didn't get to email this week. The power has been out for the past 3 days and doesn't show signs of coming back anytime soon. the i Cafe we go to has a generator but half the town is there. We just decided to go to lunch and the place we chose had a few open computers so we took them.

We get mail anytime someone is passing through or goes to Kampala we got it about 3 times this last week.  2 from Natalie, 2 from Grandma & Grandpa Gonzales, one from Grandma Soles, one from Brassels, the b-day card from Mom and one other thing I think.  The package came to and everything was there. The jolly ranchers are all gone though. The only reason I didn't think we would get it too often is because the senior couple that was in my zone left and they are the ones that go to Kampala all the time.

The baptism we were supposed to have didn't happen because the AP's said he was too young and they wanted to see that he was dedicated. The East Africa games were also being held this last week right behind our house. It's multiple countries that come together and for a whole week compete in different sports. Its a huge thing and most of the people in our area went most days. It made finding impossible and it was even hard to get a with our investigators. 

We get transfer news tomorrow. Only 16 transfers left. ONLY!

Love and miss you,
Elder E.E. Buyers

August 24th is a Good Day

Before we jump into emails from this week, we'd like to share a Google Earth picture that Dad was able to find of the house where Elder Buyers lives in Lira, Uganda.

Hey everyone. I hope things at home are going good. Things here are just pushing right along. This week wasn't too bad. Most of it was slow and not too exciting but there were a few interesting parts. 

On Tuesday we had one of the Zone leaders tag along all day just to see how the area and companion-ships are doing. It was one of the best days we've had so far. We didn't have a ton of appointments but we used the day well. Just for number sake our daily goals for lessons is 7 a day. We had 10 by 7:30-ish and then everything just kinda died.  It was a pretty good day though. 

On Thursday night I decided to try for a haircut. Elder Cobabe said he could do it so I thought I would let him. After a little bit I could tell it wasn't going to go as planned so I handed him a no. 4 trimmer and told him to cut it off. It's pretty short now and I'm still getting used to it. I had a funky tan line for a couple of days but it is mostly gone now.

Kelly, just so you know I sang you happy birthday on your birthday. haha. The 24th really is a good day. Your b-day and my first baptism. His name is Bonney. He's a really cool guy but really quiet. I got to baptize him. It was awesome. We have another one scheduled for this Saturday.  

I have been reading like crazy since I've been here.  I started rereading the Book Of Mormon before I left the MTC and I finished it last week and started reading Jesus the Christ and am over 200 pages into that as well as other studying here and there.

One day we came to the church to meet with a recent convert and we saw those goats. Somehow they got up on the wall and were enjoying the leaves.

Well this is the last week of the transfer. Vary rarely do new missionaries stay with their trainers for more than one transfer so most likely changes are coming.

For the pictures there are two of my new Jesus walk shoes. They are pretty cool. That's my birthday from Grandma Soles {Bill's Mom} and Grandma & Grandpa Gonzales {JoAnn's parents} . 

I got that pair and a pair with red laces.  I like the red ones more so i am saving those until I get home so they don't get ruined. The other one is a picture of our gate at our house that I told mom about last week.  Tell her not to worry. 

I miss the way of life back home. It was a major shock when I first got here.  I'm starting to get over it now but it was crazy at first. I mean in the morning we get up work out a bit all that stuff then in order to have a warm shower you have to get the bucket and fill it with water from the sink or if the power has been out all night which happens quite often then you have to heat it on the stove. The hot water heater going to our showers is broken so don't think we don't have one but its just useless to us. Only the kitchen sink has hot water. our house is one of the worst by way of condition and stuff.  It's a mess but there really isn't anything we can do about it. I don't know.  It's just different. President always says the first 2 months feel like 22 months and the last 22 months feel like 2 months. I kinda hope he is right. The time seems to be dragging by for the most part.  Just keep going I guess.

Other than that it was a great week.  Well miss you all and love you.

Elder E.E. Buyers

Pictures from the MTC

This week Elder Buyers was using the computer at the church and was able to send a bunch of pictures from while he was at the MTC. Some of them he sent with a description, some he didn't. Enjoy!

Big Map at the MTC

With Elder Vecheo on his first day at the MTC {he's from Rigby too}.

MTC District at the Provo Temple

With Elder Murdoch {MTC zone member & friend from Rigby}.

Rice & Beans

For every lunch since I've been here all we eat are rice and beans. It's getting really old. Every day, day after day, all we eat is beans and rice. Oh well. Mainly the only reason I eat now is so that I don't die. It's all just a filler. No joy anymore.  haha.

We had a pretty good week. We met our goal of 42 lessons this week. We actually got 44.  The only bad thing is that nobody really wants to be baptized. We set 8 baptism dates but only 2 of them are keeping their commitments and one of those might not be able to be baptized because he is only 17. Our requirements for baptism here are pretty much 18/done with high school, male, able to hold calling as soon as baptized, and comes to church twice. It make things really hard. Women can be baptized either if their husband is baptized or they come to church consistently for 6 months. The one is progressing really well though so we should have at least 1 baptism this transfer. There aren't enough Sundays left for those we find from now on to be baptized this transfer but we will keep working.  

Me & Oscar

Our real problem is finding people that are legit. Most of them won't turn anyone away just because that how things are here. They especially don't turn away "men of god" as they call us. I wish it was more obvious who is real and who is not. They don't show much emotion or respond much either when you are teaching. It’s interesting.

A bunch of us guys outside church

For my birthday we didn't do too much but my companion, Elder Cobabe, ordered some meat samosas for dinner. They were amazing. He also ordered a big cinnamon role. We but a candle in it and had some dessert.  (Don't worry mom. I don't feel as wore out as I look in the picture).

Last night we went to a members house that invited us over to slaughter a goat and have dinner.  it was all great except the made me try the offiles (intestines). the texture was bad enough but then you add in the taste of goat.  oh man it was bad. I'm not a big fan of goat and it had the taste of goat meat but 100 times as strong. I almost thew up. Never again.

I printed off and read the setting apart. It was awesome. I read it every morning. It has a lot of great things. That man (President Follett) is amazing.

{Mom} A few emails back, you mentioned getting home to share with your guard. What does that mean? Do you have a guard? If so, why?

All the mission houses have guards. They are surrounded by 8-10 ft tall walls with big steel gates in front. I'll take a picture and send it to you next week.

{Mom} You are looking like you need a haircut. Do you have someone to do it for you, or are you left with your companion doing it?

Oh i was going to say something about that. I tried to charge the clippers but our converter or something is broke and it fried it. i was going to use another elders clippers today but we didn't have power till about 3. i'm working on it though. I also want you to do something else. read section 31 especially verses 5 and 6.

Well that's about it. I hope everything is good with you all love ya.

Elder E.E. Buyers

Happy Birthday Elder Buyers

Today is Elder Buyers' 19th Birthday. Since we wouldn't be able to email/talk/call him on his birthday today we emailed him this picture on Sunday so that he could see it when he checked his email on Monday.

If you sent Elder Buyers a birthday wish we'd love to hear about it :-)

The Scriptures Will Come True... With or With Out The Money!

The view we saw when we were tracting on Thursday {08/08}

I agree it is good to have a dog but not really this one. I'm afraid to touch it more than one finger scratching his head. haha. He's got a few ticks on him that are visible and i'm not sure what other kind of parasites are hiding. It's still cool though. I heard that in the summer it doesn't rain as much but it will still be pretty humid I think because all the plants stay green and its hot.  it's coming up so we will see.  

Kelly, I don't want to hear about bug bites. The mosquito are so bad here it's not even funny. My arms and feet are tore up.  I'm in long pants until I get under my net and go to bed because I don't want any more. But, I do love Gatorade and snow cones. We don't have those here. There's plenty of coke and sprite though, and it's pretty cheap.

A truck we saw. It was filled with speakers and people and there was a guy that was playing the radio. It was pretty cool

Well last week wan't too bad.  Right after I got done emailing you guys Elder Cobabe and I were walking to a store to meet the zone leaders so we could get a few things for our house and we had this guy run up to us.  you could tell he was mad.  He started asking were Elder Plant was (a missionary that left Lira a few months ago) and demanding to talk to him.  We told him we couldn't do that and stuff but he kept following us for the 1/4 mile it was to the store, and kept demanding he talk to Elder Plant.  At one point he asked us when and why we changed our name from Mormons to The Church of Jesus Christ... it was funny.  He didn't go into the store with us but when we came out a few minutes later he was still there.  We hopped in the back of the zone leaders truck and he walked pasted and said "The scriptures will come true, with or with out the money." haha.

Other than that the week wasn't too interesting.  On Thursday we went on splits with some members.  We met a lot of new people but only one of them really seemed interested and we've only seen him since.  His name is Bush.  That day I was with a kid named Emmanuel.  He is getting his papers ready. We probably walked 25-30 miles. No joke. Our area is huge and we covered quite a bit of it.  At one point I think we were about 3 miles from the Church.  So yeah, I'm guessing we've walked about 100 miles last week.

The other guys in our district had a baptism on Saturday. That was really cool. The spirit was really strong.

That's about it. Love and miss you all.

Elder E.E. Buyers

Mail, Food & Weather

Monday's have become the highlight of the week for our family. Waking up to emails from our missionary is a pretty good way to start off the week. This week was even better because we got our first picture of him since he's been in Uganda! He also shared lots of fun details about Uganda so I'm just going to let him explain it ;-) 

A little side note before you start... while he was packing his suitcases he told Mom, "I don't really think I need to take 80 different kinds of vitamins." From then on everything was "80".

Hey Sis,

I think it's awesome that you just sent one E-mail.  It's hard trying to reply to 80 emails. 80 right :) Flying was ok.  It got really old really fast though. It was 3 days of strait airports and planes. Not fun. I have one of the plastic card holders so it won't help too much but I will make sure they are locked.  AS for you letters, if you sent them to the mission home then they will probably have to pay for it when they get them and you will be sent a bill I guess. If you sent them to Salt Lake then you will probably be fine. All the mail gets sent to the mission home and from there it gets distributed to the areas when someone is going to or from that place.  From the looks of it I will only get the mail maybe a couple times a transfer (every 6 weeks).  I'm excited to find out what my birthday is.

All the elders in my district. My companion, Elder Cobabe, and I are in the middle and Elder Manakanaka and Elder Chekedere are on the outsides.

The food is pretty good.  It's a lot of rice and beans.  That's always the staple of the meal. There's a local place that makes some awesome pork. Their fries are really good, I'm not sure why. Also a lot of sweet potatoes not yams but potatoes. They make the things that are basically meat pockets. They call them samosas. They are good. They have onions and peppers and stuff. One weird thing is matokea (I don't think it's spent like that). It's just green bananas that are smashed up and cooked somehow.  Its pretty good I guess. It doesn't really have much of a taste though but plain bananas here, HOLY COW! They are amazing.

August definitely is a good month.  On the 10th, Friday, I will have 23 months left haha.  

The problem here is that it might not be that hot but it is really humid. It rains almost every day and it is horrible for a few hours right after it rains. Then its semi bearable. It gets fairly cold at night though. I have to sleep with a blanket. 

Well I love and miss you. Share the pictures with Mom and Dad.  The pink house is ours. The dog is Rex he just kinda sticks around. There is a big wall that goes all around our property with a big metal gate across the driveway.  

There is a picture of us breaking corn (decobbing) it took us 4 hours to get it all done.  I got a blister on my thumb. haha. 

And then there is one of the sun rise on our flight from Chicago to London.

Elder E.E. Buyers

Here are some other pictures that he sent of some art that he bought.

Upcoming Birthday & Mailing Letters/Packages

For those of you that received the yellow strips of paper with address for Elder Buyers, we have an update. 

Please use the below address for anything you'd like to send to him. 

Elder Eric Buyers

Uganda Kampala Mission

Nakawa House

Plot 7 Port Bell Road

P.O. Box 8989

Kampala, Uganda

Also, international stamps are required on ALL MAIL. If you send something, anything, without an international stamp, it will come back to you. You should be able to get international stamps at your local post office or you can order them online. The picture below is what they should look like. 

You can also use DearElder.com to send pre-made care packages as well as letters.

He is unable to print out the emails he receives so snail mail is better but please keep in mind that it could take anywhere from 3 weeks to a month to get there.

We'd also like to remind everyone that he will be celebrating his birthday on August 15th and he really enjoys getting mail from home so please take a few minutes to write him a letter or send him a card. 

First Week in Uganda

We got confirmation that Elder Buyers has arrived in Uganda! Emails started coming in around 4:30 this morning. I'm not going to post all of each of the letters, just mainly the important stuff. 

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It was a 44 hour flight here and I guess my president wasn't happy.  It shouldn't have taken that long but oh well.  During our 9 hour layover in Heathrow we got really bored so we decided to head into London.  We only really had time to see Buckingham Palace but it was still cool.  It was a 45 min "tube"/subway ride to get there which wasn't too fun. 

I asked and no he did not go up to the gate to see the birth announcement for Prince George ;-) 

I guess my Mission President was expecting us to come in on Tuesday with the rest of our brothers from S. Africa.  Lets just say there was nobody at the airport when we first arrived.  They were there in a couple hours though.  After that we went to the President's house and had dinner and got our assignments.  I got assigned to Lira zone which is the second farthest zone, still in Uganda, from the mission home.  It's out a ways in the more rural area.  That's fine with me because the city was too busy.  You know in the movies where the streets are packed with cars and there are motorcycles (bodas) weaving in and out of cars and stuff.  Yeah that is legit, no Hollywood exaggeration there. haha.  It's rained both days I've been in Lira and both times the power went out for a few hours.  Its pretty cool though.  All of Uganda is REALLY green! I love it.  

So far I like it here.  The food is actually really good and it hasn't made me sick... yet. haha.  It's really hard to understand the people because of the accent and I have to talk with an accent or they can't really understand me.  I did talk a little bit with a person on the flight from Jo-brug to Entebbe and I gave here a pass along card as well. The internet is really slow here. I talked about losing power and stuff, fun fact for ya, the power went out again when I was writing this email.  haha.

My trainer is Elder Cobabe.  He's a pretty cool guy.  He's from Salt lake. Been out 14 months. Yesterday we went to church for the first time and I had to get up a bear my testimony.  

I forgot the lizards. They are everywhere. 

There are lizards everywhere!

Most of the pictures I am sending are the MTC but there are a few from London and a few from Lira.

His room in the "pink house"

Elder Buyers & His companion Elder Voracek

Of this group he said 4 went to Uganda, 4 went to Cincinnati and the 4 Sisters went to South Carolina.

Dad was able to get a few emails back and forth with him while he was still online. Here is part of that conversation.

How much time do you have and how much does it cost you to use the computer? 

Elder Grilliot was in Lira for a while so we already know some about that area from his blog {view here}. He and three others lived in a pink house so I am assuming you are in the same place. Two Branches on opposite sides of the town. Water filters. Microwave. Members doing laundry for 5000 whatever the money is there.

Photo via Elder Grilliot's Blog

Yeah I am in the pink house.  We have 2 hours but since the power went out it takes a bit longer.  It cost 2000 shillings for 2 hours.  The exchange is a 2500 to 1 USD.  Things are really cheap here.  Yeah there are 2 branches and each branch has 4 missionaries. We are Adyel 2 area. every house has a good filter system for drinking water but all other water in the house is bad. at this house i guess we have people do our laundry which will be nice.