Take a piece of them with you & leave a piece of yourself with them...

Hey Everyone,

It was another interesting week.  As you know it was transfers.  On Tuesday we took the day to say sweet goodbyes to all those that have changed my life.  They will be missed but there is a quote that I really like, "You never leave someone behind.  You take a piece of them with you and you leave a piece of yourself with them.”  I guess I have done all that I had been called to do in Lira and now it is time to find my friends in Rwanda. 

Tuesday I woke up throwing up and stuff.  Not fun.  Then we sat in a car for about 7 hours to drive to Kampala.  Once we got there I spent most of the day sleeping.  Right before I went to sleep for the night I asked for a blessing From Elder Manyakanyaka (it’s crazy to think he is home now).  I woke up in the morning feeling quite a bit better.  Our flight left for Kigali at about 11:45.  We got here and got a few things squared away, then got to work. 

The work here is a bit different from in Uganda.  In order to tract you have to have a religious visa.  So far there is one elder out of the 8 here that has a visa, but that's mostly because it is hard to get clearance from other countries in Africa for the elders that are here.  From the looks of it I will be the second.  Once I have everything it could just take a few weeks.  When they say no proselyting it means no tracting.  Both missionaries in a comp. have to have the visas.  We work just by referrals and people that show up at church.  The branch is really strong here, at least compared to Adyel.  The people are amazing.  I am looking forward to a good transfer.

Rwanda is good.  It’s just a city so there isn't much pictures I can take and I’m not sure of landmarks or anything either.  It is really hilly.  Just up and down hills all day.  We actually have address here so I will find out what it is.  Rwanda time is one hour behind Uganda.  I think that's a 9 hour difference from home.

Love you all and I hope you have a great week.

Elder E.E. Buyers

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. 

Uganda Bound - Update

Morning All. We haven't heard from him yet and probably wont until Monday, but after some flight stalking online we know that Elder Buyers final flight landed in Entebbe, Uganda around 10:00 mt yesterday morning. We're assuming that he was on the plane. 

As you can imagine we're all anxiously waiting for Monday to roll around so that we can get some emails from him. Until then I thought I would share some of the pictures I found online when I Google searched Entebbe, Uganda. I'm not sure if this counts as internet stalking a missionary, but since we're related I decided it was ok. 

First I found a map that shows where exactly Entebbe is at in Uganda. It kind of seems like Entebbe and Kampala are pretty close and run together. Kind of like Rigby and Idaho Falls. Guess I'll have to ask Elder Buyers.

{photo via}

Keep in mind, that we're not sure if this is where he's still at, or just the airport that he flew into. We'll hopefully know more on Monday. Either way, I thought it would be fun to see what the airport that he flew into looked like.

{photo via}

From the looks of it, they have some really big fish around there. To bad he's not going to be able to do much fishing. I guess he'll just have to make a trip back with Sweeney sometime.

{photo via}

In my hunting I also found the blog of a missionary that is currently over in Uganda! I am so excited to start looking through some of the posts. If you're interested in checking it out here is the link. I really like the way that whoever runs it (his mom I'm assuming) posts his letter home along with the questions that his Mom & Dad asked every week. Might have to borrow that idea!

Have a good weekend everyone, hopefully I'll have something from Elder Buyers on Monday :-)

Uganda Bound - Update

As I type this Elder Buyers is making his way from London to Johannesburg! His first flight out of Salt Lake City was delayed by two hours (good thing he had that five hour layover), but so far everything else has been on time. He called Mom & Dad from Salt Lake and got to spend a little time telling them about the MTC. He said that he took lots of pictures and even a few videos introducing his companion. When he gets settled he's going to mail them the memory card from his camera and I'll be sure to post some of the pictures here for everyone to see.

Then I got a huge surprise when me called me too.  I wasn't expecting it and actually denied the call because it wasn't a number I recognized. Luckily he left me a voice mail and I was able to call the number back and talk to him for a few minutes. He sounded good, happy and mostly healthy {he has a cold}. He said that he's traveling with 7 other Elders and his companion is from Texas. He's pretty sure that he's from Dallas, but it might be Houston... there are two of them from Texas so he's not 100% sure.

I talked to mom yesterday and she was telling me that Grandma Gonzales was at the doctors office and was telling the doctor how her Grandson was on his way to Uganda for his mission and would get there on Thursday. The doctor says, "Really? My Grandson is on his mission in Uganda. He leaves Thursday to come home." How crazy is that! 

Thank you all again for your thoughts and prayers. They are greatly appreciated. 

Leaving the MTC - Uganda Bound

Today Elder Buyers will begin his journey to Uganda. He will arrive at the Salt Lake City airport around 8:00am today and will arrive in Entebbe, Uganda around 7:00pm Thursday night. For those of you wondering, Uganda is 9 hours ahead of the  US Mountain time zone.

He will fly from Salt Lake City to Chicago where he will have a 5 hours layover before flying from Chicago to London. He'll have a 9 hour layover in London before flying to Johannesburg where he will spend some time before taking his final flight to Entebbe, Uganda. 

This is his first time flying so I'm sure he is nervous. Please keep Elder Buyers, his companion, and all those traveling with them in your prayers over the next few days.