Happy Easter‏

Afoyo, or should I say jebale!

That is right, I am being transferred to Njeru in Jinja! My new companion is Elder Gangire, who is from Malawi just like Elder Majawa! I am super excited to be getting some more experience and the opportunity to grow more as a missionary.

Well this was an okay week. I don't know what it was, but the dogs here were crazy! I almost got attacked like 3 or 4 times. But it was all good. Richard came to church again and even to the Easter activity that we had. He seems like he will stay active this time. I am very excited for him. We had a really good lesson with Francis and Pauline. We talked about prayer and the Holy Ghost. I felt the spirit so strong!! I hope she will be able to soften her heart and come to church. Not much else happened. Oh, except I stayed home with Elder Roylance once this week and he can walk small now so we walked to this restaurant close by and had some pizza! Super nice! I also played some soccer at FHE last week with my proselyting clothes on. haha. Oh and I saw a chameleon on the way home from church! (See pictures below)

Well something that I have been thinking a lot about this week is aligning our will with God's. In Helaman, Prophet Nephi is given the power to basically do anything. The Lord told him the reason he was given this power is because he knew he would only do God's will. It made me think about how in our lives we can think that we know what is better for us than God does, which is very foolish. We need to align our will with the Lord's. As we do that we will also know him as a friend instead of just a servant. In John 15 it talks about becoming the Lord's friend. He says the difference between being a servant and a friend is knowing his will. I know that as we strive to find out the Lord's will for us and follow it we will get to know him better as a friend.

I love you all and thank you for supporting me! Next week I will be emailing you from my new area!

Love, Elder Hawk

Interesting week‏

Afoyo!

Well, as you can see from the subject, this was a very interesting week. I met some really interesting people.

First, Richard. One day we were out and about and we saw this girl from the branch. We noticed that she only came with her sisters, and so the spirit told me to go and ask her if her parents were members. She said that they had been baptized in 2009! So we went with her to her house and we met her father, Richard, and set an appointment to meet with him the next day. We went the next day and asked him where his wife was. He said that she had left him in January with the 5 kids to take care of. We went inside, and asked him why he hadn't been attending church. He said because he was trying to find food for his family. Understandable...

First I thought, I have to promise him that if he was to come to church every Sunday and renew the covenant he had made with God, that the Lord would bless him. Did I really believe that? I don't know what it is like to have a wife leave me and provide for kids, I am a 19 year old kid from the US, what do I know. But, I had to exercise my faith in Christ, and tell him exactly that. He seem really touched, and agreed to come to church. He then asked if he would be able to continue doing his priesthood duties and he brought us his Melchizedek Priesthood certificate. It may not seem like a bid deal for many of you at home, but here in Gulu, its a big deal. We told him that he would have to talk to the Branch President. He ended up coming for all 3 hours, talked to the Branch President, and even participated during classes!

I know that the spirit directed us to his home. I know that the Lord is bound when we do what he says, and that if we don't we have no promise. The Lord is waiting to bless us, he is pleading with us to let him bless us, but because we don't keep our end of the deal he can't. We are stopping the Lord from blessing us. Richard, although he was going through a hard time, turned his back on the Lord. Me and my companion were able to help him realize what he was missing. I hope he can continue keeping his covenants with the Lord, and receive the blessing for doing so.

Well, some other small things happened, but that is the biggest thing that happened. I hope you all have a great week. I love you guys. Also, thank you to all those who donated to "nothing but net" for my birthday. You guys are awesome.

Mari, Elder Hawk


You know you're in Africa when your companion says, "That's a powerful hut!"

 New Zone T-Shirts

 Eating Antelope..."It's really good"

 Elder Hawk and Elder Roylance burning their ties

 to commemorate their 6 month mark

The Rainy Season has begun

We Donated Parker's Birthday to NothingButNets

Email from Elder Hawk's sister Danielle:

When you told us that lots of people in your area have malaria, I kept thinking that I really wanted to figure out a way to be able to raise money to send mosquito nets to them. I started doing research and found this organization called Nothing But Nets that sends bed nets to communities in Africa. They have a program where you can “donate” your birthday and instead of having people give you gifts they donate to Nothing But Nets. Even though I thought it would be awesome if there was a way for us to send nets directly to the people you are serving, I thought this was probably the best way to raise money. Even though it wasn’t helping people where you are, it’s still helping people in Africa. This organization sends nets to the areas that have the most need, and they are really good nets that have pesticide on them. Anyway, I wanted to see if we could get a couple more dollars than what just our family would have been able to give, and we had a really awesome response. I honestly didn’t think we would raise more than MAYBE a couple hundred dollars. I was pretty excited every time a new donation came in.  We ended up raising $1500 in a little over two weeks. That's 150 nets!

We love you so much Elder Hawk! Happy birthday!


Email response from Elder Hawk:

Thank you all for donating! It was the best Birthday Present I could have ever asked for! Malaria is a serious problem here. I love the people of Africa so much and you were able to help them so much and I thank you for that! I love you and all that you do!

Birthday in Africa‏

Note: Elder Hawk's and Elder Majawa's Birthdays are on March 13th, the day before this was sent. Just posted a bit late due to "mom" being out of town.


Afoyo!

What a week. Not really. It was a pretty slow week when it came to the work. Some of the investigators that seemed to have a lot of potential are starting to be somehow fake. I hope that they will recommit themselves to listen and follow the message. We also did a lot of finding. Found some good potential families. We are seeing one this evening that are married so we hope all goes well with that. One of our investigators had a baby last week so its hard to get her to come to church for awhile. She is also super stubborn. Her name is Pauline and her husband is Francis. He seems to be responding well and would probably have a baptismal date if his wife wasn't dragging her feet. They are super smart and are married! Also this week we saw two different people who had monkeys for a pet. I got a picture of one of them. It's kind of weird looking to be honest. (picture below)

Well, yesterday was my birthday, and also the Sabbath. I gave a talk and taught the gospel principles class. Something crazy is that me and my companion have the same birthday!!! Probably the coolest thing ever. Talk about comp unity. We went to Jimmy and Phoebe's house and they surprised us with dinner!!  We had beef, Irish (potatoes), and rice. It was way good! Then we came home and the Taylor's made us a cake so the whole zone got some cake and ice cream. It was a pretty awesome birthday.

Well, not much else to report. I hope you all had a great week. I love you all. As for me, I'm just living the dream here in Africa. Nowhere else I would rather be. Missionary work is the work for me.

Mar, Elder Hawk


You know you're in Africa when people dump water on you for your Birthday (unless you dodge it).

 Ugly Monkey

 The Birthday Boys

Chobe again!‏

Afoyo!

As you can see by the subject we got to go to Chobe again! We still didn't see any elephants, but it was way awesome as always! Saw a lot of giraffes and monkeys and cob. Just got to eat some breakfast overlooking the Nile River, so that was pretty awesome!

Well there's a couple of things I want to mention this week. I don't know if I have said anything about it yet, but the stars are amazing here! Probably because there aren't a lot of lights. Also, there are some kids here who like to chant things at us when we pass by. The most annoying one is "You give me bible!" It can get pretty annoying. Something else that is a little different here with the culture is that people get mad if you don't greet them as you pass. It's funny though because you are the one that has to greet them, they don't usually greet you first.

Well this week Jimmy, Phoebe, and Alisa got confirmed in church. It was great to see them complete the covenant with God. Also the Gulu branch had a baptism this week, but they were having water problems so they asked us to fill the font on our side. We started, but the pressure was even low for us. After three hours, the water was only about 2 feet deep. We continued with the baptism, he just had to lay all the way down to complete the ordinance. It was kind of funny, but awesome that he found a way to get it done. Nothing else too exciting this week. Power was on and off, so we only had it about 50% of the time. That means cold showers, no cold food or drinks, and no fans (which is the worst part).

Well, I love you all and hope you have a great week. I'm just here living the bush missionary life in Gulu and loving it.

Mar, Elder Hawk


You know you're in Africa when you have to defend yourself against man eating flies.

Click on Picture above to see the full view