Baptism and Eating live bugs

Habari!

Things are great here in Uganda. It was a great week. Zaina was able to be baptized! It was such an awesome service! I am so happy for her. She was super prepared! We have many other investigators that are progressing and hopefully be baptized in the next few weeks. The work is sweet in Busia.

I also had a pretty cool experience this week. It was actually a combo of things but it lead to one point. We were teaching Zaina about service and I said, "our motive should always be love." and it made me really think about it. Right now the branch needs a lot of help because it is still new. It can be very frustrating at times when you tell someone what they need to do and they still dont do it. But I said that and my whole attitude changed. As we show people love for them and correct them with kindness they are more likely to do what they need to. Our motive for all that we do should be love, just like Christ. Everything he did was out of the love of our Father in Heaven and for us. If we can focus on love we will become more Christ like. And that is the goal of life.

Well, that is all I have this week. I was also able to eat a live bug called a white ant. I love you all! Keep up the good work.

Love, Elder Hawk


You know you're in Africa when you eat live bugs.

 Me and My Companion, Elder Hart

Ziana's Baptism

 Rode a camel

  Me and JJ

  Dinner appointment

 Eating the Bug

Making Bricks and Burning Shirts

Habari!

Well, It was a really great week! Got my new comp, did some awesome
service, and burnt a shirt for my year mark!

My Companion is Elder Hart from Logan, Utah. He has been on his
mission for almost 19 months! We are getting along great. We have many
things in common. I am excited for what the next weeks will bring for
us.

I did  some of the most fun and hard service so far on my mission this
week. We were making mud bricks. What they do is you form them, (see
attached pictures) then you stack them and bake them. It is what
almost all of the houses here are made of. Either that alone, or then
they cover with cement, or straight mud and sticks.

So this next week we are going to hopefully have the baptism of Zaina.
She is super prepared and I am super excited for her. We also have
Jackson who is coming up on the 9th and a family of Beatrice and her
two daughters, Natasha, and Zam as well as George on the 16th. It is
going to be a very eventful transfer hopefully.

I also burnt a shirt for my year mark with Elder Foster. It was so
satisfying! Crazy to think I have been out here for that long. Time
flies. I hope I can make the next year just as fun filled and hard as
the first.

I love you all and hope you have a great week! Keep on smiling!

Love, Elder Hawk


You know you've been in Africa for a year when you eat sweet potato
and g-nut sauce in a mud and stick house with no electricity and you
don't even think twice about it.

I wanted to send many pics, but the internet is not agreeing with me.
So here are some of bricks and burning shirts:

The tradition of burning a shirt on your year mark

Transfer week!

Habari!

Well, transfer news came today. My companion is the only one leaving the district! Sad, but my new companion is Elder Hart from Logan, Utah. Should be a lot of fun! I am very excited for the coming transfer and really surprised how fast the last one went. Some other crazy news is that mission president just made a lot of big changes this transfer! The missionaries in Lira and Mbale are being pulled out. They are going to focus on the center and open up a bunch of areas in Kampala. We were part of the Mbale zone and they thought about pulling us out as well, but because we have been doing so well this last transfer they decided to keep us here!! We saved Busia! Pretty cool. But now we are part of the Iganga Zone.

Some great stuff happened this week. First, I forgot to talk about it last week, but George is doing awesome! He has been coming to church. Only for sacrament, but he said he is going to try to come to the full thing. The miracle though was last Sunday when we taught him the Word of Wisdom! He smokes and drinks coffee. So we were a little nervous to teach it, but we came in and we were bold and it was a super powerful lesson. He accepted and has stopped coffee and is doing a lot better about smoking! So awesome!

Something else that happened this week was we were carrying water for one of the members and we helped their next door neighbor and invited her to listen to our message and she accepted. The next day we taught her and her two daughters! They tried to come to church, but they got lost on the way there. We saw them again and gave them a baptismal date on the 9th of October! Very exciting.

It was also my companions birthday this week, so we had a little celebration at Baba Wafula's house. It was very nice. Also, Saturday we had a branch activity and while we were at the church something happened. We were standing outside talking and the church started to shake! At first I just thought it was the wind or a big truck, but then I kept thinking and I yelled, "EARTHQUAKE!" My first earthquake ever. Pretty cool.

Sorry, this is such a huge email. I just had a lot to say.  Haha. Most of you probably only look at the pictures anyways.. haha. Love you all!

Love, Elder Hawk


You know you're in Africa when all the girls have yarn for hair...

Comps B-day 

 JJ attempting to eat cake

 The District with our truck and new t-shirts

Baptismal font and Baba Wafula

September.. again.

Habari!

Well, what a week. It was pretty good, but had some rough patches.
Today we were able to play some soccer with some members from the
branch and some other people. It was a lot of fun!
Thomas was able to be baptized! It was a very powerful experience. He
was able to finally join the rest of his family in the church after
taking the lessons for 3 years on and off! It was great!
Rona and Nora were not baptized, and to be honest, I don't really want
to talk about what happened. It was one of the rough parts of the week
and probably one of the hardest moments in my mission. However, all
things are for our profit and learning. This life was never meant to
be easy. It wasn't easy for Christ, so why did we ever think that it
would be easy for us. We are going to have challenges in this life. We
are going to have to do hard things. That is part of the plan. That is
why it says that we have to "take upon our cross" many different
places in the Bible and Book of Mormon. If we want to be like Christ,
then we have to understand at least a fraction of what he had to go
through.

I love you all and hope that you know that you can do hard things. But
don't just endure life, enjoy it.

Love, Elder Hawk


You know you're in Africa when you are the only one who gets sun burnt.

  Me and some cute kids

Thomas got baptized

 Thomas, Branch pres. (left) and Parents (right),