1st wave is almost over :(

There are many things in this world that I am thankful for.  One of the most important things I am thankful for is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Where ever I may go in the world, I can always find a place to go to church.  It’s a piece of home that I will never leave behind when I go to a new place.  The language may be different, I may not know anyone, each and every meeting may go over time, but it is the same everlasting gospel that I have grown to love and appreciate.  It is a constant that I am thankful for in my ever-changing life.

Last week was Stake Conference for the Jinja branch.  We met in a school which was a little ways away from the church in Jinja.  There were SO many people there!  And the team from Mbale came; because they are part of the stake (Mbale is about 3 or so hours away from Jinja).  It’s crazy how spread out a stake is here.  I’m definitely not used to it, especially after living in Utah almost my entire life.  In Southern Utah, we have two stakes in just the fields area.  In Provo, we have two stakes just in the Wyview area! Ha there were MANY many stakes, and MANY many wards.  It has been different going to church and seeing so few in numbers there.  And at stake conference there were SO many missionaries!!  It was great!  Next April, I can start my papers.  Next July, I can turn them in. :) I really want to go on a mission. :)

Murchison Falls

Today there were 3 baptisms that happened after church!  We had over 30 investigators at church today too.  It was crazy awesome!  Melissa and Lane both said that they never got that many investigators to church in their entire mission! haha :)

Church here is great.  I love it. :)

Safari Sunset

So they eye and dental camp are coming along just great!!  Wednesday, McCall and I started our day at 8am and ended at 4pm.  We were doing eye and dental stuff ALL day!  It was good!  We talked to a lot of people and figured a lot of stuff out.  We are going to partner with Mehta Hospital with their Health Camp that they are organizing for August 6^th-August 17^th!  An 11 day campaign!!  We are really hoping we can join them!  How awesome would that be??? :) And we are going to get an eye surgeon from Jinja to come to the Health camp and perform surgeries.  It is going to be grand.  I cannot wait! :)

Elephants! :)

AND (almost the best news on this blog post) Julia told me yesterday that the rotary club that her mom is in are donating (get ready for this!!) 300 prescription glasses and 500 reading glasses!!  800 glasses TOTAL!!!!!!!!!! It completely blew my mind!  I am so happy!  The only thing is getting them here now.  The dang airlines are being dumb and are charging a 3^rd bag $150 instead of $60.  Our 2^nd bags are supposed to be free and so that would make the 3^rd bag $60, but apparently they changed it just recently.  We are going to fight for it though.  But 800 glasses! :D I can’t believe it. :) I am so excited and happy!  And Deseret International Foundation is going to be donating around 400 glasses!! :) :)  Woot!!  Those will get to us in July.  The 800 glasses will get to us this week on Thursday! :)

HUGE Ants :)

We also are going to try and partner with Mehta Hospital with their Health camp that they are organizing.

PUMBA!! ;)

This past Tuesday was Musana’s Grand Opening!  You can read ALL about it on Melissa’s blog: http://melissasblisses.blogspot.com/ She is like the one who started it in 2009 and so she wrote all about it since she is here again this year working with making Musana a LOT bigger and making them international (a business in the US!) :)

Many Many Antelope

After the opening, Moses, Julia, and I went over to Sam (the epileptic boy who loves to sing) and gave him some musical instruments Moses had made for him.  He made two tambourines out of wire and bottle caps, and then a maraca as well out of a can.  It was cool to see Sam’s face brighten so much after he received those gifts!  He loved them!! :) He started singing right away once he got them.  I loved it.

Giraffes! They were so close I could almost touch them!

That Tuesday night, we went to the Rainforest Lodge and had a smore’s making party because Abby and Camille left us Wednesday. :(  The party was a blast. :) Melissa brought marshmallows from America and we got some chocolate from the supermarket and the closest thing we could to graham crackers (Nice cookies).  It was pretty darn good :) Not exactly a normal smore, but it came close. :)

The ants go marching one by one hurrah, hurrah! ;)

The lodge was gorgeous!  It was in the middle of Mabira forest and all you could here was the sounds of the rainforest.  SO cool it was! :) I loved it.

I'm doing the Titanic pose...

And since we worked so hard Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with Eye and Dental Camp stuff and the Musana Grand Opening, we treated ourselves to a 3 day safari at Murchison Falls! :)

Crocodile! :)

We headed out Thursday and drove all day until we reached Murchison Falls National Park.  We entered the park and not even 5 minutes later, we saw baboons! :)  After driving for a long bit, we finally reached the river where we were to ferry across.  The ferry wasn’t supposed to leave until 6 (it was 5 when we got there) so a few of us decided to explore!  There were some warthogs that we all took pictures by.  Pumba (off of Lion King) is definitely not a correct picture of what a real warthog looks like.  These ones were SUPER ugly.  And while Brianne and Kerri were trying to take their picture by the warthog, it growled at them and charged them!!  It was the funniest thing ever :)

Super pretty bird :)

Our next adventure consisted of walking off the road and through the bushes.  We turned after about 15 feet to go back to the road, but it was still fun :) I got some cool pictures of these HUGE ants who were marching into the forest.

Monkeys! :)

We left the road again for another adventure, crossed a huge lake (not really a lake, just a huge muddy puddle), and entered into an opening where there was a GREAT view of the river and the land across the river. :) While we were posing and taking fun pictures at this point, we heard the ferry….it left us.  We ran down the hill and watched as they crossed the river without us.  It was only 5:55 too!  Not even 6, and they said 6 was the EARLIEST time they would leave.  Welcome to Afican time, eh? ha.  But it just made our adventure that much more awesome.

Giraffes! :)

Our tour guide had waited for us, so we weren’t completely left behind.  Once the ferry came back, we crossed, and when we got to the other shore, we saw hippos just chilling in the water!! :) And then some more baboons! :)  Our bus had already left us and headed to the campsite where we were to be staying, so we walked up the road to camp.  It was quite the hike.  But it was fun.  Twas better than riding in that dang rickety and noisy bus! :)

Buffalo and his duck

That night, I slept great.  I was so tired and I didn’t even care about all the bugs that were flying around in our room.  During the night, apparently a group of hippos walked through our camp and started munching on the grass outside some of the girls rooms.  They woke up from it’s munching, it was so close!

Safari Sunrise

We woke up and headed on our safari at 6:45am. :) The first thing we saw were giraffes!!  Then elephants!!  We saw a lot of animals.  Giraffes, elephants, antelopes, warthogs, wildabeasts, buffalo, monkeys, baboons, birds, aannnnnnnd…a LION! :) We didn’t get a great view of the lion because he had just had an adventure himself and was limping back into the bushes as we drove by and saw him. :( But we still saw him! I got a somewhat decent picture of his behind as he walked into the bushes…hopefully you can see it. :)

SIMBA! :)

After the land safari, we headed back to the river and got on the boat and headed upriver towards Murchison Falls.  We saw hippos, crocodiles, elephants, more birds, and more monkeys! :) And holy cow.  Murchison Falls was GORGEOUS.  SOOO pretty!  I couldn’t believe it!  It was so great!  It was amazing.  I wish we could have gone closer to the falls, but we couldn’t.  At least some of our cameras had good zooms. :)

Baboon! :)

After the boat ride, we headed to our next place that we would stay the night.  It was a cute little place with legit African huts!  It was so cool :) And the beds were SO comfy!  I slept so well that night.  And I actually used the big fluffy blanket that they provided!  I haven’t used a blanket since I left the states!  It was crazy, but felt so nice! :)

Hippos!

That night we went into town and watched some cultural dances that some people put on for us.  It was so cool to watch and so much fun because they came and grabbed us to dance with them.  It was a blast.  We all got up and started shakin’ our booties with them.  It was the funnest thing ever!  They put a grass skirt around me and had me start dancing with them.  All the kids that were watching started screaming and laughing whenever a Mzungu would get up and start dancing.  It was the greatest.

Cultural Dancing

:)

The first wave leaves this next week.  I can’t believe that 6 weeks have already gone by.  It definitely seems like it shouldn’t be June 11 already!  A day seems like a week, but a week seems like a day.  It’s crazy.

Becca & Whit jammin on the drums!

Well that’s all for now!  We’re just working on getting the partnership with Mehta set up and we are going to start constructing equipment for the children with disabilities this week! :) Woot! :)

Mama Hippo and her baby!

Ta ta for now!

I'm touching both the USA and Uganda! I'm only a hug away. ;)