Weekly Update~ 'I Can Make Chapatis!"

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was the long awaited Stake Missionary Fireside we coordinated with the Stake leaders of the Kampala South Stake. It was wonderful to see missionaries' efforts with the Stake leaders and it turned out to be a wonderful success. Leading up to the fireside, we had a combined zone finding activity near the stake center. 

A little background information for the experience I'm about to share...The first mission president in the Uganda Kampala Mission was President Duke. Halfway through his mission, he died in a car accident on the main road from the airport to Kampala but, his wife survived. Wednesday evening, at the end of the activity, as we were about to get into a taxi to meet up with everyone again, we heard someone behind us call, "Hey Mormons!". That's not a common thing to hear around these parts so I turned around to find a YSA guy walking behind us. I asked him, "Surely you've been to the states, where are you coming from?" He told us he had just gotten back to Uganda two days ago from Idaho. He told us he knows all about the Book of Joseph Smith and stuff like that and that his neighbor would talk to him about it all the time. He said we probably knew her and that her last name was Duke. I asked him if they lived in Uganda and he said that her husband died somewhere in Africa. We took the time to bear testimony that the things which that sister shared were true and that the misconceptions he heard about us aren't and invited him to get properly informed by coming to the fireside on Friday. Unfortunately he didn't come to the fireside or church but I know we didn't just meet the man by chance.

P-Day was great! We did something different for a chage and spent our day with our family who will be baptized next week.  The mom taught us how to make chapatis (soft layered flat bread similar to Tortillas and Naan) and we taught them how to make pancakes.  Then we took all our food and watched Meet the Mormons!

As I've shared in the past, we are focusing on teaching repentance and baptism as a Mission. Yesterday evening, we taught a sister who is a neighbor of a member in the elders' quorum presidency. It was the first time in a long time that I actually felt I was "preaching repentance".  As we shared with her how she can become clean from the poor habits she has developed and be free from the feelings of guilt she feels as a result. The re-occurring thought I'm having is how the basics of the gospel are so necessary to pass through this life unscathed by the whirlwinds and storms Satan brings. As we drove home from this lesson, Elder Moyes and I talked about how the things we teach tend to influence us as well. I have noticed personally that I am more mindful about renewing my covenants with the sacrament and my desire to continue to improve on the little things. I love this Gospel and the way it has helped me progress on my mission. I know it is true.

I love you all, 

See you in 3 weeks,

Elder Hazen

Weekly Update~ "Spiritual Cataracts"

Dear Family and Friends,

This week we spent time attending Distric Development Meetings for everyone in the zone. It was a good experience as we went over the things we learned in Mission Leadership Conference and demonstrated role-plays on how to teach repentance and baptism in every lesson.

 Alpha, Estella, Sarah, and Albert are all preparing for baptism next week. We are grateful for their commitment and the desire they all have to repent and follow the Savior. Yesterday in church, during Gospel Principles, we were having a discussion about the difference between gifts of the Spirit and the Gift of the Holy Ghost. One sister asked, "how do we get the Spirit to be with us again if we have done something wrong to drive it away?" Albert rose his hand and simply answered, "Repent of your sins and come to church to take of the sacrament to renew your covenants." The simplicity of the gospel blows me away.

This week, I read a BYU Speech talk "Spiritual Cataracts". In this talk, cataracts are likened to living the gospel and how our vision is sometimes blurred on what matters most with pollutants. These pollutants include envy, contention, dishonesty, and lasciviousness. When these pollutants or distractions creep into our lives, we lose focus on the Savior and the gospel, but it is still there. Like with cataracts, it is possible to receive corrective eye surgery that restores our vision perfectly. Repentance is always possible no matter how far we drift from the path. I love the simplicity of the preventative "spiritual antioxidants" as well. Prayer, studying the word of God, and Service. Funny enough, it's the same simple practices recommended to me by President Collings in my interview with him Thursday morning. I know that these simple practices are enough to keep one stabilized in this increasingly unstable world we live in as we show faith in the "Rock of Salvation".

I love you all,

Elder Hazen

Weekly Update~ "Blessings Come When We Seek For The Savior's Power as Bad as We Want to Breathe"

Dear family and friends,

RJ and His New Companion Elder Moyes

 One of the oft-referred to stories of this recent General Conference was the woman who suffered from the debilitating blood condition for 12 years. I loved this story in context to President Nelson's talk on Drawing the power of Jesus Christ into our lives. Like the woman who stretched physically and spiritually in order to grasp the Savior's power into her life. There are a few experiences where I witnessed others and myself stretch this week. 

We are teaching a man right now who has gone through a lot. I have seen him bring forth many fruits signifying his repentance and becoming a new man. However, he just seems to be one of those people who can't seem to catch a break. For about the past 3 years, he has been bounced around from home to home, trying to look for a job and making ends meet. He expressed to us that after he met the missionaries, he found a new found hope in life and things began to work out for him. He found a job about a month and a half ago at a casino running slot machines and began a training without pay soon thereafter. However because of the difficulty of circumstances before, along the way he got both his national I.D. and passport stolen, which has now arisen to become a big problem. Last week, his employers requested everyone to display some sort of identification before the training ends this week. In his desperation, he came to us, asking us to spot him 40k UGX for a new passport. I felt awful for him and was really stressed about what to do. After I got off the phone with him last Friday morning, Elder Moyes and I decided to pray about it. When we finished, a story I heard from MLC a few months back came to mind. In Mexico, there was a mission president faced with a dilemma of government marriage being an obstacle to many couples' being baptized. They simply couldn't afford to pay to get it done so they continued to co-habitate. However, the leaders of the church came up with a program to cut the price of marriage. When this plan was presented to this mission president, it didn't feel right for him to approve it. He thought about it all the way to an interview with a young couple preparing to be baptized. In this interview, he discovered that the couple went three days without eating in order to have enough money for their marriage, leading to their baptism into the church. With this experience, the mission president felt inspired to reject the plan and give these investigators the opportunity to exercise faith and let the Lord provide a way. We came to a similar conclusion with this man. When we went to his home to explain why we were not giving him the money by sharing with him the scripture in Luke 8 about the woman with the blood disease, he was completely understanding and the Spirit filled the room. We followed up with him this week and he told us as he prayed for direction on how to find the money to pay for a new passport, he felt inspired he needed to sell his phone and use the money that would be coming from his job to first pay rent so he could keep the spot in the home he is currently staying in, then buy a new phone in a few months. He felt confident it came from the Lord and we were grateful to witness this man stretch himself and seek God's will.

On Tuesday, I went on an exchange with Elder Seibert. The whole day was relatively good, but we hadn't had any really faith building experiences and hadn't seemed to learn much from each other. As we were discussing these feelings on our way to our last appointment which happened to be a member whom we would be teaching the restoration in 15 minutes too, we made a goal with each other that we'd make it the most powerful lesson of the day. But, to our dismay, he bounced us. It was 8:30 PM. Usually, it's time to prepare to go home if your lesson falls through at that time. However, I felt like there was more to be done in the day. We decided to pray and ask the Lord whom he would have us visit to share the message of the Restoration too to conclude the day. We sat and waited for revelation to come. Elder Seibert, having served in Nsambya before, suggested we visit a less-active member. We called him, and he told us he was home, so we put the truck in gear and sped off to his home 15 minutes away. We testified simply of the truths of the restoration, and finished. We were overcome at the Spirit that was present. We felt inspired to ask for a referral and he immediately listed off a name from the top of his head and told us to call him in the morning to find out when we could go together to meet with him. When we got to the car, we offered a simple prayer of gratitude thanking the Lord for using us as tools to share with someone who needed that message and for helping us stretch ourselves. Truly, I know blessings come when we seek for the Savior's power as bad as we want to breathe. 

I love you all,

Elder Hazen