The Church Is True

Sometimes you just have those days at church where it just hits you and you realize you've been slacking off and could be doing better. Everything that was taught just put life into perspective for me. Yeah, I am here doing service but sometimes I loose focus and get sidetracked and forget that I'm an instrument in the Lord's hands. Someone quoted Nephi while giving a talk and said, "I may not know all things but I know that my Father in Heaven loves me" Also this one in Joshua:  "Don't fear, neither be thou dismayed for the Lord is with you wherever thou goest" (It's something like that) I have been thinking about that all day because I've been here and been scared sometimes and there is no reason to be scared. Heavenly Father wants me to be happy. He wants the best for me, always. I was also talking to this one guy and he was saying how God looks down on us and smiles and says, "that's my boy/girl" I want to be the best that I can be every single day. I want to represent him and have him be proud of me every single day.

The whole branch!!!

 Love these boys.

 Elizabeth...I met her the first Sunday I was here, she's so cute.

 This child fell asleep in my arms.

 Bernard (on the left) reminds me exactly of my friend Jake Perkins. They are literally twins.
Looks and personality

Even though I still have a couple more Sunday's left, I am not looking forward to my last Sunday with these amazing people. They are so dedicated to the gospel, it's so inspiring! 

An African Bakery!!

In case anyone didn't know, last summer, I started to develop this obsession with bakeries with an emphasis on cupcakes. I found a bakery in Africa!!!!

 They ain't no American cupcakes but I'll give it to Africa for trying. The frosting was actually really delicious, Carlee obviously loved it.

 Good find!!

 We sat on the side of the road consuming the cakes and watched this beetle attempt to stand upright. Never happened. Poor poor beetle.  

Thatch: Refreshingly Africa

Friday night now equals clubbing at the club down the street from our houseee. This time we actually documented it. It would be an understatement to say we had fun. Here we are having no idea what the night will entail...

This man whom we refer to as pizza man, stalked us last weekend and just so happened to run into us this weekend wearing the same exact outfit. He's actually got some good dance moves.

Just getting warmed up

Whipping our hurrrrrr

 People think I'm a crazy dancer, you obviously haven't met Maddy

Don't touch the bottle hahahahahha

Carlee and I just getting our groove onnnn

The most of us

Seriously we were the life of the partayyyyy

Sam the cook was my dance partner for the majority of the night.

 Let's talk about this picture on the right. The creeper man in the right hand corner glaring at me. We call him "The Shiv." We don't even know how this moment was captured but it was and the best part is he was nowhere to be seen after the picture was taken.

Kara and Eyubbbb

Lex and Eyubbbb!!! He's seriously the cutest

 Picture of the night goes to this guy just snoozing at the club. Don't understand how this is possible when the music was like blaring. This guy made it possible. Good times at the thatch.

Movies and More Water Filters!

Dang I've been so busy lately I haven't really had time to blog. Welp, I found this DVD store. All the movies were 2500 shillings which is equivilent to one dollar. Bought 20. Oops. And they are like GOOD quality and GOOD movies. Here let me show you just a lil sample of what I purchased:

Nice right? I know. I also put in another water filter!! I loved it. It's the best feeling ever.

 These children were so adorable and spoke really good english. School is almost out so I asked them if they are going to do anything fun. Precious (the one on the right, yeah her name is Precious, so presh) responded and said they are going swimming and fishing with their grandparents in some river? Most likely the Nile....rad. I also asked them if they were excited to have clean water. They responded yes of course and said the first time they had clean water was once at the Mbale hotel in town. After hearing that it meant so much more to give them that water filter. 

HIV and deepness

I've had many "firsts" in Africa.

The majority of my firsts could of happened in America but they happened here instead. For instance... My first time on a motorcycle.

My first time crashing on a motorcycle (yep, it happened and my mom is just finding out about it as she reads this)

My first time realizing what being an American actually means

My first time living out of my suitcase 

Okay it seemed like much more in my head...let's continue.

What I was getting at is Friday night was my first time going to a club. Could of happened in America, never did, so it happened in Africa. Of all places. The best part is you are really confused that clubs exist in Africa. The other best part is my mom is freaking out about how unsafe it was but lets be honest, we were as safe if not safer at this club then we would have been at one in America. (I'm starting to feel safer here then in America.) We all went as a group and were obviously the only sober ones yet the only ones dancing like cray cray. I love myself a good dance party and this my friends was more then a good dance party. I want to say I've never danced so hard in my life but I usually put my all into every dance party that occurs in my life. The highlight of the night is when I came home and puked for a good 3 hours straight and didn't end up going to bed until 5 in the morning. Yummmyyyy

The next morning I was having a sore body from dancing/ouch my stomach hurts from throwing up hangover and we had HIV testing the whole day! (that was a large sentence) We had a HUGE turn out. We thought only about 100 people would come...WRONGO, we had over 300 people show up!! Only 12 out of those 300 had HIV. I told this information to Richard all excited but he reminded me that it's sad that those 12 people have HIV. He's right. It's terrible. It was actually pretty sad. The worstest part is 2 out of those 12 people are our beading ladies! What are the chances? Slim. 

We had counselors there to talk to them after they got their results. I sat with one of them named Rose and she was so great. My job was to be the moral support to the ones that were HIV positive. How the heck do you tell an person with HIV that their life is going to be okay? You don't. You basically just tell them it's good that they are aware so they can be safe and more careful as they continue to live their life. Luckily the couple hours I was there with Rose there was only one person HIV positive. Before everyone got tested, they came to one of the counselors and give them their name and other random info. This one lady came to Rose to give her her info and decided to tell me how she couldn't pay for her children's school fees because she has so many children and her husband left her. The worst. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. I tell her I am sorry and she continues on to get tested. Her daughter ended up being negative. The negatives were told to continue to practice safe sex and gave them a huge handful of condoms. The lady comes back to Rose to get her results and I find out she's positive. I didn't even end getting to tell her it was going to be okay and "it's good that she knows" because Rose didn't speak her tribal language. She could only understand it. I passed the "positive" information to the translator who took her to the other room to tell her the results. I never saw her reaction but I think it's better that I didn't. I asked Rose what the chances were of her daughter being negative when she was positive and she said the daughter is very lucky. Crazy stuff right?

How lucky are we to live in a country where HIV isn't a big deal? Every experience I have hear continuously blows my mind and makes me aware of how lucky I am. I can't believe how I live life in America after being here for 3 months. We have it so easy it's ridiculous. I can't even begin to explain how much being here has changed my view on myself and others and life in general. I came into this thinking I will be humbled and I am going to feel so blessed to live where I do and yada yada yada but it's so much more than that. Living in a different country and semi-living the way these people live changes you as a person. It's so hard to explain but I've learned so much about myself and what is really important/matters in life. I knew this whole trip was going to change me but I didn't know to what extent. I can't believe I even considered going home early. Now I don't want to leave. I feel like there is so much more to do and to learn. I just want this next month to go by as slowly as possible. I don't want to go back to real life and morph back into my annoying American ways. I'm a different person. I literally have changed and I love it. I love my life. I've said that before and I've meant it but I mean it even more now.

P.S. I'm bummed I don't have pictures, sorry about that.

Water Filters!

Today was THE BEST! Actually everyday is the best. But today was pretty dang good. We walked around Namatala Slum to advertise for HIV testing tomorrow!!! (stoked) We basically just went up to people chillin outside their homes and told them to come "know their status" and be educated on HIV. The worst part is when I told this one man to come he goes, what happens if I am HIV positive? Shoot....yeah, my heart crumbled and I said we will treat you and educate you on what to do. Seriously what do you say to that? 

Later that day....Hello lets just talk about the best experience of my life. Lets be honest, being here is the best experience of my life but this just made it 100000000000 times better!! I had the opportunity to give a community in the Namatala Slum a water filter! Here is the leader of the community giving it a test run!

They were so excited/grateful. The best part was when one woman said, "we will no longer have stomach aches" Ahhhh it was such a surreal experience to see how grateful these people were for CLEAN water. Hi, I'm Kelsey and I constantly have clean water and don't even think about it. I just have it. All the time. These people don't. They have never had clean water. Ever. Now they can actually bathe in clean water and DRINK clean water and not worry about water borne diseases!! 

 This little girl stole my heart. I couldn't resist but hold her and tickle her. I would twirl around with her in my arms and repeatedly tell her she now has clean water. She had no idea what I was saying but oh well because it's true whether she understands me or not. She would not let me leave, the worst. All I want to do is take her home and give her a bath but I just realized it's okay because she now has clean water to bath in! WOOHOOOOO!

Clean wa-ter! Clean wa-ter! 

Orphanage

My whole time here I've been wanting to go to an orphanage and we FINALLY went to one!! We went to one when we first got here but it was like an hour away and this one was like 10 minutes away! So much more ideal! They were so adorable (obviously) and I wanted to adopt all of them because they don't have parents!! It was actually a very nice orphanage though. They are living better then people in villages and the slums. They feed them, have mosquito nets on their beds and bath them everyday. They even smelt good! They were obsessed with us and we were obsessed with them too duh!

This little girl would not let go of me. She would literally cry if I attempted to put her down. She would just cuddle me constantly and I would squeeze her back. Ahhhhh I love her

 How obsessed are you with this picture? Because I am. These two babies=twins. They are literally twins. THEY ARE SO CUTE!!! Mallory just tops it off. 

This little boy to the left is Moses and he was abandoned and brought to the orphanage. He was so happy and smily. The one to the right was pre mature and his mother died giving birth to him and his dad didn't want to take care of him so took him to the orphanage. I loved holding this precious child. I fed it a bottle and loved every second of it. I am obsessed with little African babiessss!!

Ahhhhh don't you just want to hug and squeeze them all?! 

 Here they are after dinner time. Hahahaha!

 We are planning to go back once every week until we leave. I can't wait to go back and cuddle with them again!!!

My Favorite Place

In case you didn't already get the idea, going to this village is my favorite thing ever!! I pretty  much know every child's name and they know mine and it's just a precious relationship. Here they are singing to us like they always do and I can never get sick of it. They are SO CUTE

 These are beans. Some of the best beans I've ever had actually. This is how they dry out the beans before they cook them. Creative huh? I thought so.

A majority of my time here is spent cuddling with these beloved children.

 How does your heart not melt when you see that smile?

 They were staring al me for a good 10 minutes. Can you tell they are all related? There is another little one and the oldest usually carries her on her back. 

 This is Rebecca and she was playing with my hair. Future cosmetologist right here! 

 We always end the night with a dance party. Dan the man knows what's up. He's got some moves.

I may or may have not set up this pose. Damalie is Mallory's obsession and as you should know by now, Derek is mine. We decided when we adopt them and bring them back to America, we are setting up an arranged marriage for them to marry each other. Derek's got so much swag. Look at their precious faces. Ahhhh I love themmmm!

Teacher Training

So this weekend we taught about 50 teachers of a Secondary School (high school) better teaching methods such as classroom management, teaching strategies, and assessment! I felt super awkward/inadequet considering I am not a teacher and I was teaching teachers how to teach better. Hmmm. I studied up on my topic which was assessment and partnered up with Ryan and we dominatedddd!! Look how cute we are preparing for our lesson 

So the time management sucks here. The teacher training workshop was suppossed to be an all day thing from like 8am to 5pm. We figured that nobody would show up until 9:30 because African time is usually an hour behind. We were way off and nobody showed up until 11am! This totally threw off our schedule but we managed to plan accordingly! Ryan and I didn't end up teaching until the second half of the day and in the mean time we listened to this man speak about who knows what for a good hour. (not in the schedule but not surprising)

Apparently everyone was feeling the same as us about his lecture.

Hahahaha

Let the teaching begin!

I'm so official

Just teaching some teachers how to teach better. So not intimidating. Oh wait...

It was a really neat experience to be able to teach these teachers. They were really receptive of the information and were grateful for the workshops!!