Hello! 

I did something stupid this week. So it's the end of the day and Elder K and I are at the little shop near our home getting some breakfast for the morning. He sees a container full of a bunch of little fish. I think they're called mukene in Uganda. But in Uganda they're just like an inch or two. These ones were like 5-6 inches. So he told me that if I eat them all, he'd buy me some Nutella. I of course accepted. So we get home and I dump them and a bunch of BBQ sauce and ketchup on my plate, then I popped the first one in my mouth. It was super tough and took so long to chew. And it tasted disgusting too. Man. One of those things might have been worth the Nutella. But then it became more than just the Nutella. I am not a quitter. And hey, it'll be a fun mission story. So after an hour of suffering, I finally finished them all! Crunching through bones, looking at them watching me, picking the scales out of my teeth, almost barfing several times... So terrible. My stomach felt so gross that next day and I had to wake up a few times that night to brush my teeth. Never again.

Now for a good food story! Mama Cecile is one of the best people on this earth. She's pretty much the funniest and sweetest lady ever.  Elder S (don't know if I've talked about him and Elder R yet... They're in the Kigali 3 Branch and work around Kagugu. We stay in the same apartment and we're all pretty dang close) is going home next week.  Just like you, Andrew!  So Cecile wanted to feed him before he left and when she feeds missionaries she goes all out. There was so much noodles and rice and soup and chips and fruit and soda and chicken. And she can cook well. Of couse we all had to see who could eat the most and just about ate to death. We just had to lay on the couches for a while until we were able to wobble the long way to the taxi stop.

I spoke in church this week on gratitude. I'm not a big fan of having to use a translator. I have to go a few words at a time and wait for him to translate it to Kinyarwanda for the group. It gets really confusing.

Well... Love you guys!

-Elder C. Collison

 


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Trying to do the pics took up a bit of time so I have to be quick and hopefully you can make sense of this. I think we have the nicest apartment in the mission. It's pretty much like a good apartment from home. We have 3 bathrooms and 2 showers for the 4 of us and a filter for drinking water. Our place even has an excersize room and a washing machine. We have rope all over our flat to dry our clothes. But the best thing is the maids. We dont have to wash dishes or clean our floors or anything. :) We have mosquito nets over the beds but they arent really bad here. I got "born" in the spoiled place. Everyone's always jealous of the 8 missionaries that get to go to Rwanda :) My companion started running with me. We've gone a few times. Just working on going farther in the 20 min. we have. There's a girl in my branch that just got her mission call to England. It hasn't actually been too hot lately. I think the stormy season might be coming up. Crazy wind and some heavy rain every couple days. It's still quite warm and sticky though. And from walking all day my clothes are always soaked with sweat by the end of it. The Chatfields came to Rwanda last week. We had our Zone Conference Fri. and yesterday we had our tri-branch conference, where the whole church in Rwanda (about 180 people) got together. It was so great. I love all the people here and the Chatfields. Ok. If you still want the answers to the questions I missed just remind me next week. And dont worry  about how long your emails are. I like hearing more details about home :) Love you all so much!!

-Elder C. Collison

Email  February 9, 2015

The power here in the internet cafe keeps going out so that ate up a good chunk of time.. And the pictures still aren't working yet!

Mom. The bats. So there's like a huge cluster of bats that are always swarming around. I think they like change their place around every year. Now they're right by the president's house so I couldn't get a picture (not like I'd be able to send it anyways! grrr). But these bats are huge! All folded up they're about the size of a football. And flying they're like big eagles! Reminds me of Gregor.  :) 

The food's actually pretty good. I was a little nervous at first because of the differentness and unsanitariness, but I'm over that now. We pretty much have to do our shopping daily for the stuff that needs to be refrigerated. Never know how long the powers been out when we're gone during the day. We have a small shop right by us that we get pretty much everything at. I eat a lot of samosas. Kinda like an eggroll, meat and veggies in some sort of triangular wrapper. And there's a big store here in the city where you can find almost anything. A lot of American food, but it costs quite a bit. And when members feed you (it's happened once so far) you get a big plate of rice and beans. Also near us is a restaurant where you just fill you your plate as full as you can for 1200 RWF. I don't even want to know what a lot of it is.. so I mostly get a lot of rice, beans and chips(fries).

One last thing.. After the kids have all shouted Mzungu a lot, they'll all come up and shake your hand and say good morning. No matter what time of day it is. It's pretty cute.  

Love you guys!!

-Elder Collison

Email  Monday, February 2, 2015

Hi Family!

Every fast Sunday the Palmers have the 8 missionaries in Rwanda over for dinner. We went last night and had a good time and ate some real food :)

 Forgot to mention last week... Did you get an email from a random person? Elder K has some distant cousin that was in Rwanda for the LDS wheelchair donation thing. She took us out to dinner the other day and got a picture with us to send to you.

 

My apartment is in Kagugu and we work in the city -forgot the name of it.  So I have to take a taxi everyday for 200 Francs. I think that's just over a quarter? Sometimes it's a small bus and you have a little room but usually we get stuck in a van smaller than ours. It has seats for like 12 people but they fit in over 20. You're wedged into the bench and there's people pretty much sitting on your lap. And it's hot and everyone is sweaty and stinky. Pretty uncomfortable. And sometimes if we have to go a shorter distance we'll pay to be transported on a pedal boda. Just a bike with a seat on the back. That's actually kinda fun.   And we do a lot of walking.

 

All the missionaries' places here have running water and filters.

 

I'm not so picky with ties now. Having worn every tie like 4 times already, I've kinda given up :P

 

Hope ya'll get better! Love ya'll!! (Man what's happening to me? My companion is a big country fella. Think he's starting to wear off on me.)  Haha, Love you all.

 

-Elder Collison-the-Caleb-one 

Email Monday, January 26th, 2015

Family! It's been a long couple of weeks.

So we left the MTC Tues. morning. We had to get up at 4 so that we could be there by 6. Not sure why because the plane left at like 3 pm. But all the airport and flying stuff is a lot better in a group. We got to Uganda that night and drove to the mission home. Man, driving in Uganda is INSANE! I wanted to get a video of it but started to feel a bit sick. You should try to find a video of it somewhere. Maybe not you mom. I think you'd die just watching it. 

 

We stayed in the mission home for a couple nights then I flew out again. This time I could only take one thing of luggage. Somehow I was able to get mostly everything in it though. I got here and my companion is sick. So I switched off with the other set for the first couple of days. My apartment is super nice! I think the best in the mission.  Pretty much just like staying in a nice hotel suite. The other houses around aren't the best though. Some are like small huts with almost nothing and lizards crawling around the walls. I used an outhouse the other day! Just a tiny building with a hole in the ground and bricks on either side to sit on. Thankfully I just had to pee...

 

Church was really confusing. The speaker would say something and there would be someone else up there to translate it to French and Kinyarwanda. I think that's the main language here. I mostly hear a lot of just one word when I'm walking around. Mzungu It means white person. We'll be passing a group of kids running around and they'll see us and stop and stare, whispering it. And whenever we pass by someone you can hear them muttering it to each other. But the people here are great. Really open to the church. We even just set a baptism date with someone last night. The church has only been here for like 4 years.

I'm actually looking forward to hauling lots of wood when I get back. Maybe by then I'll be able to carry the logs on my head. The people here carry everything like that. There is no limit to how much they can fit on their noggins.