Part I: A Layman's Guide to Hiding Out in Uganda
To others, he said that he felt a "deep spiritual calling" to accept the position of District Leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint's Uganda Kampala Mission, for the third district in Gulu. After receiving the call, he'd written home to his parents that he was "blessed to share his time and talents with the Ugandans." Regarding the district's slow progress in bringing people to the Church, he said he felt confident that "it just takes time to develop a bond with the community and share with them the message of Christ."
But to himself, Connor McKinley admitted freely that his primary reason he came to—and remained in—Uganda was that he was terrified of returning home. He had been in Uganda for nearly ten months and had made a comfortable, if lonely, niche for himself. Uganda meant a reason to avoid his problems, issues he may have to face back in the States. It meant focusing on the mission in spite of himself, and training himself to shut off unwanted thoughts and avoid distraction. It meant shouldering a heavy load of emotional baggage, but Connor had convinced himself that he was happier (and stronger) because of it.
He was often ashamed of how selfish his reasons were for staying, even though he was still committed to his mission, but he couldn't help it. He was terrified of being faced with temptation, of having to hide who he was, or even worse, having the ability to be more openly 'himself' but still feel trapped by fear and shame, unable to reconcile what Heavenly Father wanted him to be with how He had made him.
The Church had long been hesitant to send missionaries to Northern Uganda because of the LRA presence and ongoing violence that plagued the region. But, there was no doubt that the people in the region could be helped and comforted by the gospel, and so it was decided in late 2009 that the Uganda Mission would add a third district to include the northern part of the country.
Elder McKinley and Elder Thomas, along with Elders Zelder and Michaels, were the first to be sent to Uganda Gulu District 3. Missionaries had been active in Northern Uganda and even Southern Sudan for years, but only for short visits, and primarily in a humanitarian capacity. The four young men would be the first the set up a permanent Church presence in the region.
They were posted together in the same borough in Kampala at the beginning of their service, and were transferred to Palaro—an isolated village north of Gulu town—two months later when the new district was established. This was the Church's first foray into tracting in more rural parts of Uganda; formerly, missionary work has concentrated in the two urban areas of Kampala and Jinja, partly due to the more than three dozen languages found in Uganda and the difficulty of communicating with locals, but mostly due to the guerilla violence and lack of basic resources in the outlying villages.
The establishment of Gulu as a branch in June 2008 (and later as a district) had been delayed time and time again by the Church because of conflict in the region. Not long before Connor and the others were sent to the village, most of the district's people were displaced because of the violence, living in temporary IDP camps or fleeing to the city at night. It was only in the months preceding the Church's decision to make the region into Uganda's third district that villagers felt safe enough to return to their homes.
Connor was, admittedly, nervous and a little frightened about the transfer when he was first informed of it by the Mission President. But he was mostly excited—he felt a calling to open up the new area, and it would be a welcome change from Kampala. The capital was chaotic, loud and too full of people. Ever since he had been assigned to Uganda before MTC, he'd had romantic visions of quiet, calm village life.
He knew they were pipe dreams, but still, he fantasized about a place where he could sit outside in the early evening listening to the wind hiss through the brush, where kindly old women in the market would help him pick out ripe bananas, where he could take off his shoes and roll up his black slacks and play soccer in the dusty street with the neighborhood children, and where he could go out at night and see the entire night sky illuminated over the acacia trees. It would be nice, he thought, to hide out from the rest of the world, just disappear.
The village was not as he had imagined. It was cacophonous. Everyone seemed to be yelling at everyone all of the time. Goats bleated at all hours, the market was a terrifying place to go, a fine layer of red dust covered everything indoors and out, and he was warned that if he went out at night he would probably get stabbed. When the four Elders first arrived at the village, they had, as their home and meeting house, a small red-brick building with a corrugated tin roof and a tattered curtain for a front door. There was no electricity or potable water. They had a small gas stove, a pit latrine and washbasin, four cots with foam mattresses, and a single chair. It was not ideal, but Connor liked it just the same. He had been called to serve, and he worked hard to make Palaro feel like a kind of home.
A month later, while they were still adjusting to village life, Elders Neeley and Schrader arrived, and four months after that Elders Davis and Church joined the district. Together, the Elders built a new meeting house in the village and began, slowly, to develop relationships in the community and try to get some investigators.
It was demanding work. At first they were treated like celebrities, but when it became clear that they were not there to provide money or material aid, just to share the gospel, most of the villagers developed an indifferent attitude towards the Elders. The language was isolating—while most everyone spoke English, the majority of people in the region spoke Acholi as their first language, and it's was nearly impossible to clumsily involve himself in a conversation with locals. They hadn't had any language training at MTC because there were no local educators skilled in any of the East Africa languages, so the Elders were left to study on their own. Languages were not his strong suit, and though he studied every day he failed to develop beyond simple pleasantries. His difficulty frustrated him to no end.
There were small victories. Over the first several months, the Ugandans would call out "Larok!" at him and the other Elders, a derogatory Acholi word for foreigner. However, as relationships with the villagers deepened, or at the very least the Elders' presence in the village became more commonplace, some would address him omera, brother. He couldn't help but grin every time someone called him OmeraMcKinley.
And then, there were the setbacks that tested his faith and resolve and made Connor regret ever embarking on a mission. Like when a man emerged from a cow shed brandishing a scythe and told him that if Connor didn't leave his property he would gut him like fish.
Or there was the time he and Elder Michaels were proselytizing north of the village and a gruff looking man, who was sitting with some others under a tree next to a petrol stand, saw the two foreigners down the street. The man whistled loudly and yelled out to Elder Michaels, "Hey! Larok! I gi nyamin chieg! [You have a beautiful wife!] Daheroe tero nyachira! [I would like to take her as my second wife!]"
The man roared with laughter. He laughed and laughed and his friends laughed and Connor's face blanched. He turned around abruptly in the middle of the road and started back the way they'd come. Elder Michaels jogged to catch up with him, and blithely chuckled, "Gosh, that guy really needs Jesus!" But Connor didn't say a word on the walk back to the house. He felt disgusting and exposed and violated and angry. With his jaw clenched and his fists balled up in his pants pockets, it was all he could do to keep from crying before he got into his bedroom.
That was the way life went in Uganda, a continually swinging pendulum: from feeling accomplished to feeling useless, from cheerful to crestfallen, from accepting and understanding to disdainful and insensitive. Connor's mood could change drastically in an instant, spurred on by the tiniest encounter: an encouraging chat with a villager while sitting outside of the clinic, a rude look from someone in the market, or a kind wave and toothy grin from a student walking to school. Navigating another culture, especially when they weren't exactly welcomed, was exceedingly difficult, and it took a mental and physical toll on the Elders. They sought solace in scripture, the successes they had teaching, and in their journals and group discussions. But sometimes they just plain had bad days.
Missionary life was certainly tough at times, but Conner prided himself on his ability to keep a hopeful and positive outlook. He was skilled at keeping his frustrations inside and focusing on the mission. If he took something too personally, he would get angry with himself for being distracted. He was chosen specially for the challenges presented by opening a new district, he was told by the Mission President, because of his "unwavering determination and optimistic persistence to share his faith". At the time, it was a heartening compliment, a confirmation that he would be able to do some good in a new place, where people had yet to be touched by the gospel.
But now, eight months since moving to Palaro, that sentiment sometimes seemed like a cruel taunt to Connor, like they had known all along that the region would be unreceptive, and he was sent there not because he would be able to save anyone but because he could 'hack it', the day by day by day apathy, defensiveness, rejection and even hostility they encountered while proselytizing and stick it out for two years.
Still, Connor humbly accepted the position of District Leader when he was called by the Mission President. He had hope that the Church could still make a difference in the region, and he truly believed that they just needed time to build spiritual relationships, but he often found it difficult to trust that Heavenly Father intended for the Elders to ever have success baptizing anyone in Palaro.
He'd been district leader for almost a month now, which involved reporting about their activities in Palaro, mentoring and training the other elders and leading study. He felt pressure to set a good example for the other Elders, but through prayer and diligence he believed that he would receive the necessary spiritual help. The added responsibility was fulfilling and Connor felt emboldened to be serving the mission in a greater capacity. But at times he worried that the other Elders could see through him, see that he wasn't the shining example that he should be, and that he was continuing to have thoughts that he just couldn't turn off.
Connor had hoped that in Uganda, where he could focus on the mission of spreading the word of Christ and saving souls through baptism, he would be able to more easily turn off such thoughts. He wasn't sure why he believed that. He told himself that it had worked pretty well, at first. He wasn't tempted here, at least not as often. The mission was most important and any other personal concerns were frivolous and distracting. But the thoughts never really went away.
He had struggled since fifth grade to understand the feelings he had for other men and to untangle them from the guilt and shame he experienced for feeling that way. He still didn't know whether it was Heavenly Father's will to suppress those feeling because they were bad, or be open and honest with himself because that's how He made him. He wasn't sure if Heavenly Father had made a mistake, if He had made Connor this way just to punish him, or if maybe the Church was wrong, and he shouldn't keep suppressing these feelings. The notion that the last explanation may be true scared him most of all.
He had never dared to share these thoughts with anyone.
When he was younger, in grade school, Connor used to lay awake in bed at night praying to Heavenly Father to be changed, to be made normal. He prayed for hours and hours, curled up clutching his blue comforter speckled with stars and constellations, pleading for answers: Why was he made this way? What was he being punished for? How could he atone? But he never received an answer. Instead, he got ghastly nightmares about an afterlife fallen from Heavenly Father's graces because of the sinful thoughts he had.
And so, in his late-teens, he'd stopped praying for change. He knew it wouldn't happen. His curse wasn't curable, as the Church taught. He chose to ignore that part of the doctrine, even though he couldn't fully escape the guilt. He felt a bit of relief being able to say to himself, Yes, this is who I am, but he had yet to understand how he could ever be comfortable or accepted as he was. He still felt sick and guilty when he had the thoughts, and couldn't imagine acting on any of the desires that he had. Well…he could imagine… That's why he just prayed for guidance and strength, advice on how to turn off these feelings for as long as it took.
In Uganda, it wasn't even an option to entertain these thoughts. And he'd never had the desire to do so. But back home, maybe someday, it would be OK to be himself, and that idea terrified him because he didn't know how. He'd spent ten years of his life denying that he was different, trying to ignore that he was the only one who wanted to kiss another boy, who wondered what it would feel like to lie next to someone who felt the same way and stare into his eyes and smile shyly and blush deeply and brush a stray hair behind his ear.
He was afraid of how people would judge him, afraid of being exiled by his family and the Church, afraid of going against God's will and most of all, afraid that he didn't really know who Connor McKinley was supposed to be. That after playing a role for so long and following the 'upstanding Mormon man's path', he didn't know how to be himself, were he brave enough to even take the chance.
There were so many things about himself that he had always been too scared to share—how dancing made him feel vibrant and alive and wonderful even though he quit at age twelve because his father said it was better to focus on soccer…how he hadn't actually kissed Susie Parks at the Sophomore Fall Formal even though he told people he had…his dreams of having a big Mormon family with a two-story house and a big yard and a vegetable garden off to the side…those gay thoughts he just couldn't shake—that he wasn't sure he'd ever be comfortable enough in his own skin to be able to be honest about himself. Hewantedpeople to know. He desperately wanted to share his life, all of himself, with someone, but he couldn't bear the consequences. He was just…afraid.
Uganda seemed like as good a place as any to hide out, postpone real life and ignore those fears. Despite the heat, the poverty, the reluctance of the locals to hear the teaching of the church, the bugs, the isolation, the dirty water, the dust, the sickness and the lack of real 'friends' outside of the other Elders (except maybe Nabulungi), he actually liked his post in Palaro. Life in Uganda was lonely and frustrating, but he took a strange comfort in the fact that he chose that loneliness, that he owned it and that it was preferable to the different kind of loneliness and isolation he felt back home.
Here, he had a purpose, and he could throw himself into his work, mind, body and spirit, avoiding his own worries. He couldn't turn off his thoughts entirely, but there were times when they faded into the background. The routine of missionary life soothed him. He liked meeting new people and forming relationships, spending time listening to their stories, bearing testimony, and working with the community in what little ways he could to improve education, health, sanitation, representation and faith. He truly believed that even if they weren't interested in learning about the Church, well, maybe they would be one day, and his and the other Elders' presence was a step in the right direction.
Connor was especially skilled at keeping spirits high among the Elders and maintaining focus on the mission. That's what the Mission President had praised him for, and, during interviews and mentoring sessions, what the other Elders said they appreciated most about Connor's leadership. They also called him a worrywart and 'flustered' (not to his face), but Elder McKinley always seemed to have hope that things could get better, and make the others believe in that hope. He wasn't close with the Elders—he always felt a bit isolated from the other young men, probably of his own doing—but he rationalized that distance to himself by arguing that it was necessary to being a good leader. Whatever he was feeling inside—even if that conflicted sharply with what he told the Elders—he could most always put a positive spin on it to cheer up the other missionaries. This meant that Connor was sometimes putting up a front and turning off his real feelings. It wasn't pleasant, but he knew it was best for the Elders morale if he was strong for the rest of them.
When he was fourteen, Connor's mother Eugenie told him offhandedly while flipping pancakes one Saturday morning, in a scolding yet loving tone that he just couldn't comprehend at the time, that he was selfless to a fault, putting others' happiness ahead of his own so often that he didn't take the time to care for his own feelings, and that that would catch up to him some day.
She deftly transferred two pancakes from the griddle to a plate and handed it to Connor, saying, "We've received a wonderful gift, the light of Christ, in order to share that light with others. But you have to have that love in your own heart first, and feel Christ's love within yourself… And believe in how much He loves you as you are…in order to let your light shine. Do you understand?"
Connor nodded with a mouthful of pancakes, but he didn't understand. He thought that sounded boastful; Mormon men were supposed to rule and share the gift through meekness, not pride. His mother was formerly an Evangelical Christian who had been baptized in the Church after meeting his father at university, and sometimes she used rhetoric that didn't quite fit with what he'd been taught growing up in the Mormon Church.
In Uganda, he often experienced what he referred to in his mind as the "MGS", the "Missionary Guilt Spiral". He would feel dejected for being unsuccessful in integrating into the community and reaching villagers with the teaching of the Church, but then he would feel guilty for focusing too much on his own feelings and not keeping his mind on the mission. And then he would feel bad for not caring about himself. And then he would feel bad about that, too.
He shared his feelings about the mission with the other Elders—they all experienced the MGS—but he impressed upon them how important it was to not let those feelings affect their work. Distracted missionaries were bad missionaries, and given the challenges of their particular post, they couldn't afford to be distracted. He urged them to pray for guidance and strength, as he did.