A/N Please read and review! ;)

Chapter 2

Kevin woke to the feeling of somebody shaking him.

"Huh? "What?"

"Elder Price –we're here." Arnold Cunningham's voice slowly filtered through his muddled thoughts.

And then it all came back to him. He had just arrived in Uganda, the place he'd be spending the next two years of his life in. Kevin opened his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, trying to make it look a little less disheveled.

"That's great Elder Cunningham – now would you please quit shaking me. I am awake. "

Arnold Cunningham pulled back his hand looking a little sheepish. He stood up and went to retrieve both of their trolleys from the overhead compartments.

After leaving the plane and making it through immigration in one piece, Kevin still didn't know how exactly they had managed that, the two elders were now sitting in the bus that had been mentioned in Kevin's travel itinerary. It hadn't been quite easy to figure out where to go and after they had finally managed to find the right bus stop, the bus itself had been running late – needless to say that hadn't surprised Kevin at all.

Now Kevin found himself sandwiched between an (again) rambling Elder Cunningham and… a goat on the other side. The fact that the goat was proving to be the less strenuous travel companion was saying a lot about Elder Price's current state of mind. The fact however that he was still feeling slightly sleep deprived helped him tune out his mission companion who had apparently decided to give him an exact play-by-play of the first Star Wars Movie after Kevin had slipped up and told him that he hadn't seen it yet.

Kevin on the other hand was trying to focus on happy thoughts (Orlando!) while at the same time trying to ignore the strong smell from his right.

Thankfully Elder Cunningham had decided to give him a moment of peace while he went ahead to gather their bags from where they have been stowed on top of the vehicle. Kevin slowly stood up and made his way out of the old and now empty bus. It appeared as if the vehicle had reached it's final stop for the day.

He nodded a thanks to the other Elder when Elder Cunningham handed him his small piece of luggage and went to follow the road that seemed to be leading straight to the town center. After a few steps he noticed due to the lack of incessant babbling that Elder Cunningham hadn't been walking next to him but before he could turn around to look for his mission companion, the other Elder had caught up to him. A video camera in his hand.

"Here we are, in KIT-GU-LI UGANDA! What'dya think about Uganda, Elder?!"

Kevin tried hard not to roll his eyes when Cunningham practically shoved the camera into his face. Instead of saying what really was on the tip of his tongue, he went for the more considerate option.

"I think it's really different."

"YEAH IT'S DIFFERENT!" Cunningham practically shouted. Without really noticing they had finally made it into the town center. Kevin tried hard not to stare at the obvious poverty displayed in the state of the little huts but also in the things the people around him were wearing. Just before he could ask his mission companion what he thought about their mission location, he found himself to be cornered by two scary looking African men. Men that were holding huge guns.

"WHAT WE GOT HERE?" One of them asked while invading Kevin's personal space. "MAYBE GERMAN? BRITISH?"

Kevin decided to go with the most common used phrased of the mission training center.

"Hello!"

"Oh, American." The way the man was looking at them did nothing to calm Kevin's thoughts. He tried to explain their situation.

"Uh- we are supposed to meet a mister Mafala Hatimba." Suddenly his bag was ripped from his hands, whereas the other man took possession of Elder Cunningham's things. He wondered for a short moment why nobody had warned him of these drug scans but decided to let it go. Maybe these two men weren't the politest of inspectors but they did seem to take their job rather seriously. Even though the way his dress shirts were being thrown through the air made him wrinkle his nose in disgust.

"We don't have anything illegali, sirs." He tried to break the tension but of course nobody was listening. Cunningham who was still holding on to this annoying video camera of his, didn't make things any better by pointing out:

"Here are some men with guns looking through our bags."

"Shut up!" The man who had been talking to him earlier, ripped the camera from the other Elder's hands.

Then the second man chimed in.

"We take those bags."

"WHAT?" Kevin's face lost all color.

"This is your TARIFF to the General!"

Apart from his clothes, his hair styling products were also in his suitcase and he was not giving those up. Only over his dead body.

"The General?" he exploded "HEY WAIT A MINUTE!"

Sadly his dead body seemed like a valuable option to the two men who were now pointing their guns at him.

"YOUSHUTTHEFUCKUPYOUWANNADIE?!

Kevin had never been this scared in his entire life. Nothing was worth getting a bullet imbedded into his brains on their first day of their mission. Nothing!

"Okay! Okay"

If Kevin hadn't been so scared out of his wits, his mission companion's "WHYAREYOUDOINGTHIS?" would have elicited a rather smart remark from his side but he stood frozen and could nothing but watch the men leave…with their bags.

Just then another man entered the scene.

"Oh there you are, I've been looking all over for you. My name is Mafala Hatimba."

Kevin recognized the name of the town chief and since the life threatening situation seemed to have passed he started doing what he did best, when he was stressed, complaining.

"These two mean men just took our bags."

"Yeah, you must be very careful here, now let's get going."

"I don't think you understand sir. A lot of important stuff was in these bags. Don't you think we should call the police?" Kevin tried very hard to hold back the temper tantrum that he could feel from rising up within him."

Hatimba didn't seem the slightest bit disturbed. "Hasa Diga Eebowai."

Before Kevin could ask what on earth the other man was talking about his companion joined the discussion.

"What?"

And as it turned out, Kevin really didn't want to know the answer to that question.

After setting down the ground rules for theirs, well mostly for Cunningham's behavior towards his daughter, the town chief had left and after leading them to the small missionary hut, Nabalungi, had done the same.

Kevin was still reeling from the knowledge that apparently not only had he been stuck with a man who could easily quote each line from the Lord of the Rings trilogy but thought that Moroni was an Italian pasta dish but he also seemed to have been dumped into a town that said "F*** you" to Heavenly Father at least 3 times a day.

Well, wasn't that just great. He gave himself an inner shake. He couldn't give up. He was Elder Price after all and he was certain that the other elders waiting inside were completely normal and probably had already started baptizing a bunch of Africans. Those Africans must have been out of town when he and Cunningham arrived. Yes that was a perfectly good explanation he could live with at the moment. He squared his shoulders, gave his mission companion another look asking him silently to behave and walked through the door. The lights were on but there was no one in sight.

"Hello?"

"The new recruits are here." A voice called and suddenly Kevin found himself surrounded by a lot of friendly faces and from the way they were looking at him, beaming and hopeful, he could tell they had heard of him before. This did make him feel a lot better instantly.

This feeling however only lasted through the introductions but when he found out just how little success the other elders had had since first getting here almost a year ago, Kevin stood up from his place on the little sofa and started pacing.

"Are you alright buddy?" Elder Cunningham was beside him in an instant.

"Yeah", Kevin exclaimed but his voice didn't sound reassuring, not even in his own ears. "I am just feeling a little confused right now."

"Oh confused", the other elders exclaimed.

"This is completely natural", Elder McKinley pointed out, grinning happily at him. Kevin threw him a look. The zone leader didn't seem the slightest bit perturbed. Quite the opposite since he just continued speaking.

"But your mission has officially started now, so you must do what we've all done."

"Oh boy", Kevin thought to himself. It seemed like he was in for a long night.

His mission companion's snores were the first thing that Kevin noticed when he came to. He groaned and tried to block him out but to no avail. The fact that his throat seemed parched didn't help with getting back to sleep either, so Kevin silently declared it as a lost cause.

He decided to get up and get a drink of water, technically he wasn't supposed to get up before the official wake up call, but since the alternative was to suffer through another Cunningham induced torture session, so before he could change his mind again he carefully got out from under the thin blanket and made his way to the door. The moon that was still up high in the sky made it a lot easier for him to navigate.

He walked to the small kitchen sink and it took him a moment to locate the cups that had been neatly stacked in the shelf right above it. Kevin didn't know why but he suspected this to have been McKinley's handiwork. He may not know much about the other elder yet but the redhead did strike him as somewhat of a neat freak. Kevin couldn't help but grin a little. He took a small blue and a little chipped mug out of the shelf, filled it with some water and sat down at the small kitchen table, facing the window. It was still completely dark out and for the first time in a while, Kevin found himself relaxing to the absolute peace and quiet around him.

Kevin didn't know how long he sat there and it might have been possibly that he had dozed off but suddenly he was abruptly awaken by someone giving out a screech. Kevin stood up, not entirely sure what to do.

The screeching had come from Elder McKinley's and Elder…well Poptarts' room. As sudden as it had started it stopped though, so Kevin wasn't entirely sure if he had imagined it. None of the other elders seemed to have been awaken by the terrible noise though, so maybe he had made it up in his mind. He carefully walked over to the door, where the noise had come from and pressed his right ear against it. Nothing. No wait there was some quiet shuffling and suddenly Kevin nearly toppled over when the door was opened from the inside. He nearly lost his balance but was prevented from falling over by two strong arms holding him up. Kevin felt heat shoot up his face and managed to find his balance. He was trying not to look the other elder in the face.

"Thank you" he mumbled, still feeling somewhat embarrassed.

"No worries," the other man answered. Kevin couldn't help but sneak a glance and he saw two green eyes studying him curiously while Elder McKinley's mouth twitched as if he was trying not to smile. Then the other elder spoke again.

"Uhm, what exactly were you doing outside our door, Elder Price?"

"I…uh…got lost?!" Kevin had never been good with coming up with believable stories on such a short notice and one look from the redhead told him, that he hadn't fooled him in the slightest.

"There are exactly three doors in this corridor, yours, mine and the one to the bathroom." Elder McKinley explained patiently as if he was talking to a small child.

"I sleepwalked." Kevin tried again, his inner voice just shouting at him to shut up right this second.

"You got lost sleepwalking?" The mere twitch of Elder McKinley's lips turned into a full-blown grin and even though Kevin still felt embarrassed to the core he couldn't help but notice that Elder McKinley did have a rather nice smile. At least when he wasn't looking at him like he had completely lost it.

"I think I might just go back to bed", Kevin finally conceded. "Big day tomorrow and everything." He was really starting to sound like his mission companion.

"Good night." Elder McKinley called after him and Kevin tried to ignore the snickering that followed him all the way back to his own bedroom.