November 4

Gotcha ! I’m still in Cameroon, but my papers are all in so my visa should be here by tomorrow or so, and then I’ll be out either Wednesday or Thursday.  So the NEXT letter you get will be in Congo.

In the meantime, we’ve been having an awesome week.  On Wednesday I got to see my first convert from Akwa, Aldrich.  He was in town for a couple days (he’s been up in Baminda finishing things from school) and wanted to see me before he went back, so he came all the way across the bridge to say hi.  He gave me a little Thai coin when I told him I was leaving for Congo.  It was so nice, I’m sure he really just wanted to give me anything so I could remember him so he grabbed the first thing in his pocket haha. 

That night the Gaileys came over to drop off a present—Elder Graham!  He was in passing on his way to Kinshasa; the first white missionary to ever make it there.  Since he’s finishing his mission and there’s this big mission conference in Kinshasa where Elder Bednar will come to speak (our side of the mission is never invited…), President gave him special permission to come down for a couple days so he could meet Elder Bednar before he goes home.  At the same time, Elder Bednar will be dedicating Gabon, which we’re all super excited about.  Sometime in the near future, the first missionaries will set foot in Gabon to preach the Gospel.  There will probably be two Africans and two North Americans, so we’re stoked.

Anyway, Elder Graham stayed the night with us.  We bought him beans and beignets and Djino and we chatted with him all night.  It was so good to see him; it had been several months.  Now it will be another 14 before I see him again :(

On Halloween we got to walk around with Elder Graham and say goodbye to some of his old friends and converts.  Their reactions to seeing him were classic.  It was a testimony to me of how much everyone loves him, and how hard he worked to earn their love.  I would hope that I work as hard as he did to earn that same love from the people I teach!  In the end, we were with a woman that Elder Graham had taught for a long time and then passed over to us, who we baptized, who was so happy to see Elder Graham that she just started crying.  She was SO happy, I wish I had recorded her reaction.  The Gaileys eventually came to pick him up though, and then she started crying again, but this time out of sadness.  Then Elder Graham started to cry, and then he started to pray but had to wait like 30 seconds after saying a broken “dear Heavenly Father,” so he could finish.  It was one of the saddest moments of my whole mission.  We shared a teary-eyed goodbye and then he was gone.

I had made plans with some of my converts from Akwa to see them on Friday, so I was really excited.  We sat down with Marcelle as her niece Kedi made us spaghetti omelettes (seriously just try it.  Cook some spaghetti.  Take a handful and mix it with two eggs, some diced onions, green peppers, and tomatoes.  Add a beef bouillion cube.  Fry it and let its succulence rock your newly africanized world), which of course were to die for.  We said a sad goodbye but I promised her, and a lot of other people, actually, that I’d come back to see them. 

The following story is real.  The next NINE people that we went to go see were all gone, had just left, were on vacation, or something that inhibited me from seeing them.  Lolita—gone, Madeleine—left, Yvette—just left, Philémon—working, Christiane—didn’t answer the door, Albert—not yet home, Rose—no one home, Roméo—just left.  It was the saddest thing of my life.  Something cool happened though as we were trecking back and forth across Douala.  We ran into this woman, Jackie, who lived for 12 years in Maryland and had been back for 5 and spoke with a perfect eastern US accent.  She had been to the church before but still thought we were all polygamists, something we straightened away immediately.  She even called New York “the Big Apple,” which made my day.  Then, as we were still talking, Lolita, the first convert I went to see, bumps into me holding Marius’ baby.  She led me across the street to say hi/bye to Sonya, the baby’s mom, who told us that Marius had just left, which didn’t surprise me in the least.  I was just happy to see a friendly face.  We went to the church to use the bathroom but it was locked, but lo and behold there was Marius and Victor (Mbenghe, the father of Gaetan, who I worked with a bunch when I first got to Douala, who left recently to Lumbumbashi on a mission) so I got to say some more goodbyes.  They are seriously some of my favorite people on the planet.  If you read any of my posts on Sunday from when I was still in Akwa it probably says something about Marius and being amazing.  Anyway, we decided to go back and try to see if Albert had come home yet, and right before we got there we got a call from Elder Thibault saying that Roméo was home and that his daughter needs my email address.  Well Albert still wasn’t home, so we walked all the way back to Roméo’s and were confused until he told us himself that he had seen us walking into his house, so his first thought was “I need to buy them a fish!” which he proceeded to do.  The woman didn’t wrap them up fast enough though, and by the time he ran to the house we had already given up hope and left.  He then ran down the street to see if we were at another friend’s place, then checked another place, then started calling everyone he knew in the area to see if we were there.  Eventually he called his daughter who is at school in Buea (pronounced Boy-ah) to call the other elders to call me to tell us he was home.  Apparently while he was on the phone with her she reminded him that she needs my email address, probably to apologize for never making me banane malaksé which she had promised when she lost a bet I made with a card trick, muahaha. 

Anyway, although now cold, the fish was delicious, as well as the Djino and baton de manioc that came on the side.  We left Roméo’s on a full stomach and headed to the Tignyemb’s, the family I taught with Elder Zurcher, whose parents got married and who were all baptized the next day.  I was really happy to see them.  They’d started putting pictures of Christ around there humble “living room” and had bought some new hymn books and scriptures.  I had to wait a while for everyone to get home, but it was a very pleasant reunion.  Right when we were about to leave they forced us to stay to eat ndolé and boiled plantains which was delicious.  We got home the latest we had ever been due to traffic across the bridge.  As we were walking, I stepped in a gutter going across the sidewalk and nearly spread my pearly whites all over the cement.  Luckily my Spiderman reflexes allowed me to catch myself before my face met pavement.  It was still super embarrassing, but I think it was dark enough that not a whole ton of people saw.  It’s just unfortunate because I’m white and stick out like a sore thumb, or palm in this case.  Basically, three mangez-vous in one day.  Not bad, as Barack Obama would say.  In a meme.

Marlyse, another one of my favorite people on Earth, demanded that we come over the next morning because we didn’t get to see her the day before.  Since we were already going into town to see one of my old investigators get baptized (Greenville, an anglophone who lives with Dr. Samuel who comes from forever away to church and to be taught) we decided it would be ok to see her.  She’s the best.  She made a wicked good ndolé and fried ripe plantains which is my all-time favorite thing to eat I decided, cooked up macabo and unripe plantains and bought us a Coke and it was one of the best meals I’ve eaten in a long time.  She spoke to me in Douala for the majority of the time, but thankfully Yanu, another member, was there to help me work through it.  I learned a lot, but I still want a book.  I’ll be learning Kikongo soon enough, but I love Douala.  It’s such a fun language and is nothing like the other languages I’ve studied (did I mention I was studying a Russian/French dictionary for the last couple months?).  Anyway Douala is great, but learning it isn’t super convenient unless you’re constantly around someone who speaks the language and can explain different grammar rules and whatnot.  One could say, “alinghe se mba na na si bi topo na tila Douala bwam gita, nde emala onyolana na sengha son !”

We left Marlyse’s after seeing her kids Nina and Melchior for the last time and with more promises that I hope I can hold.  From there we walked to Greenville’s baptism, which didn’t actually start for another hour or so, but it was a great service anyway, and for some reason I was asked to give a short talk on the Restoration, which I did with pleasure.  The best part was when he bore his testimony at the end.  There is nothing so pure as the freshly acquired testimony of someone who has just been baptized.  I love it. 

Upon getting back we got to see Conrad and his little cousin, so that was nice.  We made a date to come back to help him with more yard work tomorrow.  That will be fun.  I’ll probably just end up pulling weeds again.

Sunday was fast Sunday, and that went super well.  I think there were 5 kids who got up to bear their testimonies, which is just about as pure as that of a new member’s.  Melchior surprised me by showing up to church in Bonabéri to say goodbye and he got up and bore his testimony too and talked about how much he loves me and Elder Zurcher and yes I cried, sorry.  Since it was my last chance to bear my testimony and to say goodbye, I shot up to the pulpit to bid the branch members adieu and to tell them what I know to be true.  For as rocky as my English talk was at the baptism (honestly, so hard to talk about the Gospel or pray in English, I had to get translations like 3 times), the Spirit led the words flow out super smooth in French, which I was very thankful for.  I got to take a lot of pictures with the members after church, even though I was sad that one of my converts wasn’t able to make it due to lack of means to get the hour and a half to church.  I probably won’t ever see her again, which breaks my poor little heart.  I had to call her and tell her that I wasn’t going to be there anymore and she promised she would do everthing she could to be at church, but in the end I didn’t get to say goodbye.  SAD.  I’m thankful for the people I was able to see though, and I’m looking forward to meeting new ones later this week!

 Other than that, we broke our fast with monster burritos that Elder Massé made with a half a kilo of beef roast and fajita sauce mix from Elder Davis.  DELICIOUS.  I ate 3 annnddd didn’t fall asleep till probably midnight, even though I went to bed early.  Then I woke up at 5:53 this morning and couldn’t fall back asleep so I just laid there and thought about everything and nothing.  Then we got up and played soccer and it was really fun and I scored and started writing a poem and now I’m here!  I was really sad to say goodbye to the other elders (again), but most of them are young enough in the mission that I’ll probably get to see them again.  So it was more like a, “till next time!”

I don’t exactly want to leave, but at the same time I’m excited.  I’m just glad I’m not travelling alone.  Elder Morin will make an awesome travel companion.  Speaking of companions, Elder Massé is seriously a champion among champions.  He took 4 years of high school French, spent 2 weeks there and speaks amazingly.  He’s really easy to get along with and makes amazing food.  He learns things ridiculously fast like guitar and Russian and Italian and Douala.  He’s hilarious and has really great taste in music.  He has a great vocabulary and acts his age.  He’s obedient and has an awesome testimony.  He’s charitable and runs extremely fast.  He’s patient with my stubborness and showers every day and night.  He’s a hard worker and knows random facts about everything, like the technical term for your first poop ever.  It’s been a short 2 transfers but I’ve loved it.  I’ve loved him, and I really hope I’ll see him soon.

In the meantime, I hope you all are having an amazing life.  It’s so fun if you make it fun.  So why the heck would you not make it fun?!  Sure there are down in the dumps times, but even those can pass quickly if you are seriously determined to make the most out of life.  One of my most favorite quotes is by Elder Holland when he said, “However late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines.”

I testify that that is true!  Go to Him who has felt all of your sufferings, afflictions and pains!  That is, if you want to make life the most enjoyable thing in the world :)

Also, I love you.

Elder Garland

October 28th

Dimenini everyone ?!

Oh my goodness what an awesome week.  We’ve been having a blast working with Elder VanAusdal as he waits for his visa to come.  You know how it works here, they tell you it will come on the 10^th and it doesn’t get there till next month.  So in the meantime, we’re just working hard as a thrio. 

I developed this pretty awful cold/cough that’s been with me for the last 5 or 6 days or so.  I don’t know how that works.  I work in 90-100 degree weather every day and I get a cold.  The only thing I can think of is that maybe I got really sweaty one day and came back into the air conditioned apartment (which really means that only our bedrooms are air conditioned, otherwise we’re sweaty cooks in the kitchen, but we can’t open the window or the awesome breeze will blow all our vegetable scraps and wrappers out of the garbage and make a mess). ANYway, it’s bothersome but I’m dealing with it.  Headaches aplenty.

We went home after Cyber and I made 160 cookies, so 32 per person.  Elder Thibault called me the cookie monster because I rationed them out so everyone gets an even share.  I was just upset because last time I only got like 5. So, cookie monster it is.

On Tuesday we talked with one of our recent convert families who are all under the age of like 25.  They’re the best.  They told us about how if you don’t do your homework the teacher makes you walk around the courtyard (full of broken glass and rocks) on your knees, or they whip you with a stick or any number of corporal punishments.  It’s ridiculous, but it makes America look insane.

Also, is there a word for someone who easily gets taken advantage of? Especially in the case of girls taking advantage of nice guys?  They call that mbutuku, but I couldn’t think of a word for it in English.

We had another great district meeting with the Gaileys and Sister Gailey shared a lesson on “Hastening the Work,” sharing a talk by S. Gifford Nelson.   I loved it.  Look it up!

Fidelis, an anglophone member took us a little behind his house to get a good look at the river.  Well, it wasn’t even like 2 minutes before we had left minor civilization and had entered complete jungle land.  It was like night and day.  No motos or cars, there was hardly a path for us to follow (but what was there was made out of cement that had been dumped in sacks and solidified) , tiny foot bridges with like 2 inches between the planks, and swamp land on either side of you for as far as the eye can see.  Even though we could barely even see the river, we had this incredible view of Mount Cameroon on the way back.  I’ll miss that mountain.  Look it up!

That same day, the power had gone off while we were gone and never came back on.  We basically didn’t sleep.  I rolled around in my sweat all night, only to finally get out of bed with the water gone, too.  It was horrible.  The worst part was the 2 kilos of meat that we had just gotten from the Gaileys the day before, which started to stink like rotting flesh.  Elder Gailey came to get it around 11, and then 10 minutes after he left the power came back on.  It’s so funny how demotivating something like that can be.  When you have an awful night’s sleep and then you have to go walk around all day, it’s really hard to convince yourself not to take a nap instead of studying or teaching.  It’s those days when you found out what kind of missionary you really are.  Diligence, or discouragement? Give it all or give it up?  I was happy to find that all of us still got up on time, did all our studies, and left on time to go do the Lord’s work!  There are certain blessings reserved for those days of diligence.  It’s funny, because ALL the next day we went from one ratez-vous to the next. 

Our first rendez-vous didn’t have a key to open her compound door for us.  Our second rendez-vous wasn’t there.  The third told us tomorrow.  The fourth had just left, the fifth wasn’t there, and the 6^th didn’t feel good.  We took a break to call all the people whose numbers we had received the last couple of days, as well as call all our recent converts who were out of town.  After that, we called and found a friend of ours to teach, and THEN that special blessing I was talking about came.  We went to see an anglophone friend of a member, who told us about how she had been raised with religious parents who forced her to come to church, where she saw pastors who didn’t live what they preached, which made her resent church to the point where she had given up on church and just stayed home by herself to read the Bible on her own.  Then she said, “but ever since I met you missionaries and since I started reading this book, I only feel peace and joy and I’m happy!”  So we asked what she thought those feelings meant and she said she thinks it means the church is true!  It was the best thing in the whole entire world.  There is nothing like an investigator that teaches herself.  I am in love with this work.  I could be spit on, beaten, burned, screamed at and whipped, but as long as I get just one person to say what Lucia the anglophone told me on Thursday then I would do it over and over and over forever!

Friday was split day.  I went out with Elder Davis into his sector and we got to see a ton of people.  The complete opposite of the day before.  The first guy was a member principal over this large school where several members actually work and whose kids attend.  We went in to visit one of the members’ class of 3 year olds and there was a naked boy running around who had apparently pooped everywhere.  It was funny because you would never, ever, ever see that back home haha.  He was playing with the other kids and it was totally normal.  For them.  In the principal member’s office he had a quote that said, in French, “Act as if everything depended on you, but behave yourself knowing that everything comes from God.”—Saint Augustin. Just some food for thought!

One lady we met with asked us if they “plant” snow like vegetables.  I was stunned.  She asked if it got to South Africa because white people brought it from America.  I really didn’t know what to say, so we had a science lesson and now she is up to speed with the water cycle. 

We stopped in to see a brother who is suffering from malaria (EVERYone is suffering from malaria.  You got a cough? Malaria.  Your tooth hurts? Malaria.  You’re having weird dreams? Malaria, AND a prophecy).  He asked us for a blessing, and asked me to give it.  Since I’ve been here I’ve noticed that the more I give blessings, the more I become confident following the voice of the Spirit.  Every blessing is different, and sometimes I’m worried that I screwed up or didn’t say something I wish I would’ve said, but every time I know it’s what that person needed to hear at that time.  I don’t know how to explain it, but my palms are less sweaty and my hands and knees don’t shake anymore haha.

There was the most beautiful scene off the balcony of a member’s house that night.  The sky was blue on top, but the elongated clouds across the sky had an undercarriage of orange and pink.  Bats and birds were flying across the sunset back to their nocturnal homes.  Mount Cameroon was looming in the distance between banana and palm trees that lined the sherbert horizon.  In the backyard of the neighbor in front was a group of Douala natives singing and dancing and chanting in preparation for the huge Douala festival the first Sunday of Decemeber.  I wish I had taken a picture, but I’m pretty sure it will be frozen in my memory forever.  I hope so, anyway! It was the epitome of my experience here in Douala.

On Saturday we went to Fidelis’ to help him pull weeds and move dirt around, for which he generously gave us sugar cane, bouille (boiled corn flour that you have to add 6-10 sugar cubes to for it to be edible), and let us hunt coconuts that we took home to make milk out of. 

Then we taught a half conscious Gustave who was on his 4^th day of fasting and had worked out that morning without drinking any water.  He was hardly comprehensible haha, but he’s gonna be ok.  Africa. 

We went to see our next rendez-vous who passed us as we were heading to his house, but we decided to go to his house anyway to say hi to his family (same family who told us about school punishments).  It was a good thing we did, because one of the sisters was really sick (malaria) and asked us for a blessing.  I got to do it again, but this time in French.  Same story as before.  Totally different blessing, but totally same Spirit.  Hopefully she gets better…I read a great talk by Elder Oaks about blessings and how it works.  I forget what it’s called, but it makes me feel less guilty if I give a belssing that doesn’t exactly go like I thought it would.  The will of God is something that everyone wishes he had slightly more control over haha.

Our last rendez-vous ended up teaching us about his philosophy on life, which is really Christ-like and all about service and not always accepting money for work he does and it would take an hour and a half to re-explain what he taught, but it was a beautiful way of living.  Very inspiring.  It was just a little hard to get focused when we first got there because he was playing a game on his computer where he was blowing up spiders with rocket launchers and machine guns, sooo yeah haha.  Africa.

Sunday was pretty great!  We had quite a lot of people at church.  Afterwards, one of the members invited us all over for burgers, rice and smoked pork, Pillsbury croissants, meat-filled beignets, homemade pineapple juice, and pineapple soaked in vanilla and lemon.  We probably ate at 1, and no one ate anything else the rest of the night.  They sent us off each with a sack of 5 more beignets.  It was the best meal I’ve head since…ever.  We learned that another member’s mom is 112 years old but didn’t get her national ID until she already had 6 kids.  Oh yeah she had 17 total.  Africa.

That brings us to today.  We went out and played soccer (another left footed, upper-right corner for this guy, to say nothing of the 29 missed shots, stack of horrible passes, etc…) and then the Gaileys came to give us transfer letters.  Elder Thibault has been here since April, so we all thought he was leaving.  Well guess what? He’s not, I am.  To CONGO.  To work with Elder Brockbank, who got here 3 transfers ago.  I’m filled with so many bittersweet feelings…no more speaking Douala, but I get to learn Kikongo.  No more guitar, but I heard there’s a sweet piano at the church.  No more soccer, but I guess they play basketball a lot.  I’m leaving a lot of people I’ve known for a long time, but I’m going down with Elder Morin and will probably get to see Elder Lundberg again.  New handshakes.  New French.  New people.  So many things that I won’t get to tell you about until I get there, which apprently is on Friday.  You can’t send packages there, so just send it to the same address I’ve given before and someone will bring it down to me if they ever come down from Cameroon.  I’m just working on accepting God’s will for me and trying to be excited about going to a new place. 

I hope you’re all having some sort of experience like that!  Once we learn to accept our situation (at least the ones we have absolutely no control over) and go with the flow, life becomes so much more carefree and easy to love.  So, just go with it!

 I love you all so much, you’re always in my thoughts and prayers.

Elder Garland 

October 21st

Good day to you all!

Well this whole mission thing keeps getting more and more interesting.  I’m still recovering from beach fever, but maybe by the time I’m totally cured we’ll get to go back.  We were all sunburnt and bronzed and beautiful all week, until the burns started to peel and the bronze turned back into normal white person in Africa look.

Anyway, we had this weird lesson with a less active member that we’ve been working with for a long time now where at first he was telling us all about his relationship problems and then gave us sweet rocks from Kribi and then he gave me a super legit vest that he had fitted for me.  It’s got this green and gold (go Bombers!) African fabric on the front, and the back is just a nice black vest fabric.  I love it.  I can’t wait to be able to wear it, because if I wore it around the sector I’m afraid I might draw attention to myself.  Well, I kindof already do that by speaking Douala with random people on the street and then everyone gets really excited and yells “makala!” which means white man and it becomes a pretty big deal so we have to get out quick.  I love it though. 

While we were at our member friend we got a phone call from Elder Gailey telling us that we’d be receiving a visitor—Elder Vanausdal, who just finished his 6 weeks at the MTC in Ghana !  He was supposed to go to Congo, but his visa didn’t go through, so they JUST started working on it.  The Gaileys said he’d be working with Elder Massé and moi for maybe 3 days, but we were all positive that he’d be here at least a week.  Five days later and we’ve confirmed our suspicions.  In fact, it looks like he might be here for much longer than that.  We’ll see though!  In any case, we had to rush home after our last rendez-vous to clean up the apartment a little bit and get him a bed set up and whatnot.  He showed up around 7 with the Gaileys, and there we were! There’s always this exciting air about new missionaries, which is hard to describe.  He’s adapting super fast, which I think comes from being in Ghana already for 6 weeks.  In fact, all the new missionaries are going through Ghana now, so no more super fresh zoobies experiencing serious culture shock when they get in the field.  I uh, ahem, like to think I wasn’t like that, but maybe I was haha.  Hey, you can’t blame me for being surprised when you see some one standing right on the side of the road peeing in a bush!

Anyway, we had a blast talking the new elder’s ear off, and even though he didn’t say a whole lot we were still excited to have him there.  He’s from Alaska, took 4 years of French in high school so speaks and understands pretty well, used to work at a reindeer farm, wrestled and played baseball, and has a girlfriend named Lauren.  Now you know everything!

Our first day with him may have been one of the most productive of my entire mission thus far.  We got to see every rendez-vous that we’d planned, contacted several people in between, and had an awesome time taking Elder Vanausdal through all the twists and turns in the sector.  It was just super fun.  We met the friend of one of our members who was really interested, met the brother of another member, set a baptismal date off the hip, etc. etc. etc.  Missionary mode—activated.  Annnddd I’m officially 10 times more nerdy than when I left.  There’s just something about missionary work…I don’t know.  Try it sometime, you’ll know what I mean!

Then our second day was fun but not so productive as Thursday.  We got to help our less active friend pull weeds and clean up his back yard for 4 hours this time (opposed to the six hour project we had a couple weeks ago in his front yard),  and I gave him my Manchester United jersey as a thank you for the vest, which he just loved.  We came home, cleaned and studied and went back out to teach a member’s sister, but no one responded to all our callings at the big gate in front of their compound (a lot of “houses” here are closed in one next to the other in a gated area in the middle of a “neighborhood”).  There was a big cement wall around the perimeter of the compound with some decorative rebar sticking out the stop, so I jumped up to see if I could see anyone, like any creepy missionary would do, and as the cement wall created new divits in my forearms I found our investigator standing a little bit inside, outside the door of another house.  I said, “Marie-Noelle, bonjour!” and she looked up and laughed and said she was waiting for the key but the person wasn’t home, so I dropped down off the wall (which she explained later to her sister as me “falling off the wall”) and we talked through the gate for a couple minutes and told her we could try to come back later.

We met with Marie-Anne after, who was preparing to get baptized the next day, to encourage her to stay strong despite the persecutions from her friends and cousin who thinks we are a secret dragon cult that eats babies.  I don’t even…anyway, she was really excited.

After our somewhat catastrophic baptismal interview with one of our other investigators we pushed his day back and started reteaching him basic principles that apparently he hadn’t understood, and we quickly got to the root of the problem—he just wanted to be able to defend himself with Bible scriptures when people asked why the heck he joined our church.  We did our best to help, but in the end we just told him that people had to understand that if they want to know why we believe what we believe then they need to ask God Himself if these things are true, and He would tell them.  He understood, and from there we were able to reset the date the day before his birthday, which means he’ll be confirmed on his birthday.  He was so excited to hear that.  Imagine a 50 some year-old guy being excited about his birthday haha. 

On Saturday we were waiting for the baptism when we found out that our less-active friend’s house had been broken into and all his money stolen, all in the morning when he left for work.  He was really shook up about it, and we didn’t know how to help.  It’s interesting, because he ended up telling us “yeah I don’t want problems with anyone, so I’m just gonna let it go and move on with life.  Before I joined this church I would’ve seeked justice and gone out for blood, but I just want to be a good example of Jesus.”  It was incredible.  Turns out his girlfriend stole half the money, and he still forgave her when she came begging for forgiveness—even though she never gave him back the money. 

Then we held Marie-Anne’s baptism, and it went flawlessly.  A lot of members had left to be with our recent convert Hortense at the funeral of her daughter/sister/cousin (it’s so hard to know how Africans are actually related…) who had died in a terrible car crash a week ago, but we still had a ton of people show up to support Marie-Anne.  Most people in the branch thought she was already a member because she’s been coming to church since like, Februrary or March, so they already considered her as a sister of the church.  It was so cool to see all of them there to support her.  Afterward we had little sandwiches and cups of teeth-staining folléré, this deep, deep red juice they make from a plant leaf and lots and lots of sugar that is to die for. 

We stayed after to talk with another recent convert who has read the Book of Mormon more than most people I know, and we had a great talk with him about what he wants most in life, which was to be the father he never had in his own life.  It was really sweet.  I took notes because I need to remember how to be a good dad when that time comes in what seems like forever from now.

Church was great.  Lots of new faces, all of them in our sector, which currently leaves us with absolutely no time to see anyone.  It’s the best problem we’ve ever had.  We spoke with Hortense after church about what had happened, and she was just so sad and cried the whole time and my poor little heart was breaking the whole time she told us about how she had tried to introduce the Gospel to her but now it was too late, but we had an awesome lesson about the plan of salvation and how she’ll have an opportunity to learn the Gospel now in the afterlife and that she still has a chance.  It was great, and I cried during her prayer at the end because she is so humble and I can’t even explain why exactly but you know how I am.  There’s something about someone who is so broken but is so determined to search for love and comfort from her Heavenly Father in an earnest and sincere prayer.  I had never heard anything like it; it was really moving.

We walked towards home and stopped by a members house and shared a lesson with several members and investigators who were already gathered together in study.  Elder Vanausdal had been pretty quiet during all our lessons except for when he would get called on to pray, and then during this last lesson someone asked him what he thought about faith and he just went off in great French and blew my mind, so he’s being quiet I think.  Then right around the corner from home this lady stopped us and gave us free ice cream and when we introduced ourselves she was like, oh yeah I've been to your church in Texas, it was wonderful!  Mind blown.  We gave her our number and invited her to come to church next week but she's going back to America in a month so we don't know what will happen but it was just really cool 

Two hours of weekly planning later and we were making dinner and getting ready for bed.  We got up early today to go play soccer with the Bonapriso elders, and after an hour and a half we ended up playing American football, too, with a ball that someone had brought from I don’t know wear but it was so fun.  In soccer I scored a goal off a steal in their half, but missed about 524 other opportunities but it’s ok because we still had fun.  I’m writing my name on the post before I leave, because I definitely earned it with all the times I’ve nailed it. 

That’s about it for the week!  I hope everyone who reads this is healthy and loving life, but if you’re not then take the example of dear Hortense and instead of drawing away from true happiness, which is only found in the Gospel of Jesus-Christ, EMBRACE IT!  Turn TO God and seek guidance from Him!  He knows you better than anyone else on the entire planet and knows exactly what you need to hear or do to make your life so much better.  Think about what your Savior would tell you.  I imagine it would sound something along the lines of what is found in Matthew 11:28-30 :)

I love you, and I’m praying for you.

Elder Garland