Bonjour ma famille !

It's always so good to hear from you.  Not a lot more to write about, but things are definitely happening! I'm so jealous you got to see grandma, it sounds like she's doing great and that you had a blast together.  I'm happy to hear about the kids, although I've only heard personally from Carly.  Get the others to write me please! I'm also happy to hear about Sadie, that's also comforting :) 

Good luck in Phoenix if I don't hear from you before then! How is the team doing? Any new stars? That's so crazy that Kimo was working the hoe for the gym, how funny! Did you get any pictures with him? What was the student's name who emailed you? I'd love to hear from him!

I get to play soccer on Saturday, we didn't get to play last week. I didn't get a guitar either, which I'll explain later. As for my health, I've been really good! Taking all my vitamins, etc. I eat super well. I'll also explain later!  I get to the cafe late enough, don't worry! I think if you use dearelder I can get something? My companion got something once. I'm not really sure, but it's never very reliable. Happy valentine's day to you too! It didn't really exist here haha. 

I’ve had an interesting week, but I can’t believe it’s already gone.  Time is already flying by super fast.  So fast that my hair grew like a quarter inch and I had to get a haircut.  So instead of paying the $4 it normally would have cost at like a “professional” hair salon, I just had my companion shave my head.  Don’t worry, it was a full inch, so it doesn’t look horrible.  It feels a lot better in the sweltering heat we’ve been having.  I went to look for a guitar after sending out emails last week, but the store was closed for the “fete des jeunes” holiday. I was pretty GAH! about it.  Anyway, I went to a zone party across the city and we played cards and had a big spaghetti/ice cream party, it was awesome.  In the other district’s apartment they have Congolese, Malagash, American and Canadian elders.  It’s pretty diverse around here, if you can imagine.

I’m just realizing that I may have already talked about all that, so sorry if that’s all just repetitive…anyway, we had a long week with a lot of lessons.  We do very little contacting outside of the taxi.  Most people either call us or pull us aside off the road.  I know I already mentioned that, but it happens every week.  One of our investigators is a woman who has been a pastor for 20 years, had a dream about two white guys walking in front of her house, and then the next day my companions walked by and she called them over.  It’s crazy, and that’s not the only time I’ve heard of that happening!  Most all of the people who want to meet with us have awesome stories about how they’ve been searching for the truth and we “happened” to be walking around their neighborhood, or something like that.

This week has been really cool because I’ve been fed a ton real Cameroonian food by the people we meet.  One of the dishes is called “bombolo,” or “baton de manioc,” which is this sort of plant that they crush into a flour, put into long leaves and soak for days in water.  Then they unwrap it and it’s like this chewy stick of white…stuff, haha.  It doesn’t have much taste, but it’s pretty good I guess!  We ate “mucom,” a mashup of pistachios and “piment” (the spicy plant here) wrapped around a piece of meat.  It’s really spicy, but really tasty.  Probably the most famous dish here is ndolé.  It’s a plant that’s washed really well, mashed up (are you seeing a pattern here…?) and washed, and mashed up and repeat for a while.  It’s kindof of like mashed spinach, but different taste.  Still good.  I haven’t actually eaten anything I don’t like!  We ate that on the side of bombolo, and a whole mackerel fried over a barbecue.  They put the fish in front of you, and you just dig into its sides with your fingers.  Sometimes our investigators bring out forks because they think we won’t eat with our fingers, and then they love it when we just use our hands.  They’re so funny. One of our investigators made us a meal one night, and it was so good.  She gave us a small avocado salad, mixed with carrots and lettuce and a sort of mayonnaise sauce, then a spaghetti omelet, with tomatoes and green peppers mixed in.  To drink, we had a hot cup of condensed milk (I think…) diluted with water.  It was actually super dang delicious.  That whole meal cost 950 Francs, or $1.90.  How crazy is that?! Everything is SO cheap here.  Another meal we had was a fish called mouru douce in a delicious tomato sauce, with ripe plantain and potatoes on the side. I had never eaten plantains before, they’re pretty good when they’re ripe! These were boiled, and I’ve had them fried also, which taste like sweet potato fries. There was also a sort of bombolo, but this was called “mintoumba,” because it was mixed with red oil and piment. I liked it better than the bombolo. We eat So. Good. All. The. Dayz. 

I forgot it was Valentine’s Day until my companion reminded me that night.  Missionaries don’t have Valentines anyway, so whatevs. 

I need to tell you about the dote here.  When a man wants to get married, he has to ask the parents of the woman, and they give him a list of things he has to buy the family before they can get married.  I mean for the parents, the uncle and aunts, the grandparents, everybody.  So a lot of people just don’t get married, or they spend forever working so they can buy all the things they need to get married.  It’s ridiculous! One man we met had to buy a car for his girlfriend’s parents before they’ll let him marry her.  If he just says forget about the stupid dote and marries her anyway, the family will talk to the local tribe leader and they usually send someone out to kill him.  It’s wacko.

I also learned that it’s best to fight off witchcraft between 1 and 3 a.m. because that’s when the demons come to take away your spirit, which is different than your soul.  I didn’t follow super well, but it was crazy.

One time I stepped in a stream of nasty, probably radioactive water, and I made a joke about my toes splitting into multiple toes, and that they were going through miTOEsis.  It was hilarious at the time.  I don’t know what you think, but I hope the corner of your mouth at least twitched a little bit.  Missionary humor here is…particular. 

Last night we were at a mangez-vous (when our investigator makes us a meal after a lesson, which is called a rendez-vous) and we kept hearing this meowing coming from inside the house.  So we were like, oh you have a cat? They said, no we just put it in a sack and hung it from the ceiling to eat later.  So that was nice.  My companion was like, ohh yeah you don’t wanna let the cat out of the bag about that.  And no one got it but me.  But yeah.  It was a little dark humor I guess.

We had a great day at church. In our Sunday school class, the teacher hardly has to talk at all.  He asks one question, 12 hands go up and the rest of the time is spent giving everybody the chance to give their opinion or build off of what someone else said.  It’s so funny.  Everyone talks.  Then in Sacrament, this woman talked about the women of the Church and what their role in raising families should be and it was just fantastic.  She brought up Proverbs 31, and that made me think about what I should be looking for in a future lady friend. One guy came to church with a “pogne de princier,” or “sanja” in Douala, which is basically an African skirt.  It was so cool, and I can’t wait to go buy one in the market.  I’ll be wearing one basically from then on.  Sanja, Chacos, shirt and tie.  Classic missionary attire. 

I learned two different quotes in French that I really like as well. One goes, “Ne quitte pas celui qui t’aime pour celui qui te plaît,” which means don’t leave the one who loves you for the one who pleases you.  Another is “l’homme est qu’il est, non ce qu’il a,” which means a man is who he is, not what he has.  Just something to think about.

There’s this local language called Douala, which is basically a tribal language.  They have a Bible in Douala, so I’m gonna learn how to do the Lord’s prayer and surprise some of our investigators.  It will be epic.

We haven’t had water for the last two days.  It’s been really rough, taking showers out of a bucket an all.  I use maybe two pints of water to wash and rinse myself.  I’ve never appreciated my shower more, or getting water from the tap.  Hopefully we’ll be able to find water somewhere so we don’t die of dehydration.  Thankfully our electricity is still on, for today at least.  The last several days it’s cut and we had to sleep soaking in sweat because our fans weren’t on.  On Friday night, they had karaoke in the bar right next to our apartment until like 3 in the morning.  It was so loud, it was impossible to sleep.  I even had earplugs and moved into the front room, where I was battered by traffic and late-night roamers on the main road in the front of our apartment.  We have to leave the windows and doors to our balcony open or else you could fry an egg on the floor (that was a little eggagerated, sorry…LOLOLOL), it gets so hot.  I heard so much about how the Africans love to sing, but no one told me that they weren’t very good at it, haha.  They sing their hearts out, but I’ve heard very few good voices.

I got to play a guitar for like 5 minutes today.  It was old, had crappy strings on it, and was really out of tune, but it just felt nice to cradle it in my arms for a while.  They lady working the shop came and took it away from me because we weren’t looking around at everything else, but my heart was full anyway, so I let it go.  I plan on coming back next week.

That’s about all that’s happening, other than the mangos that are starting to come into season.  I ate about 4 the other day.  I could’ve eaten 40 if we had them.  Nothing like you’ve ever tasted. Fresh off the tree and into your mouth.  And my Malagash roommate companion showed me how to cut them like a real African, so I’m pretty much pro.

I love you all, and I’m so thankful to be able to write back home.  I miss you.  I’m 4% done with my mission already, and before I know it will be 40%, and then I will only have 4% left!  I already can’t wait to hug every one of you.  Stay in school, don’t do drugs, and I’ll be back before you know it :)

Elder Garland