First post..Africa!

Ok so finally I can write!

The last time we were here, the lady couldn't get us the username and password, so we sat at the computers and played solitaire for like an hour before finally she got us what we needed, but by then we needed to go, so we planned on coming back today.

ANYway, I had an awesome trip here.  I'm currently in Douala, Cameroon, and it looks like I might be here for most of this year, unless I go to Gabon during the summer, which will open up for missionary work!  Other missionaries go to Yaounde in Cameroon, or Pointe Noire in the Congo.  Everywhere they go it's the same story - lots of awesome people ready to receive our message.  The Church is growing so fast here.  It's Africa's time!  Otherwise, the culture is pretty much the same too.  I see a white person every couple of days, usually it's a Frenchman here on business (Douala is like the economic capital of the country, and Yaounde is the political center).  It's super humid, but the sun isn't very bright in the sky.  It's really polluted here.  Their French can be really hard to understand sometimes.  There's Anglophones and Francophones here, so sometimes we teach in English and sometimes in French.  There's so much I want to write about, but I left my fetchin journal at home so I can't go back and look at notes! 

I'll start from when I left the MTC.  I got up at 3:30 in the morning and met up with Elder Fernandez on the bus to SLC.  We just so happened to be one gate away from one another, so we got to hang out together until he boarded. I'm so excited for him.  I waited a couple hours to fly out to D.C., and by the time we got in it was like 5:30 p.m.  I had Potbelly's for lunch, which was SO good, and I got to talk to this awesome guy who owned a concrete company and built basic structures all over the 3rd-world for homeless people to live in.  He was great. I was super glad that I got to call home, even though I lost all my quarters.  I hope that collect call didn't cost too much ;)

My flight from D.C. to Brussells was really interesting.  I might a group of people headed towards Douala who were doing missionary work there, but more of the building houses and giving shoes and glasses away.  I talked to two sisters maybe a little younger than myself about what I was doing, and gave them a Book of Mormon.  They were pretty sold in their own conviction, but it was great just talking to them and answering all their questions.  I didn't really sleep this whole time, so by the time we landed in Belgium I was whipped.  I met some Cameroonians women while I was waiting for my next flight to Douala, and they looovveedd talking about religion.  I shared with them everything I could about Mormons and what we're about, and they ate it up.  I wish I had a BoM to give them, but I never picked up a French one at the MTC.  Hopefully they'll just remember my words and look into it themselves!

We talked like the whole flight, which means I didn't sleep then either.  I was running on 30 hours by the time we landed.  

The country side changed drastically in comparison to the snow-capped mountains I left behind.  Jungle vegitation and winding rivers welcomed me as we touched down in the setting sun.  It was beautiful.  It wasn't until I stepped off the plane that I was hit with a literal wall of heat.  I immediately started sweating through my pants and shirt.  The blanket thrown over my shoulders didn't help.  I went through customs in a breeze (so different than back home...), and when I didn't see anyone waiting for me in the correspondance area I didn't assume the worse, but went to get my bags in this huge room filled with hundreds of people surrounding the baggage claim.  There was a balcony looking over the floor, but no one who seemed interested in a solo white missionary.

About 5 minutes after setting up next to the belt, it started whirring and eventually started kicking out bags.  Another 5 minutes, and everything went dark.  The power in the whole building shut off, and we were all stuck in the sweltering heat, just looking around at nothing.  I had eyes on me the whole time it felt like.  No one was coming to get me though, and that started to worry me.  Another 10 minutes and the bags started coming out again.  I got mine and decided to take a lap around the building just to make sure I wasn't completely alone.  I was only three quarters of the way done when I saw two, out of place white folks standing on the balcony with a badge, waving at me.  Relief.

They met me out front, where some guys tried to take my bags and wheel them away, looking for some change.  I had to insist on taking them myself, but they followed us all the way to the parking garage, where the lights went out again.  There was just enough for us to find the truck and pack up and drive away.  The senior couple was really nice, and asked a lot of questions about me.  They've only been here 5 months, had zero French training, and have just been loving it.

Once on the road, I was immediately disoriented.  There was a mad rush of traffic coming in seemingly every direction.  People were on motorcycles and cars, bikes and walking around.  The motos weaved in and out of traffic, as did the cars.  There are basically zero rules when it comes to driving.  I didn't see a single speed limit sign, or any sign for that matter.  There were no dividing lines down the middle of the street.  People were honking at every turn, as if that's how they communicate here.  Turns out, it is! I'll talk about that later though.

So finally we got to my apartment, where the couple had brought ice cream and rootbeer for rootbeer floats.  The elders in the apartment (Elder Lafleur and Elder Zurcher who are both from Utah are my trainers until Lafleur leaves next week, then the other companionship is Elder Adriamamanji from Madagascar and Elder Lavering from Lake Stevens, Washington!) welcomed me with open arms.  They were so excited to meet me that they made cheeseburgers to welcome me.  It was about the last thing I expected to eat my first night in Africa.  We stayed up for a while, eating and visiting, until the senior couple left and I had to unpack.

The apartment is so much bigger than I excpected, too.  We live in one of the nicer areas of the city.  There's no air conditioning, so we use fans every night to blow air on us and keep the mosquitos away.  That hasn't always worked.  I have probably 10-15 bites on my feet and ankles, but it's way too hot to sleep with my blanket over me.  The mosquito net makes it hotter, too.  My first night, the power cut off right as we were getting ready to shower, so I was preparing to bucket shower when we said a prayer and it came back on in the middle of our prayer.  It was awesome.  So I took a cold shower, and have only taken cold showers since I got here.  Not because there's no hot water, but because it's so freakin hot, all day, every day, in the apartment and outside, that it just feels so good to take a cold shower.

I didn't sleep too well my first night, and hit a big wall of fatigue the next day.  Thankfully we were having a zone conference, so we didn't have too many things planned for the day as far as teaching goes.  We did get to see some people, and I was blown away by the poverty.  I mean, I pretty much expected it, but when you're sitting down in a 10x10 foot house, where the bed barely squeezes between the wallsm clothes hanging across the ceiling to dry, and there's only a tiny fridge and stool to take up the rest of the space, you really start to realize in what circumstances these people are living in.  I was in another "house" whose "walls" were just wrapping paper nailed into dirt.  Roofs are usually made of tin or straw, as are the walls.  They just have so little, it's astonishing.  Coming back to my own apartment is bad enough, and I already dread coming back to the United States.

The people are wonderful.  They're so friendly; almost everyone says hi to us on the street, and most want to shake our hand.  They have this special handshake where they snap fingers using the other person's middle finger.  I'll have to show you when I get back.  I love talking with them.  They're engaged immediately.  A lot of them come up and talk to us without any push other than their genuine curiosity.  It makes contacting pretty easy.

We take a lot of side roads and back alleys, if you can even call them that, and I'm amazed at how well my companions know the area.  They've been here for several months though, so I guess it makes sense.

I got to Skype the mission president on Friday; he was in South Africa with his wife who had been sick but got better, so he wasn't able to meet with us in person.  He and his wife are wonderful people.  The rest of the day we spent meeting with previous rendez-vous my trainers had already planned out, and everyone we met was awesome.

Getting to and from our appointments is a little ridiculous.  There's about a zillion little yellow 5 seaters rolling around, and you just wave one down, yell out where you're going, how many people are going, and how much you're willing to give for it.  If the driver accepts, he honks. If he doesn't, he keeps driving.  It's just chaotic, all day.  But it's so cool.  I can't believe I haven't been in an accident yet, the drivers are so wreckless.  They drive on the other side of the road until someone is coming at them, but we always seem to make it to our appointments alive.  Thank goodness for silent prayers.  Each trip costs us like, 500 francs.

The currency is the Cameroonian Franc, although they share money with Gabon, Congo, and the Central African Republic.  It's about 500 francs to the dollar.  So when I got here they handed me 10,000 francs for spending money, which is like $20.  It makes buying things simple; you just multiply by two and take off three zeros haha. An hour of internet time is 500 francs, which is awesome.  Food is relatively cheap, too, unless you go into Casino (which is French and reminds me of France so bad).

There are push-up lizards, as Elder Lafleur calls them, that run around.  They're about a foot long, and they're always bouncing up and down on their forearms.  It's actually pretty comical.  Then there's this bird that always sings the same song, which I wrote down in music notes but can't read what I wrote. If that makes sense...I see a few chickens here and there, a couple raggedy dogs, some small birds flying around.  other than that, there's not many animals in the city.  Lots of avacados, papaya, and pineapple.  Mangos are starting to fall off the trees, and we almost got hit by one as we were running the other day.

We excercise every morning, starting with a run around the block, and then using this super old weight bench made of broken plywood and a really rusty weight bar, with concrete blocks on the end of it.  It works though!  I want to play soccer sometime with the locals, so maybe I'll get to do that on Saturday morning when they get together.

Elder Lafleur makes us all dinner every night, and we just pitch in money to get food on P-Day for everything we need for the week after we create a menu. I've been eating really well, and haven't gotten sick.  It's bound to happen at some time though, right...?  We even grind up peanuts and make peanut butter.  We have a water filter in our apartment, so that's nice.  We fill up tons of 1.5 liter bottles and keep them stored in case our power goes off, which it does at least once every other day.  I've gone to sleep 3 times so far with no fan on me.  It's really hard to fall asleep, and I almost always wake up in the middle of the night soaking in sweat. C'est la vie!

Church was really cool.  The members, and even those we teach are always so sincere in their prayers.  I love it. We have this shoddy organ that one of the members kindof knows how to play, so sometimes we just get a starting note and sing the hymn a cappella. 

P-Day was kindof stressful yesterday.  We cleaned our apartment, studied for a couple hours, and then went out to teach someone, but they asked us to come back later.  So we went to lunch at this restaurant to eat shwarmas, which are like, Lebonese bread wrapped around cooked meat and peppers, and it's wicked good.  It only cost 1000 francs.  We spent a long time shopping because we had to go to different stores to get stuff, and then the internet didn't work, and then the place where I wanted to get a guitar was closed, so we'll go back today.  I've been dying without it.  I really hope they have something for me...

Anyway, that's about it! My first 6 days here have been incredible so far.  I can't believe I have over 700 more to go haha.  It seems surreal, but I know the time will fly.  What a weird thought that is.  Anyway, I love you all so much and I'm so excited to write back already.