Nkela ?! How are you?! I realized I could start every letter home for the next 5 years with a new way to say hello, how cool is that?! Anyway, another crazy week gone by.  Next week I will have been on my mission for 4 months already.  Time is so slippery here.  It really isn’t a long time at all (although at times it may feel like it). 

Last Monday was a great day because after we left the cyber café we went to this shop where they sell fixed up American stuff and bought a guitar for a member.  This guy, Romeo, just shells out money to anyone and everyone, but he’s not even rich.  He just loves everyone, and says that every time he gives out money the Lord puts some back into his pocket, so he’ll just keep giving it away!  They were selling the guitars for 100,000 CFA (about 200 dollars), but I watched on the side as one of our recent converts bargained the price down to 80,000 (if you’re following the math, that’s 160 dollars ;) ).  It was pretty incredible, but that’s how buying anything is here.  You ask the price, they give it to you, and then you immediately shoot it down and give them your own, and they usually accept!  So I’ll probably be really confused when I go to the store when I get home and the cashier refused to lower the price of anything I’m trying to buy.  We’ll see if I can’t work any miracles at Good Will, Value Village, or D.I. though… anyway, I didn’t really get to play the guitar, because after we bought it we just walked it back to Romeo’s house.  Plus the strings weren’t very impressive, but it felt amazing to hold and play a GUITAR again.  I tried tuning it up a little, broke the high E string of course, and felt like an idiot, and would have bought new strings but Romeo ended up buying some more himself.  More about that later.

On Tuesday, I saw for the first time anyone kiss on the lips.  It was just a peck, but it looked so foreign because no one ever does that in public, which I’m quite thankful for.  Those poor missionaries back in the States, where there seems to be no shame on the subject.  Then again, people here just pee on the side of the road, walk around naked, or take a shower in front of their house without any concern for others watching.  Culture is such a funny thing.

We got to help move some boxes around at the church and called it service, so we scored some bonus points there!

Still learning Douala.  My favorite (only) phrase to say is “Mbape natondi abba gita !” which means, “I love God a lot, too!”

Elder Zurcher and I came back on Wednesday to make dinner (this delicious cabbage and sausage dish), and we got the rice washed and in the pot, started defrosting our sausage, cut up the cabbage, washed and quartered like 15 potatoes and put them in another pot, struck a match and lit the stove for about 15 seconds when the flame went out.  No more gas.  The other two tanks were out too.  It was too late to get more gas, and we were starving with nothing in the fridge.  It gave us the opportunity to go down to that restaurant behind us (you know, the one that blasts music until 4 in the morning) and buy some chicken wrap things, and while we were there we contacted the barman and his boss, so that was pretty cool!

I wish I could explain this situation that made me laugh until I cried and cried and cried in the middle of this lesson.  The member we were talking to just stopped talking and started laughing with me and then everyone was laughing until I got a hold of myself.  What happened was that one of our converts was talking about how important the Gospel was to her, and she said “what’s food next to Christ?” and this really old mama sitting next to her says, “c’est la caca.” (it’s poop) matter of factly and for some reason it was just the funniest thing in the whole world, and even writing about it is making me and Elder Zurcher laugh.  Oh ma vie.  Mama Marie.  She is a hoot and a holler.

We’ve just been meeting more and more awesome people every day.  I love it.  After every first contact with someone we’ll be talking afterward and say, “wow, that guy/girl was just incredible!” and then it happens again, and again, and again!  For example, we met this 76 year old man who was just so full of love for everyone, and he had this great life story that he told us about him traveling and experiencing everything, and he talked about love like I had never heard before.  I imagine that it’s only after having lived for so long that we really start to get a grip on what this “love” thing is, and only then do we start to understand the significance of the gift and sacrifice of the Only Begotten Son of God.  I hope I will remember to reflect on that when I reach that age, because for now my mind is blown to smithereens (who even says that anymore…?).

Friday was fantastic.  We went to Romeo’s (the guy who bought the guitar) house to help his family clean up some of the debris (which meant throwing all this garbage wood and rocks onto the side of the street, which people came out of nowhere to take for themselves) that they’ve been collecting for the last couple of months as they’ve done work on putting an addition on their house.  They actually live in something you would call a house.  I’ll take some pictures later.  I caught a mouse and let it into the sewer after 4 people tried to whack it with a shovel.  Their crazy cousin came over, and in an intoxicated stupor tried to tell them to stop working on the house.  Romeo’s wife just laughed and told us he’s not right in the head.  So there’s that.  Afterwards though, their parents invited us over for this big lunch of rice, pork, plantains, and ndolé.  Everyone was surprised when they started playing a Jim Reeves record, which would have put us all right back in the West if it wasn’t for the ndolé and plantains.  On our way back home, Romeo stopped us at this restaurant and gave us 3 huge platters of fish, plantains, and salad and a large sack of bread to go.  Just because.  We decided to put together little box dinners and give them to our guards outside.  They were ecstatic.  One of them took it and held it in the air like it was the World Cup. I almost cried.

“Mshasha” means “hello” In Bamoon !

On Saturday, right as we were about to leave, one of the taximen that we contacted knocked on our door!  He had walked from way far away to the church to find us, waited there for an hour until someone told him that we lived in Bali, about an hour’s walk from the church.  We went downstairs and chatted with him for a while, and he was really sincere about wanting to learn more, so we’re excited about that.

We took a taxi out into the boonies to visit an inactive recent convert, and on our way back we saw a squirrel! I’ve never seen one here, but apparently the further you go out of the city the more animals you’ll see that aren’t on sticks for sale.

One of our other recent converts asked us to come with him to visit his sister who’s in the hospital, which means that she was stuffed in a small room with about 5 beds that are crowded together, only separated by a mosquito net that hangs over the beds.  I was surprised to find IV stands in there.  They don’t have bathrooms inside, so you have to walk out of the building to another location to relieve yourself.  It was pretty sad, and I felt helpless as I just watched these poor people sit and suffer while I was perfectly healthy. Maybe TOO healthy.  Like I needed to share my healthiness with them but could do nothing about it.  Anyway, it was nice just to visit his sister and encourage her to stay strong.

We met Mama Marie’s maybe 4’ 8” friend with a humpback and eyes that look different directions, who was quick to cackle and came hobbling over to squeeze us with surprising strength.  She was so funny.  She loves the Bible, but there’s no way she could actually read it anymore.  As she slowly parted away, she kindof hop/fell across this little stream on the path, and we thought she was going to make it when she toppled backwards with her hands and feet sticking up into the air like one of those fainting goats.  At first we were really worried, but she cackled it off and we helped her back up and she walked away talking to herself, and then we thought it was really funny, and then we felt bad for laughing about it, but now we’re doing it again.  It’s a pretty vicious cycle.

Yesterday was nutso.  We left the apartment early to go to branch council, where after an hour we were given 5 words, and then we went to go greet people at the front.  Marius (the all-star, future apostle) came out and told us the power was out, but that we couldn’t get the generator back on with Romeo’s help, but he refused to do it because the last time he did everyone got mad at him for stepping into their calling.  We called the member, Njembelé, in charge of maintaining the building, but he wouldn’t pick up, so Romeo told Marius how to do it, and we got it started, but 2 minutes later the gas ran out.  By this time, Njembelé was at church and was mad at us for touching the generator, but we told him he wasn’t there so we just did the best we could.  Romeo came out and said he was on his way to get gas, but Njembelé said he wasn’t going to touch it.  Romeo left anyway, and while he was gone the President came out and told us to just stay calm so that the Spirit could guide the problem in a healthy manner, and he would go pray about whether we should put gas in it (because putting gas in it and running it might ruin the generator because the shelter they built around it was poor and made it so the smoke that was kicked out would be sucked back in, but not putting gas in it would mean no air conditioning and no lights during the sacrament).  While the President was praying, Romeo came back with gas, Njembelé went to stop him, Romeos wife got involved, and basically it was just a big mess of yelling and people were going to leave church and Maris the super star got everyone to calm down and stay at church, and then he proceeded to give another beautiful talk on trials and forgiveness just off the top of his head, quoting scriptures and prophets and what have you.  He is golden, I’m telling you. Anyway, we called Elder Gailey and had him come to the church so that we could all sit down and just work this problem out.  Two and a half hours later, Romeo and Njembelé were hugging, and there was just another huge weight lifted off our shoulders.  We’re pretty sure this will help the branch to finally get on its feet and start growing faster as the members agree to work in love with one another.

We went to Romeo’s afterwards and got the guitar to bring back to play on P-Day.  It was like Christmas.  After visiting another brother in the hospital, we got back to the apartment and I just couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.  I replaced the strings with these weird steel-plated strings, broke the high E string again, but replaced it with the old B string and it still sounds ok.   I played it until I was supposed to be in bed, and then reluctantly gave it up for sleep.  My fingers hurt so bad.  I realized that I haven’t seen the lines in the tips of my left fingers until now; they’re usually covered in smooth, dead skin.  Now, however, they’re beet red from playing all morning this morning, and they’ll probably be bleeding tonight.  I could die tonight and be totally happy. 

Life is good, God is great, and I hope you all are doing wonderful.  I miss and love you so much! Stay happy! You deserve to be! No one else is as you as you! Go out and change the world!

Until next time!

Elder Garland

Hola mis amigos !!

Yeah, that’s Spanish.  After we left the cyber café last week we stopped by a bookstore annndd I bought a book so I could study Spanish while my companions study French.  I’ve been reading it every day and I love it.  I’m going to finish it and hopefully get a dictionary, then I’ll go back and get the same book in German.  Maybe I’ll just stick with Spanish…we’ll see I guess!

Last Monday night was awesome, too.  We went out for our typical chawarma and one of the workers there offered us a drink.  He was way nice.  Then we went out to this ice cream parlor owned by some white guys, and that was really good, although kindof expensive.  Basically it was just nice to have ice cream for the first time in a while.

On Tuesday morning, the Gailey’s (the missionary couple) took Elder Zurcher and myself to Yaoundé  (Yah-oon-day) to renew his visa.  It’s the political capital (the president lives there) of the country, where Douala is the economic capital.  Yaoundé’s climate is so much more agreeable.  It’s always in the mid 80s to low 90s.  There are beautiful hills that surround the city, but I didn’t really get any good pictures so you’ll have to Google search it or something.  Maybe just imagine it.  There’s also this famous red mud/dust that covers all the roads, so that was pretty exciting.  All the missionaries there have red-tainted shirts, it’s pretty funny.  We get there and met up with them and the Whitesides, the other missionary couple to have burgers, which were surprisingly pretty good!  It was the first time I’ve had a coke since I left the MTC.  We went on splits with the other missionaries, and I had an awesome time with Elders Schmid and Johnston.  We visited an inactive guy who is really interested in serving a mission now.  He’s been playing professional soccer in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea for the last couple years.  His older brother runs a boutique and fed us beans and beignets - a very typical Cameroonian meal.  One of our investigators from Douala wanted to meet us at the church in Bastos, so we got to see him for a while as he told us about the incredible trials he’s been going through since he left.  It was awesome to see someone stay so strong even though at every turn they seem to be cursed with failure.  He’s one of my favorite people that I’ve met so far, so we’re really pulling and praying for him.

The elders bought us a pizza for dinner because they both had mangez-vous’s, and then we stayed up until midnight talking about video games.  I haven’t stayed up that late (at least not on purpose) since I left, so I felt like garbage the next morning, but I’ve since repented and gotten on with life.  We took care of the visa stuff, got on the bus to come home, during the whole ride of which we listened to Gospel music and people praying and preaching, it was so funny.  Then we got ratéd by one of our investigators, and made cheeseburgers for dinner. Great Tuesday.

Wednesday was crazy.  We invited our taximan to be baptized on our way to our first rendez-vous, he was so interested.  During our second to last rendez-vous is started pouring rain, so we got soaked as we ran home to get umbrellas, only to stay soaked as the rain continued to pour on our way to the last lesson of the night.  Thank goodness for my Chacos; they’ve really been holding out great, and I have a sweet tan line!  On our way home some random stranger waiting for a taxi called out “mormon!” as we were walking by, and turns out he was an inactive member who didn’t know where to find the church.  What a blessing!  It’s so amazing to just watch as the Lord dumps blessing after blessing on us, I can’t even believe it sometimes.

On Friday we made a goal to only speak French or Spanish for the whole week.  Obviously there have been times where English has slipped out, but for the most part we’ve done a great job of only speaking French! It’s given me the opportunity to practice my Spanish too, because Elder Gélinas took some Spanish in high school.  On our way home this old guy that we always say hi to stopped us and told us to wait while he gave us some avocados, just for no reason.  People here are so nice.  I just…what the heck!  Oh and we were fed njammanjamma again.  It was delicious.

On Saturday we got to work with one of our recent converts, Ezéchiel, who we swear will be called to be the first African apostle or something, he’s amazing.  We basically just let him teach the whole time, he’s so solid with the Gospel.  He is also really close friends with this Cameroonian superstar from the 90s called Petit Pays, and he already gave him a Book of Mormon and wants to bring us to his house to teach him.  We’re pretty ok with that.

The other elders in our apartment came back with a whole chicken and fried plantains that this random lady gave them, and then as we were preparing spaghetti a member knocked on our door to give us two big plates of coquille, pistache, and potatoes/manioc, basically all this delicious African food.  So we ate ok.  I got no sleep that night, however, thanks to this marriage going on downstairs behind the apartment.  They were blasting music until 4 in the morning.  It was awful.  Every blessing has its consequences I guess…

Then it rained all day, so we were worried that people weren’t going to come to church, but a good amount of investigators came in so that the whole room was filled.  It was incredible.  As we were welcoming people, these two police motos came screaming down the road, closely followed by three really legit cyclists, then a few seconds later a whole herd of cyclists.  It was so impressive, I wish I had my camera on me.  Turns out there was a race!  Dr. Samuel taught the English class, and he kept saying “latter-day senate,” and then compared reading the scriptures to being addicted to drugs, so that was pretty hilarious.

During my studies that morning, I was reading the scriptures when all these nonsensical thoughts started pouring into my head, and no matter what I did I couldn’t chase them.  I tried pushing through the verses, but I didn’t understand anything I read and it wasn’t working anyway.  I looked over and saw my personal hymnal, opened it to the first hymn I could find, stumbled on #54 (Nearer my God to thee in English), started humming it and reading the lyrics, and it worked like a charm.  My thoughts peaced out like mosquitoes in front of permetherin. I gained such a strong testimony for the power that hymns can have on the Spirit.  I’ve made it a personal goal to continue to understand the words that I sing from now on, and I would encourage you all to do the same!  

SUCH A GOOD WEEK.  I’m really excited for the upcoming weeks.  Lots of things happening: huge zone conference with President Jameson, transfers, baptisms, etc.  I will keep you all in touch with all my shenanigans, don’t worry.

I love you all so much! Read up on la charité in Mosiah 4. What a beautiful chapter. 

Hasta la proxima semana !

Elder Garland

 

Updates from Casey!

Jambayola everyone ?!

I could start the next 250 letters with a new way to say, “hello!” with all the different dialects that exist in Cameroon.  I’ve only heard of maybe 20 tops, and can only say a few words in each, but it’s still really fun.  The locals love when you say something to them in their dialect. 

Anyway, it’s been a great week.  We came back from writing home and took an hour and a half nap, my second one since I got here.  It turned out to be a really bad idea though, because we both laid in bed for at least that long after we needed to go to bed for real after dinner. It was really nice just to have a couple minutes with nothing to do.  I have no idea how I filled my time over the summer when I had no school.  I will suffer if I’m not constantly moving after 2 years of having every minute of every day planned out.

In our first taxi ride out into the sector, we were “randomly” pulled over to check the driver’s papers, but when he saw les blancs in the back seat, he asked us for ours too.  I’ve never even thought to carry papers on me, as we’ve never needed them and I don’t want my backpack to get jacked with my passport and visa inside.  The police officer told us that we were going to have to get out of the taxi and come with him to the immigration office where they would put us in jail until we got everything sorted out.  I wasn’t worried, and was kindof looking forward to a good story, because I knew we had the documents back at the apartment, but when we showed him our badges and explained that we’re just missionaries, he talked with his buddy and decided to let us go with a warning.  Dangit! Next time I’ll just get out of the car and ask him to cuff me. 

After we asked her how she felt about the things we were talking about, we had an investigator tell us during our second rendez-vous, “well I don’t know, I didn’t see anything, I just felt it in my heart that it’s true!” It was so cool to hear someone try to explain how they were feeling the Spirit.  I love explaining to them what they were feeling.  They always get really excited and go, yes, yes! that’s it!

I ate some ground nut soup with cocoyam fufu the other day! That was pretty good, but the fufu is always so heavy and there’s so much, so after a few bites it becomes hard to swallow.  I’ll have to learn how to prepare it so I can make it when I get back. Along with the rest of the food items I’ve been making a list of!

We met a guy from Chad, and he has this crazy accent, but he was very cool.  The next time we saw him, like two days later, he’d already read about 200 pages out of the Book of Mormon, and he was loving it! He came to church, and wants us to teach him and the rest of his family when we can.  Elder Zurcher and I are stoked.

Another mango fell from the tree as we were walking under it, so that’s pretty much all I need to say about that.

We were walking next to this “amusement park” when this young guy probably my age stopped us and asked who we were.  He followed us to the church and talked with us for the next 45 minutes, and explained how he’d never walked down that road before (neither had we!) and how he doesn’t think it was a coincidence that we met.  That kind of stuff happens all the time.  It’s just the most fascinating thing.  How could that not boost your testimony?!  For every bad thing that’s happened while I’ve been here, I’ve seen a hundred miracles.  

I tried a ginger drink.  It burns your throat and doesn’t taste very good.  Not recommended to the strong and healthy.

One of the members in the branch told us about how when she was 15 and 18 she was the women’s 100m champion of Cameroon.  She was offered several scholarships to different schools but her dad wanted her to get a real education, so she stopped running and starting playing handball, where she took second place in the Coupe de l’Afrique as their starting goalie.  What an all-star!

On Saturday we got to go to this little banana farm of hers to help pull out some of the reject trees so she could plant some more.  This is how it works: you plant a tree, and a main sprout comes out among a few smaller ones.  The more “rejetons” you have surrounding the main tree, the smaller and slower the main tree will grow.  But in order to plant another tree, you have to save one or two of the rejetons until it grows it’s own little bulb in the ground.  You should’ve seen the earth that we were tilling.  It is so so rich.  Jeanie would be so jealous! I wish I could send her a little package back of it.  She would love it.

One of the taxis we got into had Spongebob spray painted on the side.  That was cool, but the driver was kindof a sourkraut.

I found a rock in one of my cookies that I bought at a stand on the side of the street.

We had a baptism! Albert, a guy who Elder Zurcher and Elder Lafleur met on the road one day in December.  He had school and work on Sundays, so he could never come to church, and then one day he found out his older brother had a brain tumor and probably wasn’t going to survive, so he had to take care of him until he died.  It was really sad, but he stayed so strong the whole time, and we’ve been teaching him since the beginning of Februrary.  He bored his testimony after his baptism, and I was so proud of him.  It was so great.  It was just an awesome day.  He gave me the honor of confirming him the next day, and that was just merveilleux. 

After church we went to go find this family that’s been going through such a hard time for the last month.  Their neighbor (a middle-aged man) confessed his love for their daughter (who is 16), and it turned violent between him and the father, and it was just a crazy mess as they got kicked out of their house and needed to find a new place to live, etc. etc. etc.  As they were going through all this, but still asking us to come meet with them, the dad got a promotion at his work that doubled his income.  It was such a blessing.  They moved into their own little 2 room house with a bathroom, and we got to help him move in his bench, two chairs and a couple bags of clothes.  That was everything they owned.  It was another very humbling moment.  When we went to visit them last night, they weren’t there, but the family next door was, and we got to chat with Steve, Danny, Ryan, and Russell, a family of Cameroonians who love America.  It was awesome.  Out of nowhere, the neighbor of the family we’d been teaching before appears in front of us and says, “Christine (the mom of the family) is asking for you; follow me!”  She led us to the house they’d been staying at for the past month as they looked for a new home, and we got to sit down and chat with the mom and daughters about everything that had happened.  They were so happy to see us.  “Finally! Finally!” they kept saying.  We’re very excited to have them back on the map. 

That’s about everything excited that happened this week, other than the package that Elder Morin got in the mail: Easter candy! His brother had double zip-lock bagged a bunch of chocolates and other candies and put it one of those evelope packages with bubble wrap on the inside and wrapped the whole thing in scotch tape and it got here safe in sound after only 2 weeks.  So.  If you wanna send anything small like that, that would be an awesome way to do it :)

I love you all, I’m so appreciative for all your support.  I literally would not be here if it wasn’t for everyone reading this.  So, thank you, may God bless you, and may He bring me home safe and sound so I can embrace you!

Until next time!

Elder Garland