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 10th 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 6th 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 4th 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
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