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