Bonjour à tous !!!
What a crazy week. It’s officially September, and I don’t even know where the time has gone. In 5 weeks I will turn 23. What the. There are some really awesome things that happened this week, but one of the number 1 contestants is the batch of 50 cookies that we made after writing home. They were very nearly what I would find back home, so we had a pretty good nostalgia trip all night. The cookies only lasted until two days later. More to come tonight…
Another awesome thing happened the following day when we were led to an African book store by an investigator to find some kind of book that went from Douala to French so I could practice more efficiantly, but unfortunately it turned out to be a library that you needed to pay like 10,000 CFA (about $20) for the year to access. Since we never know how long we’ll stay we decided not to subscribe. The lady who offered us the tour in English was an Austrian with a thick accent and when we told her we were missionaries we got the first look of “seriously?” and she proceeded to tell us how she was Catholic and wanted to stay Catholic. It was just funny because we’ve never run into anyone who was openly against being taught or knowing more about us. White people. Pff. On the way out, this Prince who founded the book store/library walked in the door with a TV guy on his heels, and I heard him speaking Douala so as he was leaving I said “wala bwam!” which is roughly translated to, “have a nice day!” That got his attention, and the TV guy next to him, who told us that he wanted to interview us the next day and we could tell him all about our mission and say some words in Douala and it would be fun. I was so excited.
It never happened.
We had an awesome district meeting and Elder Gailey taught this wonderful lesson on faith, charity, and dilligence, but the way he teaches blows my mind every time. I wish you could meet him.
Other than teaching so many cool people on Wednesday and Thursday nothing else really happened. We got to go coconut hunting on Friday, which was super fun. We climbed a really sketchy ladder about 10 feet up this tree, and then you use a 6 foot rebar pole with a bent hook in the end to reach up and hook the coconuts and pull them down. Right onto your face. It was actually really hard. The coconuts didn’t wanna come down, except when Elder Massé was up there. He pulled down 4, and I only got 1, but to be fair, 2 of the ones he pulled down were ones that I had loosened…EHEM.
On Saturday, we all got together to do the Helping Hands day of service throughout the church. We met at the church and walked over to a bilingual elementary school to help scrub floors, draw water from wells, scrape off mold from walls with a machete, etc. It ended with several bottles of folléré and sandwiches for everyone there. When we left, we went to a member’s house only to continue in service as we diced up coconuts and took a wheelborrow out to get water from a nearby well. As we were walking the wheelborrow, this group of teenagers took pictures of us with there cell phones. I made sure to pause to lift up my sleeve so they could get a better shot of my muskles. HA. More like my big ol’ farmer’s tan.
We had great and bad news on Sunday at chuch. One of our all-star investigators told us that she was moving back to Tiko to be with her kids during the school year, which started today, which is just wild. But! She also said she would be coming all the way back to Douala every week to come to church, so she’s getting baptized on Saturday! She also told us about this story of how, after we taught this big lesson on repentance and forgiveness, she called her ex-husband who abandoned her and her kids and moved back to Congo to tell him that she forgave him. She tried describing the weight that came off her and the joy she felt but she just started crying. It was beautiful. I love this work!
Today is P-Day. I love P-Day. The Bonapriso elders came across the bridge to play more soccer with us, and it was probably the most fun I’ve had since I got here. We didn’t even win, but it was just us missionaries and 2 other members, so we played 6x6 on a small field and we were able to have fun and laugh about all the silly things that would happen instead of taking it way too seriously which happens 98% of the time when you play with the locals. And I scored off a chest trap, one touch, upper right 90 soooooo no big deal but it was ESPN status. Then we lost and I was humbled :(
It was just awesome to see the other missionaries. I miss them a ton, but I’m really glad they’re not too far from us, and that I’ll get to see them again on Wednesday for zone conference! President Cook is coming down with Elder Cook, the first councelor in the area presidency, and we’re going to have a blast. For 6 hours. And then afterwards President asked me to translate for his wife as she taught the Relief Society auxiliaries, so that’s exciting. It will last all day, and I’ll be really tired, but I’m excited.
HEY! I LOVE YOU! I hope you have an incredible week. I hope you can find it in you to forgive those who have offended you. Can you even imagine having the same experience that my soon-to-be-convert had?! I promise that you can feel that, and that there’s nothing that God can’t fix in your life if you’ll look to Him for help! Especially forgiving others. Christ made it possible for us to be forgiven of our sins, but you can’t ask for forgiveness without forgiving others! Try it out. You’ll see the difference, and you’ll love it, and you will remember that moment and feeling forever.
Elder Garland
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