December 16

Hello everyone!

I wish I could remember everything that happened this last week of
transfers, but I left my planner at home again so I'll just have to go
off memory, which we all know will not be much.  Anyway, my ankle was
really swollen all day, but I iced it and it went down...a little.  On
Tuesday we went on splits, so I led Elder Baker around my sector for
the day.  I was limping pretty bad the whole time, and then it started
raining, and I think the combination of the two elements made people
pity us, so I only heard "mundele" like one time from a kid.  It was
really refreshing actually, both the rain and the lack of mockery
haha.  The best part is that we went looking for a man we met a couple
weeks ago, and I couldn't remember how to get there so we called and
he told us to look for Pharmacie de Dieu.  So Elder Baker says he
thinks he's seen a sign for it on the road, but we walked a little
down the road and couldn't see it, so I just asked the person next to
us if they knew where it was.  They pointed us all the way down the
opposite direction, so we started hobbling that way.  Half an hour
later and I asked someone else, who kept pointing us the same way.  We
finally got to the next pharmacie and it wasn't even the right one.
We went in and asked and they told us to go all the way back to where
we came.  So we walk all the way back up, got maybe 5 feet passed
where we had stopped to ask the people selling sweat rags to taxi
drivers and there was the sign pointing into the market.  We walked
in, got about 10 minutes into the depths of Fond Che Che and asked
someone who told us to go all the way back from where we came but down
the next alley of vendors.  Lo and behold, the pharmacie was basically
on the street just another 5 feet in front of where we turned into the
market.  We met up with the man there, and he led us back to his
little wooden hut/boutique and we had an awesome time getting to know
him and reassuring him that our message would bring him closer to
Jesus Christ and finally after 40 minutes or so we asked if he wanted
to pray and he said "Well actually, I'm Muslim, soo..." so that was
awesome haha.  He let us pray though, and then we needed to go just a
few feet down the road, but instead of going out to the street we
tried cutting through the market.  I don't know how to accurately
describe this place...we eventually decided that it was the 7 layers
of hell.  Since it had been pouring rain, we walked through about 8
inches of dark, black sludge for the next 20 minutes just looking for
an exit, going off of pure internal direction to guide us.  It was
awful.  We got yelled at more than I ever have been in my entire
mission in those 20 minutes.  The entire lower half of my body was
covered in sludge.  It got harder and harder to breathe the deeper we
went.  The sky was covered by umbrellas and shacks and smoke.  We
finally saw a light and headed towards it, and we were even welcomed
by a bridge of wodden pallettes across more mud.  At the end of the
bridge though, were toll trolls, demanding money for having used their
bridge.  Elder Baker just shoved passed them, but every time I tried
to step through this one guy pushed me on the arm and was insulting me
in kikongo and called me a Jehovah's Witness, which after that I
ripped my badge off and shoved it in his face and said "read the
badge! We are NOT témoin de Jehovah!" and he made some noise and
pushed me through onto the street and it was over and I had never been
closer to becoming violent. I have since repented, but it was so, so,
so frustrating.

We had a nice rest of the day.  Very calm.  I can't remember what
happened the next day, but I woke up and my ankle felt fine.  I think
the repenting and hard work the day before opened up the door for some
blessings.  The rest of the week was fine as far as that goes.

Some special things that happened that I remember : we had so many
random service opportunities.  We were on our hands and knees helping
a taximan dig out his car that dove into the sand.  We were on our way
to a less active member's house when we crossed him going to fill up
big water cans, so we went with him and carried the 60 pound cans back
ourselves.  Also he was wearing a Happy Valley shirt.  That was
awesome. It was even better when we were right in front of our
investigator's house the next day when a woman and her son come around
the corner carrying this really heavy propane tank between them, so we
offered to take it all the way back to where we had just came, through
another dirty market.  On the way we ran into the woman's older son,
who happened to know a member.  I hope that had a good impression on
him!  We were on the way home one day when we saw a bus stuck in the
mud, spinning its wheels.  We ran over and dug in behind the bus to
help one other guy push the bus out as it kicked mud all over the
place - except on us.  It was awesome.  People are always worried
about us getting dirty, but we really don't care.  We were pretty
close to home when a woman was cutting logs in the middle of the road
with a pipe with an axe head soddered to the end of it.  We offered to
cut the wood for her, and we got a crowd of little kids and big kids
and adults watching us work.  It's like they'd never believe that
white people actually work with their hands haha. The next day we
helped sweep a member's dirt "yard" with a "broom".

Elder Brockbank and I walked to the top of the world looking for an
investigator, but while we were lost we walked along side this super
deep ravine of red mud, and of course when we got to the bottom of the
hill we decided to walk back through the ravine.  It was cool except
for the bazillion flies that were chilling on weeds growing in the red
mud and also the piles of poop that lined the floor.  Obviously we
weren't the first visitors.  We got some cool pictures though!

I wish I remembered more about this week, but that's all I have...just
know that I'm having a blast and loving the work.  We've dedicated a
lot of our time working towards reactivating less active members.
That is really rewarding.  We don't have a ton of investigators at
church, but there is something special about seeing someone come back
to church after having been absent for several years.  I absolutely
love that, and it's happening!  Oh, which reminds me, one of our
investigators' sister gave us a pot of "losé," which is basically just
mashed up leaves and eggplant.  It was...interesting haha.  The fried
fish made it delicious though.  Still prefer ndolé :)

I think the highlight of the day was having a very old man in a suit,
fedora, wielding a very intricate cane and smoking a very interesting
pipe say hi to us.  Or maybe it was Elder VanAusdal's sweet and sour
chicken or chicken pot pie...

ANYway I have 0 time left but I love you all and you are ALL in my
prayers!  Please pray for the Africans and the missionaries our here,
we all need your help.

Elder Garland