April 14

Mbote a beno !!!

What a week.  We went to the beach after writing home last week and
spent a couple hours soaking in the sun with a bunch of naked Africans
who came screaming over to us when we pulled out the soccer ball and
the cooler of potatoe salad and ham and cheese sandwiches and
chips...we gave them the ball to play with and ate our food
tranquilly, though we had some stragglers who were eyeing us the whole
time.  Eventually, however, we got up and walked over to this
extremely long volleyball net (we drew our own lines, it's ok) and the
Baileys bought us drinks and we had a blast and got sun-blasted and it
was awesome.  I love Africa.  And I love the beach.  I just might be
in the best mission in the world!

Well on Tuesday we had a great time with Parfait again, except that
when we got there there was a movie on of a little kid looking at some
tablet thing, and I thought to myself, "that could definitely be
Ender's Game" and then the next scene there was Harrison Ford and I
said out loud, "THAT IS DEFINITELY ENDER'S GAME" which was followed by
Elder Gelinas', "Can you please turn off the TV?"  He saw the look in
my eyes haha.  It's ok because I usually would've done the same thing
except that was like my favorite book when I was a kid so I was rocked
a little more than I usually am :P

We went to see our recent convert Danny who speaks but you can't
understand him so you just keep going along anyway, and then we went
to sit down with Van, but he gave us the "I'm coming!" and 45 minutes
later showed up, so we didn't really have time to talk with him.
During those 45 minutes Elder Etherington explained that a new Pokémon
came out and Elder Gelinas and myself were enthralled all the way
until Van showed up.  Throwback.

On Wednesday I wrote out my testimony in Munikituba, so that was fun.
We went to Darcine's, but she wasn't there, but we got to talk to her
oldest daughter who is 17 but looks 23, which is weird because she
also wants to speak every language in the world and travel all over
the place and plays piano and writes music.  So we're already best
friends.  Also she wants to be baptized.  So we're especially best
friends.

Then we sat down with Papy at the church (the taxi which brought us
there, by the way, gave it to us for free in exchange for a brochure,
hallelujah) and talked about life and Jehovah and it was really great
until this big guy came through the gate to talk with us.  His name
was Rad.  He was super nice, so we invited him to sit down with us
while we were waiting for our next rendez-vous to show up.  By divine
Providence, he never did.  Rad sat down and introduced himself and
then I saw the tears well up in his eyes.  Oh no.  I had to fight
myself, and I had no idea why he was even about to cry.  Well he
starts to explain that a couple days ago the taxi company he worked
for (probably just some old guy who owns a couple cars) laid off
everyone, and so he had no more job.  Then the landlord of the house
he was renting threw him out of the house because he hadn't paid the
last 3 months' rent because the job he was working hadn't yet paid him
and then laid him off without paying him.  He had since been living on
the street with his wife and 4 kids, and was graciously welcomed by
some woman into her house for a couple days while he looked for money
to pay the other rent.  After those couple of days, however, Rad was
thrown out again with his family and since then he had been walking
around town looking for somebody to help or something to do to make
enough money to convince the woman to let them stay a little longer
until he was stable.  At the end of all this, we could only sit there
in agony, knowing we couldn't offer him money (according to our
rules).  We ended sharing some scriptures with him and offering
spiritual counsel, and inviting him to pray with us.  He said the
prayer, annndd I lost it.  It was probably the most sincere prayer
I've ever heard in my entire life, as he begged God to bless and watch
over his wife and kids, which he named off one by one, and asked for
the strength to continue looking and thanked God for the trials in his
life that would bring him closer to his Lord.  It was heart-wrenching,
lemme tell ya.  We said amen, and I stood up and gave the big man a
big hug.  We haven't seen him since, but we've been praying for him.

Thursday was sweet.  I went on splits with Elder Hatch, which is
always a pleasure.  He came over into his old sector to work with us,
so that was cool.  We saw Parfait again, and then on our way to see
Elvis and Armel we took a cent-cent taxi all the way to OCH, and from
the moment I sat in the taxi I asked the maman sitting next to me to
squeeze, because Elder Hatch is really tall.  I said the last part in
Kikongo, which got everyone's attention, and for the next 15 minutes I
chatted with and contacted the driver all in Munikituba! It was so
cool!!! I loved it.  I've been keeping a journal of phrases and
grammar and vocab, so I have several pages of notes.  I'm actually
getting pretty good! I'm excited to bear testimony when I get back ;)

Later that day we were talking to Raoul, a recent convert who had a
problem because this girl in his neighborhood recently told him she
loves him, and he didn't know what to do.  We had to have the dating
talk again.  Africans don't understand the concept of dating.  It's
really hard to explain, actually, haha.  We have to tell them that you
take time getting to know someone before you just invite them into
your house to make babies.  It was a great talk, and he was really
excited to try it out.  "What, you just...eat together?  Go on walks
together?" YES RAOUL!  It's that easy!  So funny.

Elder Johnston came into my sector on Friday for splits, but before we
had district meeting, and that was another great experience.  Sister
Bailey shared with us rice pudding, and then this amazing talk by Tad
R. Callister about being a consecrated missionary.  So good.  You
should all look it up, especially if you're a missionary!  Anyway, It
was the first time I've worked with Elder Johnston since we were on
splits with his trainer Elder Schmidt about a year ago, and he's
become a great missionary.  He knows his scriptures super well, and is
always ready to give an awesome example to help explain some principle
or another.  We added another 5 baptismal dates to our schedule when
we went back to Darcine's and talked to her kids and Yannick, her
cousin, about it.  Well, we were just talking about the Restoration
when Maya, Darcine's oldest daughter, says, "so what do I have to do
to get baptized!" High fives went all around.  Might've even been a
fist bump.

Saturday went by fast because of weekly planning and English class,
but it was great.  We went to the Beri family house hoping to find
maman Cecile, but we found one of her sons, Jean-Pape 23rd, the other
brother of "Stop" and "My Friend" who had recently been operated on
due to a hole in his stomach.  He was so happy to see us when we
walked up.  Maman wasn't there, but he had already pulled up chairs
for us, so we just sat down and chatted with him for a couple minutes.
 It was awesome.  And I quote, "I need to be baptized."  Welcome to
every day in Africa.

I tried to solve a problem with the computers in the genealogy center
in the church, but after 30 minutes on the phone with "IT" from
Kinshasa the problem still wasn't resolved, so I passed it on to
President Caillet so we could go home.  President Caillet was amazed
that someone could have access to the computer from all the way in
Kinshasa, "It's magic!" he said, with his deer in the headlights look.
 Hilarious.

The next day at church we found out that the problem still wasn't
solved, but it'll be ok.  Before church started, instead of welcoming
people Elder Hatch asked if I could do a baptismal interview for an
old investigator of mine.  I was so excited.  We went behind the
church and for a little over an hour just talked about the Savior and
the commandments and the sciptures and all these things that will draw
us closer to God.  In the end, she had a testimony that the things we
teach are true and I passed her for a baptism on Saturday.  It was so
cool! I'd never done that before, but I'm really excited to be able to
do it in the future.  These people have the most incredible
testimonies, and I'm super lucky to be able to listen to them through
their interviews.  We had a million people at church, LITERALLY.
People who were there for the first time, people who we thought had
disappeared, people who have been there forever, it was wonderful.  We
just kept tallying all the faces that walked in.  Papy the guardian
turned Mormon gave an incredible talk on being called to serve in the
Church.  He understands how to preach...it was quite the change in
pace from your average read from the Bible Dictionary talk haha.
Anyway, we got a lot of phone numbers for people in our branch and for
Mpaka, and afterwards talked with Gerlaine, Monami and Arreter and
Jean Pape 23rd's sister.  She's been at church for over a year now,
and finally realized on Sunday that she knows the church.  We helped
her come to that realization as we shared scriptures with her about
the Spirit and she said, "well that's what I've been feeling this
whole time!"  We were like "duhhh!" but ended up saying something a
little nicer.  BUT it's always such a cool experience to watch the
look on peoples' faces when they go from doubt to certainty.  Like a
gear in their head finally got rid of the pebble that's been holding
the correct functions from turning.  Bing!  Lights on, annndd action!

We got home that night and to celebrate another successful Sunday I
made a batch of 64 cookies, which we ate with ice cream last night.
Then it rained during the night, so I actually used my sheet to cover
me instead of just using it to cover my eyes!  It was a miracle.  God
knows us perfectly.

I'm so thankful for this work.  I'm thankful for all the people who
sacrificed so I could come out here.  You are all in my prayers every
day.  I love you and I'm so excited to be able to share more about it
with you on my return, whether it be in French or English.  The more I
read the scriptures and manuels like Preach My Gospel, the more I know
about the wonders of God and how marvelous His kingdom will be once it
is refined by the Refiner!  Can you imagine?! How beautiful is the
Earth already?  Now imagine it without all the trash and garbage and
filth and scum that we've brought here.  Ohhhh man will it be pretty.
I hope I'm still allowed to take pictures.  It will be undescribable
with words.

Have a wonderful week! :)