Bonjour a tous!!!
So this week we learned that our mission is going to be split!!!Kinshasa will become it's own mission, and we'll get a new missionpresident in Brazzaville!!! So that is pretty crazy. I don't haveany details, but it's going down July 1st. Crazy. Just crazy. Moredetails to come.
On Tuesday we got stopped in the middle of a quartier by a membersince the first missionaries who hasn't been to church in a while butwants to come back. He also invited us inside to meet his blind,chair-ridden grandma who only speaks munikituba. She LOVES us haha,and asked me to read some passages out of the New Testament in kituba. Apparently I read better than any of the members of the family andhave fluent pronunciation! That was cool. Now I just need to find myown copy...oh, by the way, this guy's nephew is named Garland, spelledexactly the same and said with a French accent. Where am I. Later inthe week I met someone called God of Wine (in French Dieudevin),Dream, Prince, and Wisdom, and Africa. So. There's that.
We were also stopped by a guy who was clearly not Congolese, and hewas super interested in what we were doing. He's a producer/directorfor movies. His name was James Nehemi, and he's Israeli,Martiniquese, and Gabonese mix. He looks like Antonio Bandares, soyou should probably be jealous.
Right after meeting him, this guy 5 steps later stopped and asked usto help him because, in English he said, "in the night my wife ismaking love with a witch." So we did our best to take him seriously,because he was serious, and told him he should probably just pray alot and then we got the heck outta there haha.
One of the paths we needed to take was blocked by a bridge made ofplanks, and people were asking for money to go across (because it hadrained and the entire quartier was flooded), so we had to look foranother route. We stopped at a shoe repair guy because my right solewas coming off the super glue I'd layered on it months earlier, and hesewed it up really nice for only $2. We even got to watch some WWEWrestling that he had on the TV while we were there. It washilarious. Maybe I just don't understand...call me ignorant.
On Wednesday we had a pretty packed day, and it went really well. Wesat down with a guy who called us from a brochure he'd been given overa year ago, and we followed him to his sister's house, which used tobe a night club/bar/VIP lounge that is full of really cool vegetationand has a big pool and looks like a house that belongs in southernFrance or LA. It was so cool. Turns out his sister met themissionaries in Italy! She also speaks portuguese from living inAngola, Lingala from living in Brazzaville, Kituba and French andItalian. I love Africans. She brought her two kids Georgio and Laurato church on Sunday, it was adorable.
On Thursday we planned all our rendez-vous at the church.Unfortunately, our first three either cancelled on us or didn't showup, so we sat there for 4 hours talking with a recent convert who weeventually taught as well. The Lord knows why we waited there though,because while we were sitting there these two little matisse Candiansthat speak perfect English came to skate on the basketball court, sowe got to talk with them for a while and they even said we could comeover after church on Sunday! It was so exciting that when we weredone talking with them I couldn't contain myself and let out a tear ortwo. I just didn't know what to do, it was so strange to talk to astranger in English. But uh...anyway.
We went out to see our last appointment but he was gone too, so wegot an ice cream on the way back to the road, and then safou(Cameroonian "prunes" which taste like sweat and armpit but when youput salt on them it magically turns into little bites of heaven). Weplanned on having chili and cornbread, but Elder Johnston mistook cornmeal for corn starch, so instead it turned into egg bread,which...wasn't that bad! But it wasn't that good...haha. We wantedto buy a lock for our bathroom door, but the lady who wanted to sellit to us ripped open this thing that we don't actually need, and thenmade us feel bad about "making" her rip it open. Well we actuallyfelt bad, so we bought a soccer ball from her to play with on Monday.
On Friday we had district meeting with the Baileys, and Elder Johnstontalked about success as a missionary, which was really great. Notevery success story ends in baptism! An important lesson for everymissionary to learn.
The funniest thing happened as we looked for a member's house when, aswe turned onto the street we thought he lived on and asked neighborsfor Fabrice, they pointed us behind this house where we found Fabrice,but not the one we were looking for! The real Fabrice, turns out,lives a couple paths over. But it allowed us to explain why we werethere, and one of the people had friends in the Church in Brazzaville,so we took contact with him for later. Score. God knows what's up.
I got a new pen that worked for about 30 seconds, and then I threw itat the wall and it broke so it doesn't work anymore (it stoppedworking and that's why I threw it at the wall).
On Saturday, in our first lesson we found out that someone told ourinvestigator that he shouldn't go to church because we're just UnitedNation chemists sent here to study the land so we can take it overlater. So far I've heard people call us pilots, spies, the police,wizards, dragons, and students, but chemists was new. Awesome. wehad more rendez-vous planned at the church, but they all ratéd usagain. There was a marriage though, so we attended that and had agreat time with the members as we celebrated together. We helped themset up the chairs and whatnot because they had absolutely no eye forhow it should look. Turns out it didn't even matter, because as soonas it started the rain came a tumblin down and everyone just fled thescene. No respector of marriages, haha. They fed us bread and meatand beans in the end, so all is well.
Sunday was great. We had 5.5 times the amount of people there thanlast week because it didn't rain. We met some new people and ate somechicken gizzards grilled and put in a shishkabob. It was actuallydelicious.
No more time but! I love this work. I love you. I hope you have agreat week :)
Elder Garland
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