June 30

Here we go, another week on the way.

We went out to the beach with the Baileys after writing home, and
that's always fun.  We played a little volleyball and had a drink,
cookies, and watermelon for break.  It's just nice to stand in the
sand that isn't in the middle of the quartier.

The next day, after seeing all the people we needed to see, we went to
the airport to pick up the new elders Nzema and Sperry.  Elder Hatch
moved into Mpaka again with his new Zambian companion, who is super
smiley and nice and speaks great English, and I went back with Elder
Sperry to our apartment above the Bailey's.  Before going home, the
Baileys treated us to a chawarma at that really nice restaurant in
front of the airport.  Never have I eaten as good of a chawarma.
Elder Sperry is a wonderful kid.  He's like 6'2, and build like a
Tongan, even though he's white!  His mom is from Tonga and his dad
from Utah.  They met at BYU Hawaii and moved back to Utah after they
were married.  Elder Sperry's first name is Tauafanga (his friends
call him Fanga) and coupled with the rest of his name it means "Tower
of Excellence."  Tell me that is not the most incredible name you've
ever heard haha.  Amazing.

We went out to district meeting in Foucks on Wednesday to learn about
prayer from Elder Johnston.  Great lesson.  Our first rendezvous
together, we went to Darcyne's and for the first time sat down with
Sophie, our white French friend who lives there.  She said she'd been
reading through the Book of Mormon, was already in 1 Nephi 17, and
from that moment continued to blow our minds.  We talked about the
nature of God, prophets, and the Atonement of Christ, and the whole
time she was pulling references from the chapters she'd read in the
Book of Mormon.  I didn't know what to say.  I was just laughing and
saying "OUI!" the whole time.  It was amazing.  We invited her to try
asking God to forgive her, because she said that she'd tried forgiving
herself (which indeed is important) but that every time that guilt
would inevitably come back to her.  We promised that if she asked God,
because of the Atonement, that guilt could go away forever! She
promised she would try.  INCREDIBLE, INCREDIBLE, INCREDIBLE.  I
couldn't stop smiling, even after we left.  We walked to see Cecile,
who was preparing for baptism with her older cousin Gerlene.  She's
doing great.  We walked into Monami's house looking for him and found
his 25 year old friends playing the original Mario from NES on the TV.
So...if that gives you an idea where I am.

I've developed this nasty cold which has made me super tired,
coughing, sneezing, and running my nose for the last 5 days now, and
kept me awake for a few nights.  Alas, I asked God to give me a hand
out in the sector and He provided.  Miraculously I made it through
every day.  Elder Bailey stocked me up with some magic medecine which
I thrived off of until it started going away.  Thank goodness for
pharmacists !

On Thursday we had weekly planning, went over and saw some great
recent converts, and went back to Cecile's to confirm plans and get
her ready for her interview.

Then we split on Friday, so I worked with Elder Johnston in our sector
so he could do interviews for us.  We went back to Darcyne's and found
Sophie again, where we finished talking about the Great Apostasy, the
Restoration and the Book of Mormon.  And then she did what I thought I
would never get any white people to do and accepted to be baptized.
We said maybe the end of July or beginning of August would be good,
but she was like, "well I'll probably finish the Book of Mormon next
week so I'm counting on being ready even by the 12th." SHE SET HER OWN
DATE!  Extraordinary.  I was histerical, but the good kind.  Mostly I
just couldn't believe it.  We got to meet a couple more people, but
for probably 2 and a half hours the next 8-10 people we tried seeing
weren't home or weren't available.  So we walked, and walked, and
walked.  Meanwhile I was suffering and dragging my feet one after the
other.  But I made it!  And we still had time to make a delicious
shepherd's pie before I crashed at like 9 when Elder Bailey gave me
some Nyquil.  Delicious.

President had come while we were making dinner, so it was nice to see
him and Sister Cook, even though I couldn't give them hugs, haha.  We
got up at 5:30 the next day to be at the basketball court by 6 to play
with President and all the other elders.  It was a blast.  President
threw down on all of us, it was awesome.  Lefties...we practiced our
choir piece, went home, showered and changed, and came back for the
baptism by 10.  Despite the gross retard of our candidates (turns out
they don't have a clock at their house or any time-telling device)
everything went really well; Gerlene was finally baptized after a
year's worth of investigation and neglect from past missionaries, and
Cecile went with her.  It was a beautiful ceremony, as it always is.
President got to speak, and his words were comforting.  We stuck
around for English class, which Sophie came for and got a private
lesson because not many other people came and those who did were all
advanced.  She's more advanced in the scriptures than a lot of others
though, that's for sure!

Sunday came around and we had branch conference at this beautiful
conference center at a hotel.  It was a lot bigger than I thought it
would be.  We welcomed a ton of members from across the city, sang our
piece for everyone and made president cry.  It was an arrangement of
"come thou fount" which happens to be his favorite hymn.  After
teaching a new investigator, Fall, we went home and President asked us
to sing it to him again - twice, haha.  It went really well, except I
couldn't finish the second time we sang because these weird pipes in
my eyes suddenly came loose and I had to spend the second half of the
song working on closing them up.  The rest of the elders carried it on
well, thank goodness.  We helped Sister Bailey make a fantastic
lasagna from scratch (minus the noodles) and then had caramel apple
cheesecake bars with ice cream, otherwise known as heaven on a plate.
We said our goodbyes to President and Sister Cook, which made those
eye pipes come loose again, and then they were gone!  I wish I had
more time to write about how wonderful they both are.  They have so
many things on their plate...5 countries and over 200 missionaries,
not to mention all the branch, ward, and stake leaders and members.
Lord knows how they make it day by day.  Anyway, I was inspired the
last year we served together and I hope to become as good of a
missionary as he is some day when I'm maybe as old :)

Otherwise, we're all excited to receive the new mission president.  As
of Tuesday, I'll officially be in the Republic of Congo Brazzaville
Mission.  Crazy.  I'll love it though.  I love you already!  I hope
you have a great week.  Say a prayer for this mission...we'll need all
we can get during this transition period!!!

Kilimbu ya kaka,

Elder Garland