With 30 minutes left I will do my best to sum up the week in a blurt of scenes!
Last Monday night we had FHE with the Baileys again, but this time we shared the lesson, and afterwards they threw me a surprise birthday party between the 4 of us haha, it was adorable and much appreciated because we wouldn't really have time to party on Wednesday. Sister Bailey had made Wendy's frostees and we had cookies to go with them. I got a pack of Peach O's that I'm still snacking on a week later and they're still delicious. I also got a sweet, new pillow case with lions and monkeys and elephants, so I'm pretty much a happy camper.
We spent the better part of Tuesday helping an old friend of mine, Doretta, move into her new place in Mayinga, not far from a handful of new investigators. On the way, Paco told me that another old missionary friend of mine, Elder Andriamamonjy said hello through Facebook, so that made my day. He's married in the temple and life is continuing for him. Incredible.
Elder Sperry woke up half an hour early on Wednesday to make me a birthday breakfast of fried potatoes and onions and French toast. I woke up at the same time as him and couldn't fall back asleep because it smelled so good in the apartment haha, but I was super thankful and it was delicious. I also took advantage of the new blender that we got and made us some banana smoothies. Tasty goodness. I got calls from the Mpaka elders and the other ones in Foucks, so that was really nice of them. We had a couple ratezvous in the day, but got a few numbers out of it, so that worked out pretty well. God always knows why someone doesn't make their rendezvous. My trainer taught me that a long time ago. Sister Bailey gave us a small papaya when we got back, so that was the cherry on top of a great birthday. 24...I remember being a lot more excited to wake up on my birthday haha.
On Thursday I had the special opportunity to assist a mission council with the rest of the zone leaders throughout the mission by way of Skype. It was a really great experience, and it turns out that we're all having more or less the same difficulties in our zones, and through the wisdom of President Monga I took several notes to pass on in zone conference on Saturday. I learned two new expressions in English. Yes. In English. "I'm doing good like a baby on a mama's back, or as good as a lollipop on a tongue." I'm totally bringing those into style when I get back. It must be big in Nigeria or Ghana...
We had a rough start on Friday, but it got a lot better after a couple hours. Paco came out to teach with us, and while we were heading to Mayinga this taxi was stuck in the sand, so we stopped to push him out and he offered us a free ride which we were originally just going to walk, but he saved us probably 20 minutes, which was nice. We went out to see this maman who I've had to set rendezvous with in kikongo because she doesn't speak much French, so that was cool. She just talked with Paco the whole time about stuff she asked us about when we met the first time last week. I understood most of it, and threw in my 2 cents when I could. I will have to look for all the Congolese people living in Utah when I get back so I can keep up on my obscure African dialects haha.
Sister Bailey served us a heavenly breakfast on Saturday to kick off our zone conference, but I wonder if it wasn't detrimental to the attention of our zone haha. Just kidding, it was fine. But seriously...after French toast, buttermilk pancakes, and potatoes...everyone was pretty much out. Good thing we took a 15 minute break before the meeting even started to digest haha. It went really well. I had a couple days to prepare, and it all worked out in the end. We addressed some universal issues as a zone, and I worked out individual issues by making it general and having them solve it themselves. That probably doesn't make any sense, but I'm in a rush and don't have time to make sense haha. After the meeting Elder Sperry and I left to participate in Pointe-Noire's first ever viewing of the recently deceased Papa Kizimbou - Alain's dad. It was a really great meeting, organized by President Caillet despite persecution that he had from other members because they were worried about people thinking it was creepy and sorcery. Well a ton of people showed up, and they brought in the casket but never opened it, so it was quite normal. They all left in buses to go bury the body way far away above the city. We stayed to teach a ancient investigator who had come back and English class.
Sunday was more or less normal. We had less people at church because of a small rain that fallen in the morning (still waiting for the first big rain of the season - the sun is already out and beating), but a lot of people who used to come are coming back! Afterwards, I got to do a few interviews for the Mpaka elders, which is always special for me. They were wonderfully prepared and ready for baptism. Amazing.
We walked out to see one of Elder Johnston's baptismal candidates who moved back home into our sector for the school year, sat down with a guy I've been teaching since February, walked out to say hi to God-Thanks' mom and then we walked home for lunch and studies.
Our recent convert Helena (who is also the new Young Women's President) gave an incredible talk on dating. I told her right before she went up that if she looked down to read out of For the Strength of the Youth or look down for any reason we'd never come back! I was kidding, of course, but she did a great job. People were dying laughing and she got many congratulations afterwards. I cannot stress enough the importance of giving a good talk...the members just need a little training, and they will blow the socks off of their fellow brothers and sisters every Sunday. I wish I could do a class or give a talk on giving a talk haha.
Anyway, I love you all so much and love the Gospel even more (but don't be offended). It's changed my life, and though it's taken 21 months of missionary service to finally let it take control of my life, I'm glad it was earlier than later. The principles He taught were and ARE true! Do you ever take the time to study them? They're all in the Bible, AND the Book of Mormon! We have modern prophets and apostles to teach and train us. We just had General Conference. Did we really pay attention? These are living scriptures!!! May we all let the Gospel into our lives in the same way they have.
Have a wonderful week,
Elder Garland
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