September 15

Elder Sperry and I kicked off the week right by loading a half a kilo of mozzarella onto our pizza Monday night.  Needless to say, it was real good. 

We needed all those calories for Tuesday, because for the first time in my mission I split in my own sector with branch missionaries.  Sperry went with Paco, and I went with Jhostavie.  It was really weird.  I forgot that I was only the only white guy in the busses and whatnot.  Jhostavie and I had a great day though, we saw Binta who's preparing for baptism, and sat down with some more people before meeting back up with my companion and Paco at the end of the day to see a cousin of a member.  Her name is Wisdom.  So.  Lots to live up to. 

While I was at our recent convert's house, Elvis, he told us about how he never finished his testimony of witchcraft in his childhood.  He said one time when he was young he walked into his room and found a gecko chilling on his bed, so he whacked it with a board.  To his great surprise, the gecko yelled at him, "HEY!  Why'd you do that?!" So he whacked him again, and then he said, "Elvis!  I came to see you, why are you hitting me!"  So he tried running away and screaming for help, but then he looked down and saw that his feet hadn't moved and none of his brothers in the other room had heard him.  So he just said, "who are you?!"  and the gecko replied, "don't you recognize me?" and then transformed into a humanoid person with no facial features (eyes, nose, mouth, ears), but was just a blank face.  So he screamed again, "Papa!!" and only then did the mysterious creature flee.  Well that wasn't all, because a spirit version of Elvis kept coming back to visit him at least twice a year to show him where he could find some money, etc. and to congratulate him on his baptism.  He was like, "he looks like me, only he's not as ugly," haha.  So...take that how you will haha.

We had district meeting in Foucks, and went back to see Wisdom and our sweet Maman Janette.  She loves the church.

We had to split on Thursday so Elder Johnston could do Dieu-Merci's (God-Thanks) interview for his baptism Saturday.  All went well!

Friday was super exciting.  We went out early to help our less-active friend Charlie move into the quartier right next to the church so he could be more frequent (that is, more often than once every 10 months) at sacrament meeting.  Elder Bailey went with us, and we took off canopy of the truck so we could fit more stuff.  After playing Tetris with Charlie's stuff for about half an hour, we finally were able to get everything stacked and tied down in one trip.  It was pretty great, especially since we had a crowd gathered to watch how white man stacks furniture haha.  The best part, however, was when we pulled up to an inaccessible part of the road, and got out to see how the truck could make it through the quartier to get to Charlie's place.  While I was standing on the railroad tracks with our friend, following his finger to see where his house was, a grumpy drunk behind me growled, "Katuka nzila ko!" which basically means, "Get outta the way!" I think he was a little surprised though when I replied to him in munukutuba, considering he started laughing, became suddenly friendly, and asked what we were doing, where we were going, etc.  We told him we were looking for the road through the quartier, and he was like, nahhh it's ok I'll show you!  So he followed us back to the truck, squeezed in with us in the back, and started directing us in the biggest detour of my life.  He feined knowing anything about the quartier, brought us multiple times to a dead-end, and in the end I ended up having to bring us to Charlie's house.  The whole time he's saying, "I'm the master of the quartier, I know colonels and generals, this is my home, blah blah blah."  When we finally got out and got all Charlie's stuff unloaded, he was asking for money for all his hard work.  We were sad to tell him we didn't have any money to give him, and then he started getting angry.  Thankfully, we were with in front of the bar that we picked him up at, and his bar friends came over and started to shoo him away.  In his drunken anger, holding a cigarette, he said something about "Maman Loufi" which made a lot of people really mad.  One guy in particular wanted to start a fight, so in the middle of that we kinda just slipped away victorious haha. 

We went out to see Darcyne, and on the way back I saw out of the corner of my eye a glass Coke bottle that was about to roll off of some maman's boutique stand without her noticing, so I jolted over and snagged it as it was falling.  I think she was more surprised than thankful haha.  We laughed about that for a while.  Little things become funnier and funnier on the mission...someone will have to catch me up to modern humor when I get home.

Saturday was great - Dieu-Merci was baptized by Paco, which was awesome, and then we stuck around for English class, which I always love teaching. 

The best part was when, the next day, one of our English class students came to church!  She lives way far away, but came 20 minutes early in the light drizzling rain that had started to fall early in the morning.  It was enough to deter several of our investigators (and members, for that matter), but we still ended up having a great turnout.  While we were walking to church we saw some guys trying to push a car over a bump into a sort of car wash lot, but they couldn't get it.  So we ran over and got our hands on the back right as they were pushing, and we sent the car so fast over the bump that it crashed into another car parked in the lot.  They were like, "ummm thanks. God bless...?" haha, sooo that was pretty embarrassing.  Service is so hard to render without somehow screwing up or looking silly...

Bishop Gaetan (the CES Coordonator from Brazzaville) was with us on Sunday, and afterwards he pulled me aside like an old pal to chat about the work.  I've seen Gaetan come in and out of Pointe-Noire for the last 10 months, so we know each other pretty well, and he always jokes about bringing me to his ward in Brazza.  He really inspired me on Sunday though, when he said, "You know Elder Garland, we need to start converting people to the Gospel, not the church."  For some reason, I'd never thought about it like that, but he was totally right.  A lot of people fall away from the Church, because they never really had a strong testimony of the Gospel itself.  If they had, they'd read their scriptures and pray diligently and attend church regularly not out of obligation to the commandments, but out of love for the Lord.  Great philosophy.  Very inspired.

We came home to prepare for Sister Bailey's Birthday Bash, for which we made a delicious chocolate cake.  Upon opening the cocoa box, however, I discovered an ant colony thriving in the bottom.  It was horrifying, but they were all drowned within minutes :)  I'm no respector of insects, but if you put a rat or a mouse in front me, I'll do my best to bag it and release it to the wild. 

Other great news!  A guy I taught with Elder Zurcher at the beginning of my mission and with whom I've stayed in touch throughout all these months is finally being baptized on Saturday.  He's been telling me this whole time that he's just waiting for me to come back to Cameroon so I could baptize him, but everytime I told him just to go through with it he refused.  Finally, my dear friend Landry will be baptized.  He demanded that I choose someone to baptize him though haha, so I just suggested Marius, the branch president, who was an awesome inspiration for me at the beginning of my mission.  Anyway, I'm just super excited for Landry and thankful for the Elders in Douala and Yaounde for keeping tabs on him.  He's a stud. 

I love you all, and I hope you've been well and safe and healthy!  Stay away from ebola!  It's nasty stuff - but!  very far from where I am, so no need to be worried.

Have a wonderful week.  I'm praying for you!

Elder Garland