April 7

Hello again everybody!

Well we had quite the week.  It all started on Tuesday, April 1st,
when first my mind was blown by the fact that it is already April, and
then because we went to this Mercy Ships projection by our church.
(I'm sorry, I'm taking a quite aside to talk about this guy who came
to sit next to me who has clearly never used a computer in his entire
life.  He keeps asking how to click the mouse and type in the letters.
 He didn't know how to open the internet or where to go from there.
This is incredible and is unfolding out right in front of me.
Amazing.  I wish you could see this, seriously.)  James, our Israeli
friend, invited us to the projection because he'd seen one a couple
weeks ago and thought we'd enjoy it because there's Americans who are
there and we could talk to them.  So we showed up, and I first met
Mary, and then Joanne, who were two middle-aged women who were making
one of their first trips on land.  They usually just stay on the boat,
but they had a chance to come into the city, and ran into a couple
Mormon missionaries.  They were super nice!  It was the first time
that I'd spoken with a non-member American in 15 months.  I had no
idea what to say or anything, when all of the sudden Mary asks me to
bare her my testimony.  Well I couldn't have asked for a more perfect
opportunity to share the Restored Gospel, but instead I talked about
music and how I came to know God through worship, which ended up being
a pretty sweet experience anyway.  We watched a couple videos of
sharing the Gospel of Jesus-Christ with our friends, and that was
really cool.  When we got home, Elder Gelinas got a call from the
Baileys that he was going to leave for Gabon the next day at 9 in the
morning.  I was so excited that I was hugging him and clapping his
hand and all this jazz when I get a sly smile from him and a sick
feeling that it was April Fool's Day came over me.  Poisson d'avril.
DANGIT.  He April Fished me real good.  I was so mad though, because I
looked so dumb being so excited.  Alas.  It was a good one, I admit.
I got him back by setting his alarm for 4h30 though, and in a
punch-drunk voice whisper/said "poisson d'avril" as he laughed in bed.
 Unfortunately it was so hot that I couldn't fall back asleep for
another hour or so, so the joke ended up being on me haha.

The Baileys told us that the new missionary wouldn't come until the
weekend or Monday, so we were a little disappointed to have to wait.
In any case, on Wednesday I did my first zone training that  went
really well!  Great ideas on how to better ourselves and rededicate
our work to God.  Afterwards we went to go see our friend Darcine and
her kids, but this really drunk maman came and sat with us and kindof
ruined the lesson by telling us irrelevant stories and introduced
herself at least 15 times in 45 minutes.  She would be talking,
randomly stop and say, "I'm Mami Bea!"  And we'd say, "yeah you told
us like 3 minutes ago," and she'd just keep talking.  Then we went to
a member's house to eat mwambe, which is palm nuts that you smash and
boil and strain into a sauce and pour over chicken and rice.  It was
super good!  I really loved it.  The best part was that her neighbors
were over watching Parent Trap at the same time, sooo throw back!
Classic.  Then we found out that her neighbor has been coming to
church with her for the last year and hasn't been baptized, so we just
stepped out to talk to her mom and she told us to go ahead and baptize
her so that was awesome.  Lessons started two days later!

On Thursday we met with a less-active member who has been busy
recording a rap music video, which we weren't expecting much out of,
but turned out to be really cool! It's called "Petit Monde" by H2O, so
maybe that's on the internet, but I'm not sure.  It was awesome.  He's
going to be famous some day, and then I rapped for him in English and
he was amazed.  We're going to rap together I guess.  Keep an eye out
for Mundele na Ndombe!  Yannick, who was missing forever, finally came
back to meet us later that day, and it went great.  He's been 600 km
away, so we were happy to see him. That night we got a call from the
Baileys that in fact, Elder Etherington would land Friday afternoon
and we should come with them to pick him up! I was so excited.  I even
wrote in my journal "I'M SO EXCITED."

Friday came and we saw Darcine again and had a much better lesson on
the Word of Wisdom and the Plan of Salvation, and they were super
engaged, including the kids, so that was great.  Our member friend who
fed us had us over again to start teaching her neighbor, who's name is
Lovely (yes...I know), and she's only 11 but she's super smart and
asks great questions.  Then we walked over to the airport and waited
for my son to land.  We then waited an hour for his bags to come, and
then there he was!  He is a 6'1 operatic voice major ginger from
Oklahoma, so we are going to have a blast together.  He has 7 little
brothers and his baby sister was born the day he left the MTC!  AND he
has grandparents who live in Kennewick and relatives in Richland, so
if you know any Etheringtons say hi to them for me.  Anyway, he's
awesome already.  The Baileys took us out for dinner at this little
cafe across from the airport.  I had a delicious chawarma for the
first time since I left Douala, and then we had ice cream.  Real.
Strawberry. Ice cream.  It was so good I almost died of pure joy.  God
bless the Baileys and their generosity.

The next day we went out with Elder Etherington to teach a couple
people before heading to the church for 2 of my old investigators'
baptisms from Mpaka.  My son is awesome.  His French is fantastic.  He
has a great accent and not a bad vocabulary for his first day.  He is
not shy in lessons and is always willing to bare testimony and promise
blessings.  I love it.  He even asked this girl to be baptized on his
first day.  Awesome.  The baptisms went off with out a hitch.  Romelle
and Christelle, two girls who are 18 and 21 respectively who I taught
before coming to Aeroport, were so happy they were just crying all
over the place.  They had huge smiles the whole time.  It was  a
beautiful baptism.

On Sunday we had quite a few people at church, and we were fasting so
it was especially special.  After church we went to the Baileys to
break the fast and watch the Priesthood Session of General Conference,
which was incredible.  Elder Oaks blew my mind.  Hallstrom, Ridd,
Uchtdorf, Eyering and President Monson.  I always love listening to
the prophet.  He's so funny, too.  Anyway, I'm really looking forward
to being able to watch the rest of Conference when it gets here.  The
downsides of living in a 3rd world country...

I love you all.  I'm so excited to be here working for the Lord.  He
is watching over us all and blesses us beyond comprehension.  I
testify of His love for you and for ALL of His children!!!  He wants
you to be free to act for your own, but He wants you to choose the
right!  So for Pete's sake, choose the right :)

Have a wonderful week.  I know I will!

Elder Garland

March 31

Hello again everyone!

BIG news.  So we had heard that there were two new missionaries coming
to the mission, one here and one to Cameroon.  Well no one knew who
was training until I checked my email and found out that it's me!  So
I'll be a solo zone leader as soon as Elder Gelinas gets his visa to
leave for Gabon, and Elder Etherington will be joining me in the
aerport sector.  I'm super excited. Thrilled, even!  He gets here
tomorrow, so I'll let you know how that's going next week :)

Otherwise, Elder Gelinas and I had a great week.  We are blown away
every time we sit down with our friend Perfect.  He was more prepared
than anyone I've ever made.  He knows the answers to everything we
teach and then completes our lessons by himself.  He just knows
everything already from reading the Ensigns and scriptures.

On Wednesday we went to do this zone council with the president and
all the other zone leaders in the mission, but the internet program
that we were supposed to use didn't work at all.  They had a horrible
connection, so for the next hour we just sat there and waited for them
to figure it out, which, in the end, they never did.  So the Baileys
fed us spaghetti anyway and let us hang out at their house to do our
studies before we headed out to teach.

We sat down with our Israeli friend again and he told us about how in
Gabon he'd healed three different people when he was led by the Spirit
to this random hospital where he cured someone of internal bleeding,
elephantitis, and blindness.  Then he just left like a thief in the
night.  He also had started reading the Book of Mormon, and said that
he called his brother in Israel to double check that the names of the
people in the book checked out with ancient papyrus that he used to
study when he was in school, and yeah, they are all real.  According
to my Israeli friend and his brother.  No, Joseph Smith did not make
up the Book of Mormon.  He did not imagine it with his 3rd grade
education at the age of 23.  It's real!!! It's true!!!  Then I saw a
hummingbird and my testimony was sealed.

On Friday I went on splits with Elder Wright in my sector after
district meeting, where I learned from Elder Wright himself that if
something isn't working out then we need to change the way we love.
Awesome insight. At our last rendez-vous of the day (who we couldn't
get a hold of, and then we walk out of our recent convert's house and
he was just sitting there waiting for a friend in a house next door.
Thanks God!) we were invited in this little shack (we were sitting in
the line of screaming mamas in the parcelle and I couldn't even hear
myself thing so I asked if we could move), and at first all was well.
Then, as the sun set, we saw a big cloud of mosquitos hovering behind
us.  Then the cloud turned into a hurricane, and I've never seen that
amount in my entire life.  Disgusting.  At least they weren't biting.

It rained all morning on Saturday, and we entered into the Labyrinth
that is KM4.  Instead of taking our normal 2 minute route, we had to
zig-zag through the entire quartier, jumping streams and walking
across bridges of stones and sacks and trash, and 20 minutes later we
finally showed up - and the guy wasn't home.  That happens I guess.
The rain only got harder, and then we had to leave before we got
trapped in the parcelle of our ratez-vous.  Our 2 o'clock appointment
didn't show up until 4:30, but by that time we were going to check the
email about the new missionary, so we had to come back to teach her,
and that went well.

We had a great turnout on Sunday.  Darcine and her family came - 7 of
them.  We took a couple minutes after church to blow Josue's mind
about Adam and Eve, and then he wanted a blessing from Monami before
he left for Dolisi.  Monami had literally gotten the Priesthood 2
minutes before, and gave such an awesome blessing.  It was incredible.
 These people have such a big faith.  Then we walked over to Quebecois
family to see if they were there, and we met the dad this time!  He
was super nice and immediately recognized that Gelinas was a Quebecois
name, but we didn't get to talk about it too much because this rabbit
jumped out the gate and we had to chase it for 10 minutes and get it
out from a car.  They were entertaining guests, so he invited us back
for Saturday.  So excited.

Every night as we're making dinner these little kids behind our
apartment building yell out to us "mundele! mundele!" and then we yell
back to them in Munikituba and they all just die laughing.  Literally,
every night the same conversation takes place.  Mundele! Ndombe! Iki
nghe lamba ? Susu na madesso ! Beto mekwenda nayinzo ya nzambie
bubiyai na beno !! Kokila mbote ka mbassi !!!  Insert laughter.

Well I love you all and I know the Church is true.  I wouldn't be here
if it wasn't.  Sure, living in Africa is pretty sweet, but I love
America too much to just stay here for nothing.  I have a firm
convition of what I do every day.  I know that the Gospel of Jesus
Christ is the only thing that can bring us true happiness, and is the
only thing that will bring us back into the presence of our Heavenly
Father.  That's right, bring us BACK. We were already there.  YOU were
already there!  You wanted to come here - how bad do you want to go
back?

Elder Garland

I'm starting a list of less-mentioned scripture heroes, starting with
this guy in Mark 14:51-52

March 24

Woof. What a week!

Not much happened last Monday - my poor companion was sick to his
stomach so we had to take him back home and just hang out for a couple
hours while he rested.  We gave him a blessing and by Tuesday he was
all fun and games, smiles and Canadian.  Well he was always
Canadian...but...anyway, with all the time I had it gave me a chance
to make sweet and sour chicken and fried rice, and it was a huge
success!  No that's not a typical Congolese dish, but it is delicious.

On Tuesday we went to pay our electric bill at this super packed
DMV-like center where a million people are standing around 8 chairs
and waiting to be called from the one lady behind a glass wall.  We
were instructed by an 80 year old Morgan Freeman to put our paper
underneath an impossibly large stack of papers and waited patiently
with everyone else.  Morgan kept giving instructions to other people,
though he was waiting himself to pay.  With the rate of service we
estimated standing for about 3 hours, but imagine our surprise when
the woman behind the desk looks up at us 15 minutes later and points
to have us come forward.  I almost felt guilty, walking in front of
everyone else that was there before us.  Finally, backwards racism
worked out in our favor!  Really, God just answered our prayers so we
could go out and teach His children His Gospel.

I bought 2 50 CFA pens and lost one of them the same day and broke the
other one in half last night because I was so frustrated with its
awful quality, and then we went to see Elvis (yes. Elvis.), where I
took a bad step onto a ladder/bridge over a trash river and got my
entire right foot soaked in mud and gross.  Great start to a great
day!

We got to sit down with our blind grandma friend who only speaks
Kikongo, and she told us to come back the next day.  Even grandmas are
no respector of rendez-vous.

That day I met a guy named Mount Caramel and another one named Alas.
Incredible.

On Wednesday morning we went to teach Papy at the church, and while we
were sitting there a guy came in the gate and told us that he got in
from Brazzaville last night, when he was planning on killing himself
but then his friend invited him to come to Pointe-Noire.  The next day
he was looking for a place where he could get to know God and walked
in front of our church.  Surprise!  That happens probably every week,
and it NEVER gets old and blows my mind EVERY time.  God knows His
children!!!

We walked to this woman's house who had come to church to teach her
and her kids (one of whom looks like a 9 year old Italian version of
Emma Watson), and when we sat down the kids had these papers that they
had written on.  I thought they were maybe questions, and then they
blew my mind by recited the first 3 Articles of Faith that they had
learned on Sunday in Primary.  INCREDIBLE.  The woman, Darcine, said
that there was a new energy at home and that the kids were always
talking about church and what they learned and whatnot.  It was
awesome.  I loved it.  They are an adorable family and love the Gospel
already.

We went back to Maman Tete (the blind, couch-ridden woman) where they
fed us sakasaka (manioc leaves), cuanga (boiled manioc), boiled ripe
plantains (banana/potatoes), and beans mixed with cow liver
(delicious).  Meanwhile, the member who was translating for us put on
this weird vampire anime that was actually captivating, but also just
weird.  So I tried to focus on my liver chunks that were getting stuck
between my teeth.

Right as I finished putting my mind back together, we sat down with
our director friend James and he proceeded to blow my mind again.  Let
me break down a sliver of his story for you :  He was born and raised
in Israel, where from 7-18 he studied the word of God and aeronautical
engineering in a convent of wisemen and scholars.  When he left school
he did 2 years of mandatory military service.  His dad gave him $1,200
to do with what he would, and James decided to continue his work.  One
day, two of his life-long friends that he studied with and worked with
were asked to do a demonstration in a cockpit training excercise to
find the missing part so they could start the plane.  Suddenly the
cockpit exploded, and his two friends burned alive in front of him. He
left work and bummed around home for a year until his dad decided to
send him to visit his Martiniquese and Gabonese grandparents.  While
in Gabon, he's running on the beach and meets a black American English
teacher practicing karate, so he decides to watch and practice with
him.  Turns out the guy is a movie director, and trains James in that
art.  He leaves 5 years later and gives James a Handy Came to start
doing his own films.  He meets Steven Segal and the President's
daughter one day out of the blue.  Then James goes into the forest one
day looking for a scene to shoot this film, and finds instead a little
village of suspicious people who demand that he leaves.  Well he came
back later and spied on them with his camera, and found out that
they're child traffickers.  He does this huge bit on them, publishes
it, and it immediately reaches nationwide recognition.  The president
of Gabon invites him to dinner and gives him a briefcase of 3,000,000
CFA (about $6,000) to continue his work.  All of Central Africa starts
cracking down on child traffickers because of this movie James made.
It got so big that people started looking to kill James, so he had to
flee the country.  He goes to Angola, Cote d'Ivoir, Nigeria, just
about everywhere.  In Angola one day he is rounded up by the military
with a couple other foreigners at 4 in the morning, brought to the
beach and put on his knees with a gun to the back of his head.  He
asks the captor if he can say a prayer before he shoots him, and the
guy says that he hasn't been ordered to shoot yet, so if he thinks he
can pray before he shoots he was welcome.  As James is praying, the
guy kicks him in the butt and tells him to save himself, so James
scrambles away and doesn't know what happens to the others who were
gathered up.  James comes to Pointe-Noire and marries this girl, where
he loses two babies in child birth.  His wife left him 2 days before
he came to sit down with us. James Nehemiah - the most interesting man
on the planet.  Loves the church, is currently reading the Book of
Mormon, more to come.

Oh also, that morning I'd eaten (licked a dime size-dot off a spoon)
some homemade piment from a member, and 30 minutes later my knuckles
were burning and I had an itch in my side.  Africa.

We had district meeting on Friday, and then we went out to teach, as
per usual.  Our second rendez-vous said he wasn't available until 5,
so we decided to meet our last rendez-vous early.  We had actually
planned on seeing him at that time, but he never picked up his phone
when we needed to change times on him, so it worked out perfectly.  We
asked him what he remembered from the brochure we left him, and he
started reading a sentence out of the brochure, and gave this really
generic response about God and Jesus Christ and baptism - but when we
asked him why we needed to be baptized in OUR church he replied, "well
the others are missing the Priesthood, and there's 2 Priesthoods,
and..." and continued to teach US the Restoration and the Book of
Mormon and EVERYthing about it until we had nothing left to discuss
because he'd already talked about everything haha.  He got all this
information when he locked himself in his room for 4 days and read all
these Liahonas that another investigator gave him.  So, he's basically
perfect.  By the way, his name is Perfect.  Yep.  He is a top chef for
an oil company and is on/off two weeks.  So awesome.

We went to see that guy who told us he was available at 5, but he
didn't show up until 6h20.  Meanwhile, Papy explained the story of his
girlfriend/child and cried and it was amazing. He needs an "I'm a
Mormon" ad.  Eventually our investigator shows up, but it's not the
guy we were waiting for.  Turns out I had copied the number wrong from
Elder Gelinas, and we called another guy and totally blew off the
first one on accident.  Fortunately, the guy who came to see us was
super interested and is totally ready for the Gospel.  God is so funny
like that.

On Saturday our branch mission leader got married to a sister from the
Pointe-Noire branch.  The clouds were threating all morning, but we
prayed that it would rain sooner than later, and God answered our
prayers!  By the time the marriage started, it had already rained for
an hour and the clouds were all out of cloud tears.  The wedding was
beautiful.  The church was set up really nice, and President Caillet
got everything in order.  A lot of our investigators came, and I got
to see members from Mpaka, so that was nice.  President Caillet asked
us to help set up the food, even though by the time we went to eat
there was nothing left.  President Cook showed up and got to
participate as well, so that was really cool.  We only talked with him
for a few minutes before he left, but it's ok because we were supposed
to see him again Sunday.

I had peanut sauce before we left the apartment for church the next
day, and for the rest of the day I felt like it was sitting at the
bottom of my throat.  I just felt gross all day.  We had 18
investigators come to church, so that made me feel better.  Our Relief
Society President bore testimony on the Sacrament - her baby had never
had water before, but the day before church she came down with a fever
and she didn't have money for any medicine. When Sacrament meeting
rolled around the next day Sandrine (the RS president) prayed to God
and put all her faith in Him and gave her baby the water to sip from.
The next day her fever was gone!  I wish you could hear these people
tell the stories they have.  It seems so artificial typing it out, but
I promise the Spirit was so strong and everytime you hear a story like
that you know they're not pulling your leg.

President was doing interviews after church, but we got to see him at
the Baileys later that night when he was done.  They had prepared taco
salade, but I only had a couple bites of pineapple and bananas and
this caramel cookie bar that Sister Bailey made (oh...my...).  We got
to sit down with President and talk about casting our nets differently
and making our weaknesses strengths.  It was really cool (see Luke
5:1-9).  Everyone got an interview with President except me because I
was doing dishes with Elder Bailey, but it's ok because I got the
inside scoop on what's going on the next couple of weeks!  Elder
Gelinas will only be here for another week or so, and as soon as his
visa for Gabon comes in he's taking off.  We're also getting 2 new
elders from the MTC.  One is going to Cameroon, one is coming here.
I'll have a new companion, but I don't know if it will be someone I
already know or if I'm training.  I guess I'll find out in a couple
weeks.

Anyway, that's about it for this week!  I still feel gross, but maybe
it's because I haven't eaten anything but ice cream and cookies in the
last 24 hours.  In any case, I'll get over it and I'll get back to
work and it will be awesome!  I love this work, and I love you.  So
many people are ready to change and become better.  There's always
room for improvement!  I'm always looking to improve something myself.
 What can you do this week to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ?
It could be as simple as waking up 10 minutes earlier to do some
scripture studies or to exercise!  You'll be amazed at the results.
God is ready and willing to bless you.  Ask and ye shall receive,
knock and it shall be opened unto you! :)

Love,

Elder Garland

March 17

Bonjour a tous!!!

What a week.  Our first official week together, Elder Gelinas et moi.We only speak French, so he's really helping me grow my intricatevocabulary, although sometimes I wonder because he's fromQuebec...haha nahh he's awesome, and I'm learning a lot already andlosing my English faster and faster.  But it's ok.
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