Mbote a beno !!
This week has been absolutely nutso, for the good though, don't worry.
After writing home last week, Elder Hatch and I went out to look for
cool $1 shirts in the market. I found a couple I really like, but
couldn't push myself to buy the $10 perfect pair of bright orange
jeans from LaCoste which normally would be like 100 Euros. We'll see
about this week. On the way home, there were kids playing soccer in
the middle of the dirt road, and I asked if I could shoot on one of
them. I hit the ball perfectly and drilled it in the back right
corner, so they freaked out because they weren't expecting that at all
I don't think. Well another kid wanted me to shoot on him, so I was
going to do the same thing but left footed, but turns out it's been a
while since I kicked with that foot because I shanked it really high
and off to the left - right into the middle of a plot of walled in tin
shacks. The kids were like "oh no.....it's over THERE..." So I was
immediately wary. We walked over to the "parcelle" and they all stood
back and told me I had to go in and knock on the door as they stood
behind. I felt like I was 10 and knocked a baseball into the backyard
of Mr. Myrtle. The scene was classic. So I knock, and hear this
rough voice, "who is it?!" so I looked at the kid next to me and said,
"zonza!" which means, "talk!" in munukituba, and it shook his head and
told ME to speak. So I said we were missionaries and I accidentally
kicked the ball over and the voice said something back that I didn't
understand, but the kid next to me looked really sad and started
walking away and he looks up at me and says, "she's keeping it, it's
gone." Well their neighbor was watching the scene, and takes out his
phone to call the voice (I assume) and then as we're walking out of
the parcelle we hear the door open behind us and this enormous mama in
nothing but African cloth wrapped around her gargantuan chest and
torso comes out holding the soccer ball. She was terrifying and
started yelling at the kids about how this was the 4th time this has
happened and how they were children of Satan, and I pleaded on behalf
of the kids because it was my fault. She turns back to the kids and
says, "it's because of him that I didn't pop this right in front of
you." She gives it back to me and turns to walk back inside. I was
so close to bursting out laughing so many times, the scene was just
hilarious and the kids were so classic "Sandlot," it was awesome.
They were so happy to have their ball back. We were laughing the
whole way home.
On Tuesday we got the worst directions from this less active guy on
how to get to his house, and so we ended up standing at an
intersection waiting for someone to come get us, and ended up talking
to a group of about 20 children on their way home from school for
lunch who we were and how we weren't Chinese. It was hilarious. We
had to leave after probably 30 minutes, but on the way to our next
appointment we walked passed the less active guy's house by chance
(God has a great sense of humor, by the way). On the way there we met
a guy named AIDS. So unfortunate.
We had this very inspiring zone teaching with our leaders Elder Morin
and Elder Gélinas, in which we worked on setting goals and whatnot,
and it really hit home for me. I realized that I'd been going with
the motions for a long time, and I needed to step it up and start
pushing myself instead of settling. The effects and results were
immediate - Elder Hatch and I became super motivated to start
contacting all these houses that I've only ever talked about
contacting since I got here. That night we knocked on a couple doors
and were welcomed in by this really nice lady and got to share our
message with her and we're hoping that goes somewhere!
The next day we met some more awesome people for the first time and
even set a couple baptismal dates with them!
On Friday on the way to an appointment we were stopped by a woman who
was baptized in Brazzaville but hadn't been to church in 2 years
because she moved to Pointe Noire and didn't know where to find it,
but now she's in touch with the elders! Then we talked with this new
guy Jules who lost his dad and was really mad at God, but after
spending 2 weeks in prison for attacking someone with a machete he
decided to change his life and move to Pointe Noire and look for God.
So he started praying and asked God where He wanted Jules to go to
church, and the next day he walked past our church by the airport and
decided that that was where he needs to be and wants to be baptized
immedaitely. Ta da! Amazing.
It also happened to be Elder VanAusdal's birthday, so I made chocolate
cookies with white chocolate chunks and they were delicious.
On Saturday we set more baptismal dates, met more people for the first
time, walked to the moon and back, got to go to a baptism for an old
investigator of Elder Hatch, and I learned out to count to 10 in
kikongo (well, every number but 7 which no one knew...haha usually
they just use French numbers, so no one really knows the numbers in
kituba)
We had another packed Sunday, even though it rained. That night,
instead of just coming home for planning and studies we decided to go
out to talk to that first nice lady we met a couple days earlier.
Unfortunately, she wasn't there, so we went and contacted more nice
houses and found some more really cool people who were all willing to
sit down and listen to our message.
My mind is blown every day I walk out the door and into my sector. I
wish there were 200 missionaries just in Mpaka (my area) because there
are that many people that need to be taught the Gospel, and there are
only 4 of us working there! I have yet to be turned away at a door
I've knocked on. It's incredible. The work truly is hastening,
especially in Africa! I'm so thrilled to be a part of this work in
this place. What a joy it is to bring the restored gospel of Jesus
Christ into the lives of people who have nothing. These are they who
care little about what matters the least, and cherish that which
matters the most! Everyone is a brother or sister here. They are
always looking out for each other, and when they have the Gospel in
their lives they become even more united than ever! It is truly a
miracle to be witnessed every day. I wish with all my heart that you
could see, each one of you! I do my best to bring the world of the
Congo to you, but if only you could be my eyes for just one day, I'm
sure it change your life! I know it's changed mine. Really quick,
we're going to do an imagination exercise. You're going to close your
eyes (after reading all this), and imagine walking down a street that
is paved with nothing but the trash from months past. Now imagine
that there are piles of new trash burning on either side of you. Now
add a few naked kids running around playing with empty water bottles
and old bike tires, just laughing their heads off. They go back into
their house where they eat a couple handfuls of boiled flour and
water, with a side of mashed tree leaves. Dad comes home from work
after having pushed around a cart of bread all day and makes a grand
total of $5.40, with which he has to pay for food, water, and the
education of his entire family of 8-10 people. Mom has been selling
broken chunks of charcoal all day and makes little to nothing either,
but together they pull through, smiling, singing, and dancing the
whole way. That's how they live, day in and day out, until Sunday
when they dress in their nicest pair of jeans and shirt that they had
to sacrifice days' worth of food to afford so they can walk an hour
down the railroad tracks to church. That is WHAT they live for. How
they live doesn't matter to them, if only at the end all glory goes
back to God and His Son Jesus Christ. They will give anything and
everything for Him, and they DO. What have you needed to sacrifice
for your Savior lately? Was a months' salary? Was it 70+ hours of
work a week? Was it your education? Was it complete exhile from your
family, which means everything to you? Was it YEARS worth of sweat,
blood, and tears just so you could go to church and be baptized?
Welcome to the lives of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints in Africa.
I love you all. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Count your
many blessings.
Elder Garland
Monday, March 10, 2014
February 3
Soooo I forgot my planner again DANGIT. There's a ton of stuff that
happened this week and my poor little memory slot is always
overflowing, so all the things that happened in the beginning of the
week basically don't exist in my head anymore. It makes reading my
journal really exciting though, haha.
ANYway, I'll do my best.
Wow, I really don't remember anything haha. I take so many notes on
my planner which requires me to remember nothing. I know that on
Tuesday we had a really full day.
Ok little things I remembered.
One time, the day after it rained a ton, we were walking down the
flooded street and these guys had made a bridge of bricks, which we
didn't have money to give them to cross. One guy waved us over
anyway, but his friend apparently didn't get the message, because when
he saw we weren't gonna pay he jumped on the bricks in front of us and
stood there, shaking his butt and acting like a child. Well someone
eventually came from the other side and wanted to cross, so the guy
had to come back to us anyway, so I'm pretty sure he felt like an
idiot.
We had the longest day ever on Thursday because we got ratéd a ton,
and everyone else we wanted to see wasn't there. On our way to see
one of the people who ended up not being there this 16 or 17 year old
kid started walking next to us and asked about Joseph Smith. We were
really excited and were talking about it as we were walking, but when
he asked what the fruits of Joseph Smith were we thought it would be a
great idea to stop and give him the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, we
stopped in the middle of a giant courtyard of a high school. Well the
kid started arguing with us about prophets and whatnot, and a little
crowd started gathering. The little crowd turned into well over a
hundred students, so I profited by telling everyone in Munikituba that
no, we weren't Jehovah's Witnesses, and no, we weren't Chinese, which
made them all die laughing. Anyway, a supervisor came over and asked
us to keep moving along because if we didn't the whole school would be
there before long, so we kindly took our leave. It was awesome. I
wish I could've just preached to everyone while they were there...the
Dan Jones soap box approach could be SO effective here!!!
With all the time we had I decided to go contacting for the very first
time in my mission, if you can believe it. There's this really nice
house that I've always wanted to contact, but we've never had time
until last Thursday, so we took advantage of it and knocked on their
door! The mom who came out was really nice, and we even set a return
appointment for next week. We're really excited. Later that day we
had another experience where we were walking passed this other nice
house and I stopped, looked at Elder Hatch, he nodded, and we walked
back and contacted them too. Turns out that the lady we ended up
talking to works for the branch president! It was so cool! We're
gonna try to see her next week too.
Anyway we walked probably 20 miles that day and it was really hot, but
the good news is that VanAusdal made us barbecue chicken pineapple so
it was all ok in the end.
Friday was really short because we went to a marriage in the boonies
for this really old couple that the other elders have been teaching.
It was adorable. Well, kindof. He's 15 years older than she is, but
you'd never guess because once an African mama or papa hits 50 they
all look the same haha. It went super smooth though. I loved it.
The next day that couple and one of their kids was baptized (one is
already baptized, and there's two more who are going to be baptized
within a month), so it was awesome. After the baptism the Baileys
asked us to help them with passport pictures but ended up feeding us
spaghetti instead. They are so awesome, I love them to bits already.
Going to their house is like a little slice of America. They don't
speak French but they try their darndest with the guards that watch
over their house. It's adorable.
Sundays are getting really stressful because there's all these new
people coming and they ALL want to talk to you after church and so do
ALL the members and ALL the kids. We gave two blessings, so that was
really great, as it always is.
THIS WORK IS SO AWESOME! I can't even begin to describe all the crazy
things that happen and all the incredible stories we hear. Some day
I'll have time to just sit down and talk about all the bad stuff too,
because Lord knows I have to censor these emails. The great news is
that the good ALWAYS outweighs the bad! The just and righteous will
ALWAYS win because God will ALWAYS be behind them and God ALWAYS
wins!!!
I love you all and I'm sorry for this short, lame letter, but I hope
you will read it anyway. Maybe I'll include some more details next
week. Time is passing so fast. Yikes. In two days I will officially
have been in Africa for one year. I'll probably have to eat some ice
cream to celebrate.
Byooooooooo!!!!!!!
Elder Garland
happened this week and my poor little memory slot is always
overflowing, so all the things that happened in the beginning of the
week basically don't exist in my head anymore. It makes reading my
journal really exciting though, haha.
ANYway, I'll do my best.
Wow, I really don't remember anything haha. I take so many notes on
my planner which requires me to remember nothing. I know that on
Tuesday we had a really full day.
Ok little things I remembered.
One time, the day after it rained a ton, we were walking down the
flooded street and these guys had made a bridge of bricks, which we
didn't have money to give them to cross. One guy waved us over
anyway, but his friend apparently didn't get the message, because when
he saw we weren't gonna pay he jumped on the bricks in front of us and
stood there, shaking his butt and acting like a child. Well someone
eventually came from the other side and wanted to cross, so the guy
had to come back to us anyway, so I'm pretty sure he felt like an
idiot.
We had the longest day ever on Thursday because we got ratéd a ton,
and everyone else we wanted to see wasn't there. On our way to see
one of the people who ended up not being there this 16 or 17 year old
kid started walking next to us and asked about Joseph Smith. We were
really excited and were talking about it as we were walking, but when
he asked what the fruits of Joseph Smith were we thought it would be a
great idea to stop and give him the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, we
stopped in the middle of a giant courtyard of a high school. Well the
kid started arguing with us about prophets and whatnot, and a little
crowd started gathering. The little crowd turned into well over a
hundred students, so I profited by telling everyone in Munikituba that
no, we weren't Jehovah's Witnesses, and no, we weren't Chinese, which
made them all die laughing. Anyway, a supervisor came over and asked
us to keep moving along because if we didn't the whole school would be
there before long, so we kindly took our leave. It was awesome. I
wish I could've just preached to everyone while they were there...the
Dan Jones soap box approach could be SO effective here!!!
With all the time we had I decided to go contacting for the very first
time in my mission, if you can believe it. There's this really nice
house that I've always wanted to contact, but we've never had time
until last Thursday, so we took advantage of it and knocked on their
door! The mom who came out was really nice, and we even set a return
appointment for next week. We're really excited. Later that day we
had another experience where we were walking passed this other nice
house and I stopped, looked at Elder Hatch, he nodded, and we walked
back and contacted them too. Turns out that the lady we ended up
talking to works for the branch president! It was so cool! We're
gonna try to see her next week too.
Anyway we walked probably 20 miles that day and it was really hot, but
the good news is that VanAusdal made us barbecue chicken pineapple so
it was all ok in the end.
Friday was really short because we went to a marriage in the boonies
for this really old couple that the other elders have been teaching.
It was adorable. Well, kindof. He's 15 years older than she is, but
you'd never guess because once an African mama or papa hits 50 they
all look the same haha. It went super smooth though. I loved it.
The next day that couple and one of their kids was baptized (one is
already baptized, and there's two more who are going to be baptized
within a month), so it was awesome. After the baptism the Baileys
asked us to help them with passport pictures but ended up feeding us
spaghetti instead. They are so awesome, I love them to bits already.
Going to their house is like a little slice of America. They don't
speak French but they try their darndest with the guards that watch
over their house. It's adorable.
Sundays are getting really stressful because there's all these new
people coming and they ALL want to talk to you after church and so do
ALL the members and ALL the kids. We gave two blessings, so that was
really great, as it always is.
THIS WORK IS SO AWESOME! I can't even begin to describe all the crazy
things that happen and all the incredible stories we hear. Some day
I'll have time to just sit down and talk about all the bad stuff too,
because Lord knows I have to censor these emails. The great news is
that the good ALWAYS outweighs the bad! The just and righteous will
ALWAYS win because God will ALWAYS be behind them and God ALWAYS
wins!!!
I love you all and I'm sorry for this short, lame letter, but I hope
you will read it anyway. Maybe I'll include some more details next
week. Time is passing so fast. Yikes. In two days I will officially
have been in Africa for one year. I'll probably have to eat some ice
cream to celebrate.
Byooooooooo!!!!!!!
Elder Garland
January 27
Mboté a beno !!!
We've had an awesome week. After we got transfer information we all
went out to dinner at this restaurant that actually makes really good
burgers that come with a fried egg! So...that was awesome.
On Tuesday I bought some $1 ties that are beautiful. We spent the day
going about our normal rendez-vous, but for some of them it was the
last time they'd see Elder Brockbank, so he had to say good bye. It
was really sad. Our last rendez-vous was with a member who wanted us
to meet her friend, so we had a great time getting to know her and her
neighbors who were also invited. At one of our appointments during
the day, there was a half naked boy running around wearing a TUMBLEBUS
GYMNASTICS SHIRT!!!! It was the coolest thing, so I grabbed him just
long enough to snag a picture for proof. It was so funny. This
family also gives us a ginger drink every time we're over there called
tangawis. It's disgusting and I almost throw up every time but I just
don't have the heart to tell them I hate it. We also get boiled corn
and roasted peanuts sometimes. They're so nice.
Wendesday was just as awesome. We went to go meet with an inactive
member, but while we were waiting for him this lady walks by mumbling
something about Jehovah's Witnesses, so we just told her in Munikituba
that we weren't and then she suddenly got really interested. Well
while we're telling her who we are, the member shows up and invites
the lady to sit down with us, and then he proceeds to teach her the
whole first lesson by himself. So that worked out a lot better than
we could have hoped! And it happens every day. The miracles do not
cease here. My fear is that I will become desensitized, so I decided
to start a daily miracle journal! I plan on keeping it the rest of my
life, inspired by something Elder Eyring said a couple conferences
ago. I also saw an Iowa Hawkeyes shirt, so that was cool! And then I
watched a wheel fall off a taxi and scrape to a stop. Welcome to
Africa!
I spent an hour or so that night calling all my converts from
Cameroun. It's the best thing in the world. I can't get over hearing
"Ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!" when you tell them who it is. I'll be super sad to
go home because it's unlikely that I'll ever see them again :/ You
never know though! A guy can pray, right?
Elder Brockbank and I had our last day as companions on Thursday, and
we started off by sitting down with someone for the first time and
setting a baptismal date because he was so incredible. He works for
the Chinese as a fisherman and only sleeps 3 hours every night. He
can't read but is so excited to have the Book of Mormon. He's been at
church for the last month straight and Lord knows how he pays to get
there, based on his living conditions. Anyway, we're really excited
to work with him in the future.
Brockbank had to say goodbye to some more people, and made several of
them cry, which is normal because he was an awesome missionary and
really loved these people. His mom must not cry much though, because
he kept it together like a boss where I was fighting myself to contain
that salt water that sometimes escapes my eyes. We helped someone
draw water from an 18 meter deep well, which is just wide enough for
someone to stand straight up and go all the way down to clean out by
hand. The ladies watching me pull out water were saying, "ohh he's
not as strong as the other one" haha, which is so true. God blessed
the Africans with brutal honesty.
For our last meal, Elder VanAusdal made a delicious pizza, and then we
even had power all night.
Elder Brockbank left at about 8:30 the next morning, which was super
sad, and Elder Hatch and I started working almost immediately. We
trekked across the city in pouring rain without an umbrella because I
left mine at the church, and then I totally missed the guys' house
that we were heading for and we had to cross a river of black sludge
up to our shins, only to find out that we had passed the house we were
supposed to go to and had to trudge back through it amidst cries of
"ohh mundele mundele mundele!!!!" It was great. The best part was
that we called the guy to tell him we were there, and he said he was
coming, but 30 minutes later we had to call it because we had to start
walking to our next rendez-vous. The next couple appointments were
great, although the rain on the tin roofs made it hard for us to
understand, and it was funny yelling the Plan of Salvation at someone.
But it was great.
Our next rendez-vous said he was coming when we got to his house, but
we were standing so long that these ladies came and brought us chairs
to sit in. Then we were sitting there waiting for so long that they
eventually came and asked us what we were even doing there, so we
started introducing ourselves and before we knew what was happening we
had already taught the whole Restoration and gave out a Book of
Mormon. I love Africa. The best part was that we said a prayer, got
up to leave, and a minute down the road ran into the guy we were
supposed to meet. Unfortunately we didn't get to sit down with him,
but we'll get him next week.
Saturday was rough. I called a kid we met last week on Friday night
to meet him the next morning, but when we got to his place I called
him and he was like, "oh yeah I'm in school and don't get out for
another 4 hours!" So it was a face palm moment, but we had to head to
our next appointment anyway, a good 45 minute walk away. It was worth
it because we went back over the restoration and set another baptismal
date, which she accepted, and then came to church with her little
sister and loved it!
We also met a Kenyan who'd worked with a really old missionary, so
we're gonna try to pick him back up.
On our way to a baptism we ran into another taxi stuck in the mud, so
we helped him get unstuck as he shot a nice streak of black mud up my
right pant leg and up my shirt. It was sweet. We got a lot of thumbs
up from the crowd that gathered to watch the mundele get dirty. Then
a crazy lady stopped us and asked us to cast a demon out of her but we
had to tell her we would pray for her at home because we don't exactly
do delivrances. She was very nice (and I don't think she has a
demon). The baptism was great. It was actually an investigator of
Elder Hatch's last area, and he got to baptize him. It was awesome.
We taught English and had basketball class and came home and Elder
VanAusdal made biscuits and gravy that tasted like heaven mixed with
flour and water.
Sunday was incredible. Beautiful weather and we had 12 investigators
for just our side, and 14 for the other elders. Sacrament was packed!
We sang 12 verses of "There's a Green Hill Far Away". Afterwards we
were exchanging numbers left and right and meeting tons of people and
I loved it.
TESTIMONY TIME!
I absolutely love this work. I would never trade this experience for
anything in the world. Not even an entire All American Cake from
Costco. Sometimes I wonder why I came here of all places. Maybe it's
because God knows that there's no possible way I could go home and
ever doubt my faith. After everything I've witnessed...it makes me
want to take an atheist by the hand and walk them through the last
year of my life. GOD IS REAL. He lives! He loves ALL of you!!!
These people are the poorest of poor and even THEY know that that is
true! How could you possibly look someone in the eye who has been
through every tragedy known to man and still believes that God is his
Heavenly Father and tell him he's wrong?! Maybe it's just me. Maybe
I'm a sucker for a good story. But when there are THOUSANDS of
stories that are uncannily similar...you can't help but believe. I
mean come on. A girl just recently told the elders that back before
the Church was even in the Congo a huge war broke out in her city.
The leader of her "neighborhood" would distribute goods to the people
as they lined up for fresh water and rice. This really old, frail
woman who could barely stand asked this girl for help, but she brushed
on by. Almost immediately, she felt a whisper "go back and help," so
she takes this ancient woman to her home and gives her some medicine.
The medicine does nothing, and now the girl feels really bad because
this woman is definitely going to die right in her own home and
everyone is going to think she killed her or something, so she gets on
her knees and pleads to God to know why she had to help this woman.
Well, she goes back into the front room and finds the old woman
standing up perfectly straight and in good health. She says, "jump!"
and the woman jumps. "Run!" and the woman runs around in a circle.
She says, "how did this happen?!" And the woman says that while she
was praying, two angels came and "fixed" her, and that the two angels
told her that it was done by the power found in the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Well now the girl who prayed is freaking
out because she didn't know if she was supposed to create a church or
where she was supposed to find it, until one day she's in France and
stumbles upon the church in the Yellow Pages of the phone book. She
joins the church, comes back to the Congo when the war was over, and
is a great member of the true Church of Christ. Africans are so
blessed with the spirit of prophecy, dreams, and revelation. I know
that that happened, as crazy as it sounds. I wish you could hear it
from her own mouth and see the look in her eyes as she tells the
story.
Anyway, I love you all and I can't wait to be able to tell all these
stories in person.
Have a great week!
Elder Garland
We've had an awesome week. After we got transfer information we all
went out to dinner at this restaurant that actually makes really good
burgers that come with a fried egg! So...that was awesome.
On Tuesday I bought some $1 ties that are beautiful. We spent the day
going about our normal rendez-vous, but for some of them it was the
last time they'd see Elder Brockbank, so he had to say good bye. It
was really sad. Our last rendez-vous was with a member who wanted us
to meet her friend, so we had a great time getting to know her and her
neighbors who were also invited. At one of our appointments during
the day, there was a half naked boy running around wearing a TUMBLEBUS
GYMNASTICS SHIRT!!!! It was the coolest thing, so I grabbed him just
long enough to snag a picture for proof. It was so funny. This
family also gives us a ginger drink every time we're over there called
tangawis. It's disgusting and I almost throw up every time but I just
don't have the heart to tell them I hate it. We also get boiled corn
and roasted peanuts sometimes. They're so nice.
Wendesday was just as awesome. We went to go meet with an inactive
member, but while we were waiting for him this lady walks by mumbling
something about Jehovah's Witnesses, so we just told her in Munikituba
that we weren't and then she suddenly got really interested. Well
while we're telling her who we are, the member shows up and invites
the lady to sit down with us, and then he proceeds to teach her the
whole first lesson by himself. So that worked out a lot better than
we could have hoped! And it happens every day. The miracles do not
cease here. My fear is that I will become desensitized, so I decided
to start a daily miracle journal! I plan on keeping it the rest of my
life, inspired by something Elder Eyring said a couple conferences
ago. I also saw an Iowa Hawkeyes shirt, so that was cool! And then I
watched a wheel fall off a taxi and scrape to a stop. Welcome to
Africa!
I spent an hour or so that night calling all my converts from
Cameroun. It's the best thing in the world. I can't get over hearing
"Ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!" when you tell them who it is. I'll be super sad to
go home because it's unlikely that I'll ever see them again :/ You
never know though! A guy can pray, right?
Elder Brockbank and I had our last day as companions on Thursday, and
we started off by sitting down with someone for the first time and
setting a baptismal date because he was so incredible. He works for
the Chinese as a fisherman and only sleeps 3 hours every night. He
can't read but is so excited to have the Book of Mormon. He's been at
church for the last month straight and Lord knows how he pays to get
there, based on his living conditions. Anyway, we're really excited
to work with him in the future.
Brockbank had to say goodbye to some more people, and made several of
them cry, which is normal because he was an awesome missionary and
really loved these people. His mom must not cry much though, because
he kept it together like a boss where I was fighting myself to contain
that salt water that sometimes escapes my eyes. We helped someone
draw water from an 18 meter deep well, which is just wide enough for
someone to stand straight up and go all the way down to clean out by
hand. The ladies watching me pull out water were saying, "ohh he's
not as strong as the other one" haha, which is so true. God blessed
the Africans with brutal honesty.
For our last meal, Elder VanAusdal made a delicious pizza, and then we
even had power all night.
Elder Brockbank left at about 8:30 the next morning, which was super
sad, and Elder Hatch and I started working almost immediately. We
trekked across the city in pouring rain without an umbrella because I
left mine at the church, and then I totally missed the guys' house
that we were heading for and we had to cross a river of black sludge
up to our shins, only to find out that we had passed the house we were
supposed to go to and had to trudge back through it amidst cries of
"ohh mundele mundele mundele!!!!" It was great. The best part was
that we called the guy to tell him we were there, and he said he was
coming, but 30 minutes later we had to call it because we had to start
walking to our next rendez-vous. The next couple appointments were
great, although the rain on the tin roofs made it hard for us to
understand, and it was funny yelling the Plan of Salvation at someone.
But it was great.
Our next rendez-vous said he was coming when we got to his house, but
we were standing so long that these ladies came and brought us chairs
to sit in. Then we were sitting there waiting for so long that they
eventually came and asked us what we were even doing there, so we
started introducing ourselves and before we knew what was happening we
had already taught the whole Restoration and gave out a Book of
Mormon. I love Africa. The best part was that we said a prayer, got
up to leave, and a minute down the road ran into the guy we were
supposed to meet. Unfortunately we didn't get to sit down with him,
but we'll get him next week.
Saturday was rough. I called a kid we met last week on Friday night
to meet him the next morning, but when we got to his place I called
him and he was like, "oh yeah I'm in school and don't get out for
another 4 hours!" So it was a face palm moment, but we had to head to
our next appointment anyway, a good 45 minute walk away. It was worth
it because we went back over the restoration and set another baptismal
date, which she accepted, and then came to church with her little
sister and loved it!
We also met a Kenyan who'd worked with a really old missionary, so
we're gonna try to pick him back up.
On our way to a baptism we ran into another taxi stuck in the mud, so
we helped him get unstuck as he shot a nice streak of black mud up my
right pant leg and up my shirt. It was sweet. We got a lot of thumbs
up from the crowd that gathered to watch the mundele get dirty. Then
a crazy lady stopped us and asked us to cast a demon out of her but we
had to tell her we would pray for her at home because we don't exactly
do delivrances. She was very nice (and I don't think she has a
demon). The baptism was great. It was actually an investigator of
Elder Hatch's last area, and he got to baptize him. It was awesome.
We taught English and had basketball class and came home and Elder
VanAusdal made biscuits and gravy that tasted like heaven mixed with
flour and water.
Sunday was incredible. Beautiful weather and we had 12 investigators
for just our side, and 14 for the other elders. Sacrament was packed!
We sang 12 verses of "There's a Green Hill Far Away". Afterwards we
were exchanging numbers left and right and meeting tons of people and
I loved it.
TESTIMONY TIME!
I absolutely love this work. I would never trade this experience for
anything in the world. Not even an entire All American Cake from
Costco. Sometimes I wonder why I came here of all places. Maybe it's
because God knows that there's no possible way I could go home and
ever doubt my faith. After everything I've witnessed...it makes me
want to take an atheist by the hand and walk them through the last
year of my life. GOD IS REAL. He lives! He loves ALL of you!!!
These people are the poorest of poor and even THEY know that that is
true! How could you possibly look someone in the eye who has been
through every tragedy known to man and still believes that God is his
Heavenly Father and tell him he's wrong?! Maybe it's just me. Maybe
I'm a sucker for a good story. But when there are THOUSANDS of
stories that are uncannily similar...you can't help but believe. I
mean come on. A girl just recently told the elders that back before
the Church was even in the Congo a huge war broke out in her city.
The leader of her "neighborhood" would distribute goods to the people
as they lined up for fresh water and rice. This really old, frail
woman who could barely stand asked this girl for help, but she brushed
on by. Almost immediately, she felt a whisper "go back and help," so
she takes this ancient woman to her home and gives her some medicine.
The medicine does nothing, and now the girl feels really bad because
this woman is definitely going to die right in her own home and
everyone is going to think she killed her or something, so she gets on
her knees and pleads to God to know why she had to help this woman.
Well, she goes back into the front room and finds the old woman
standing up perfectly straight and in good health. She says, "jump!"
and the woman jumps. "Run!" and the woman runs around in a circle.
She says, "how did this happen?!" And the woman says that while she
was praying, two angels came and "fixed" her, and that the two angels
told her that it was done by the power found in the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Well now the girl who prayed is freaking
out because she didn't know if she was supposed to create a church or
where she was supposed to find it, until one day she's in France and
stumbles upon the church in the Yellow Pages of the phone book. She
joins the church, comes back to the Congo when the war was over, and
is a great member of the true Church of Christ. Africans are so
blessed with the spirit of prophecy, dreams, and revelation. I know
that that happened, as crazy as it sounds. I wish you could hear it
from her own mouth and see the look in her eyes as she tells the
story.
Anyway, I love you all and I can't wait to be able to tell all these
stories in person.
Have a great week!
Elder Garland
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