I got an email from
y'all, but all it said was "test". Idk, maybe that's code for something, or some
sort of inside joke I forgot about. haha. Well this email will be shorter than
last weeks, mainly because I had to wait 1 hour to get on a computer, cuz the
cyber café is packed. But it was still a packed week!
As I told you we were
preparing to meet with Elder Hamilton, of the seventy, so we needed to do some
preparation. Tuesday, we cleaned the church. Only the missionaries came to the
activity. Basically in front and behind the church there are concrete areas
that have probably never been cleaned since dinosaurs walked the earth!
Literally, a thick layer of a weird combination of moss, mold, and mud! So we
scrubbed and scrubbed and rinsed and scrubbed. All of us were surprised to see
gray concrete after, we never knew the ground was black because of dirt.
Well after we met with
Elder Hamilton. He demanded a musical number, so with only one rehearsal the
night before we pumped out an acapella hymn. And that one rehearsal was in two separate
districts, so the first time we all sang together was in front of the
authority. His comment after was, "I know you're not professional
singers" haha. Well it was fun and we had some good laughs. Elder Hamilton
did some good training and helped us learn how to teach. Basically, we learned
that there are no excuses for amis to not come to church or read. If it means
walking 2 hours to church, they need to do it, or reading after a tiring day,
they need to do it! I definitely like this approach of thinking in the church.
We also had a baptism
for Jean-Marie. He has known about the church for a few months. Basically, a
long time ago he bought a book made by the church called, "Search to
obtain my word", some priesthood manual from the 80's. He got it from some
vendor on the side of the road, that's not too uncommon. Converts have bought Book
of Mormons, or Liahonas, or FHE manuals in markets before. Well, he bought one
of these books and later bumped into Elder Coleman, the senior couple, and was
introduced to the church. He instantly jumped on board, and even though he
thinks the church should do more humanitarian work here, he loves the church.
So two weeks into the transfer and we have two very strong converts now! Also
the baptism took place in 2 feet of water because the pump wasn’t working in
the font, easily the most difficult baptism I've ever seen performed. Having this
baptism reminded me a lot of all the converts I've taught during my mission and
I realized I've spent some time out here! I guess the statistics say I’m pretty
experienced, but it still doesn’t feel like it.
Not much else going on
in our life out here. Hope all is going well in school and work! I love you
guys.
I forgot to mention,
it was pouring rain while we were scrubbing. Literally after 5 seconds on the
street we were drenched! But hey it helped with the clean up and kept us cool!
There's a cool Africa shot in the mix and our latest baptism photo, chalking up
the total to 30 baptisms for me. Dang it's hard work out here. haha.
