I Lost My Phone!

It sounds like home is a completely different world than when I left!

Lots of crazy and exciting things happening. I'm glad Braden is

getting some good preparation in. Just make sure he remembers that the

Spiritual preparation is the most important part. I'm really excited

for him to get his call! Thanks for the email address and the recipe!

So anyway, this week was an interesting week. Last Sunday we lost our

phone... We got in a taxi and it fell out of my pocket and we didn't

realize it until after. And of course someone took it, removed the SIM

and probably thought it was a blessing from God haha. But the Baileys

were in Kinshasa for a week so we didn't have a replacement. So we

borrowed the other Elders' phone to do our planning, but the rest of

the day we were phoneless. Which naturally makes it difficult. We had

a lot of appointments fall through, and we did a lot of walking, but I

think we learned our lesson! haha We're buying a new phone today

though. So next week should be ok.

Tuesday was the first day of no phone. So naturally when all our

appointments fell through, we had nothing left to do but first

contacts. So we had 3 first contacts! It was really cool.

Wednesday was less cool. We left the apartment at 10:30, came home at

6:30, had 3 40 minute lessons, and I'll let you guess what we did for

the rest of the time haha. Yes, a lot of walking.But it was still

good. We ended the day knocking on a door and finding a family to

teach!

So the next day we came back and had our first lesson with them. They

are already married culturally which is the hard part. They have some

interesting beliefs. But I think we can make a lot of progress with

them. They seemed very willing to listen.

Friday we had a zone meeting. That went really good. We talked about

teaching with members and working with members. Missionary work really

depends on the members. The majority of our investigators that we have

are referrals from members. So it is very important to be active in

participating in missionary work.

Saturday was another day of a lot of walking. We walked for 2 1/2

hours straight before we had our first appointment. But we still

managed to have 2 good appointments before going to the church to

attend the wedding. That was really fun. It was supposed to start at

4:00 but started closer to 6:30ish... haha but there was lots of good

food and it was really fun.

Sunday we had a good day at church. We had 14 investigators at church!

It was really cool. But we had scheduled an appointment with someone

for after church, but he wasn't there. But a little after church

ended, he came because he wanted to talk to us. We had an awesome

lesson and committed him to be baptized. It was a really cool

experience. Then after that we all got together to practice the song

we are going to sing for the city-wide conference next week. That was

really fun. We're singing "Come thou Fount." I think Sister Bailey is

going to record it so that everyone can see it. But it sounds pretty

good! We have Elder Etherington who is a vocal performance major to

direct us, so it should be pretty good.

By the way, after 2 transfers in the same appartment with Elder

Rakotonindriana, I found out that his dad is a 2 time world champion

in French boxing! And his mom was a professional ballerina! I don't

know how it took me so long to find that out, but it's pretty cool!

Today we are going to go to the beach to play volleyball! That should

be really fun. Unfortunately, this morning I don't feel very good. I

have an upset stomach. But Elder Bailey is a pharmacist so maybe he

can help me out haha. Anyway, sorry if the email isn't super exciting.

I don't feel very good so I'm not super motivated to write... But have

a great week!