It’s really awesome to hear about Kenai! I definitely miss doing
things like that. Everyone here likes to hear stories about that
though. We are really blessed to have the opportunity to live in
Alaska. All the missionaries and senior couples have all said that
they want to come visit Alaska haha.
I’m really proud of Conner and Aubrey. They have awesome testimonies. That will help them so much
throughout the rest of their lives. I’m glad you had the opportunity
to read that talk. I also was studying that talk this week. It is
incredible. It gives perspective for everything that we do. The
Atonement is central and everything else that we do is just an
appendage to that. I especially liked the last section. Missionary
work is not easy because Salvation is not a cheap experience. We can’t
say that we are followers of Christ if we don’t take up our cross and
walk at least a couple steps in his shoes. The Atonement wasn’t easy,
so why should our salvation be easy? It is hard to keep up with our
responsabilities and share the gospel and do everything that we are
commanded to do. But by doing these things we are becoming true
followers of Christ.
I would like to share something that
I have found really interesting on my mission. In Africa, we have a
lot of baptisms. But it isn’t because every person we meet wants to be
baptized. I have learned that the percentage of people that we contact
and baptize is actually pretty similar to those of the United States.
That means that it’s not just cause we’re in Africa that we are
getting a lot of baptisms. But the difference between here and home is
that the people here are so willing to invite others to come to church
and meet the missionaries. Almost every baptism that I’ve had has been
from referrals. All of that to say, just because you are in America
doesn’t mean that you can’t have baptisms. There are still many
people that are searching for the truth. They are your friends. But
they don’t know where to find it.
When we first got to this zone, there were a couple little obedience problems.
This city that used to be like a gold mine had fell in a rut. We
talked about it and made the resolution to be more obedient. This last
week we had incredible numbers as a zone and so many progressing
investigators. Between our 5 companionships, we had about 60
investigators at church! We went from 9 lessons in one week to 20. We
have found so many awesome people that were prepared by the Lord. So
remember to stay diligent in all that you do. Sometimes it’s hard.
Sometimes you say I can’t walk up one more hill or knock on one more
door. But if you do, you receive so many blessings.
Anyway, this week has been an incredible week. On Monday we went to
our branch president’s house and he also showed us a couple inactive
families. So we ended up having 3 lessons on a Pday! That was really
cool. Throughout the week we had a lot of help from members that were
showing us to where investigators live and to their friends that want
to meet us. We have been working a lot with the Obame Family. Yes, it
is pronounced Obama. So now I can say that I met the Obamas in Africa
haha.
Another funny story: So we were walking in the sector one day when we
received a text. It said something about if God shuts a door quit
banging on it and move on. It was a name that was registered in the
phone. It sounded really harsh like they were telling us to not come
back. But we didn’t know who it was. So what did we do? That night we
called and set an appointment for the next day! The other missionaries
just laughed at us. But we met with her and she is awesome and came to
church, and it turns out she is the branch president’s goddaughter! So
that was really cool.
Friday we got to meet our new mission president President Monga. He is
so cool. It will be really fun to work with him. However he can only
come every other transfer. Which means I will probably only see him 5
more times unless I go to Brazzaville haha. But they called Elder
Dimond, the senior couple elder, to be the first counselor in the
mission presidency. So now we won’t have to worry so much about the
problem of having our mission president so far away. Anyway, we had an
awesome zone conference. It was kind of weird for us to be conducting
the conference. It was really cool though. We set a lot of goals and
learned a lot. The Mongas are really fun too. They are really happy
people and I’m really excited to work with them.
So anyway this whole week was a really good week. We ended up with 8
investigators at church! And we were fed twice this week. African food
is really good. But it’s scary sometimes because they put weird things
in sometimes. For example, we had one meal that was really good, but
they cook it with pig skin. Luckily this was higher quality skin and
not the really hard thick hairy stuff hahaha. Anyway, I’ve really been
enjoying it. We had plantain foufou one time. That was really good
too. I’m loving it here in Yaounde. The people are so nice. It’s the
perfect temperature too. It isn’t even rainy either. The hills are a
little tiring, but that’s ok. I’m going to try to send some pictures
later, but next week I’ll have some more pictures of Yaounde. I mostly
just have pictures from goodbyes in Congo. But it is beautiful here. I
would suggest you look up pictures of the city. There are beautiful
HUGE buildings! It almost doesn’t feel like Africa sometimes. They
even have paved roads!
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