Bonjour!!                                                                                    

Another good past week and a tiring one for sure!! Things

have been going really well the past week work wise. Elder Barton just

got in, so the last American to come from the Provo MTC, because the

rest will be going to the Ghana now! But yeah the past week has been

really great!! Things are finally coming together now in the branch

really well, and we actually got two of the young men called as branch

missionaries so that’ll be way fun to work with them and help them get

ready for their own missions as well! This past week we made a lot of

progress with one of our ami's named Hughe. He is a student here from

Cote D'ivoire.. and we’ve had trouble getting to talk to him because of

his uncle, who is strongly against the church and such, and thinks we,

are racist and that whole thing. Finally though we have been able to

get working with him and its been awesome for sure! He loves our

message and has been soaking it all up, especially with the Joseph

Smith story and such, he’s been reading the Book of Mormon as well, and

we can already see a lot of progress with him that way. He is getting

baptized the 17 of the next month as well so that will be great! We

have had a great time with the new Font families that we’ve found, and

they as well are actually getting baptized the 17th as well so that

should be really fun as well! It was the best seeing them come in

church this past Sunday. All 7 of the kids took up about half of our

chapel, but hey its a good thing! As of right now we have 14

baptismal dates set for August with many more that should be coming!

So it’s really fun to see the work start picking up! The members have

been a huge help though, and were seeing a lot of improvement that

way, for example we had a rendezvouz with an ami after church, who

wasn’t able to go to church because she got some malaria, while we were

in the lesson she got a call from the relief society president in our

branch asking what was up and if she needed anything. So the branch

is doing awesome here! English class has been a pretty good time as

well, and that is for sure starting to help the missionary efforts a

lot because everyone here wants to learn English. Everyone. We’ve had

some problems with church cleaning so my comp and me have started

going each week to get that going, which also has helped a ton because

the members love it when we come! While cleaning the church we went

into the garage, only to find one of the missions extra trucks... this

whole time the brand new truck has been there, but apparently is only

for emergencies and such! I was kind of bummed Ill be honest! But hey

maybe one day! We’ve been able to start teaching more Muslims again,

even though their month isn’t over yet, which is interesting, but some

of them are actually progressing really well! Its interesting teaching

the word of wisdom and chastity with them because a lot of teachings

in the Koran are similar to an extent, so they don’t have too much of a

problem with those areas. But yeah the work is going awesome! One of

my favorite lessons this last week was our first lesson with the wife

of Ambroise, the one business man who hasn’t been able to be baptized

yet because they’re still waiting on the papers for their marriage. She

has been coming to church with him and the family each week, yet we

just finally had our first lesson with her because she lives way far

away. But yeah we had our first lesson, it went awesome, she

understood really well, and then she started talking about Ambroise..

She was talking about how before he wasn’t the best guy, he would be at

the bar each week with the guys, or was traveling for work. He never

saw the family, and she said that she hasn’t seen him, or her, happy in

years.. She said though she started to notice an enormous change in

him, and he started talking about how he was meeting with the

missionaries and how happy he was.. She said he left part of his job,

and has been home every night since then.. The part that about made me

die was when she said that now, every morning, and night he insists on

family study of the Book of Mormon, and prayer, and they’ve even

started up Family home evening.. She said no doubt they are the

happiest they have ever been, and they finally have their family

together again, and every day its the best when he gets back from

work. She explained that she though absolutely nothing could change

her husband, but if there was something that could, it would have to

be an absolute miracle. Man how great that was to see how much the

gospel really does bless individuals, but especially families!! That

was probably the happiest part of the week hearing that! Since then we

have been able to start teaching their five daughters as well, and

were hoping to be able to see them all be baptized together in the

next couple weeks! No doubt that will be a beautiful family in the

church!! The gospel no doubt is the only thing that could possibly

change someone’s life, and family like that. It surely strengthened my

testimony as well on how important the gospel is in the family, and

those things like prayer and scripture study! Another great part of

the week was at church.. Were so used to having about 3 or 4 amis at

church each Sunday, and that is the usual, maybe a couple more but not

often..  That’s one of the biggest problems we have is with getting

people to church.. We’ve found some awesome ami's lately, but still I

was blown away when we had 17 amis at church this past week!! It was

awesome to see the church filled completely, no doubt it could be a

huge blessing for the branch as well, and I wouldn’t be surprised to

see not far off the branch getting split into two really. But yeah the

ami's are all doing great and the work is awesome right now!! Its the

best still hearing people that sometimes have a hard time

understanding explaining how they just know things are true, and how

the spirit feels, and explain how things just feel right.. it no doubt

shows the power of the spirit in conversion and has been amazing to

watch! Also how the Lord helps us find those honest in heart and ready

to hear the gospel.. so often we find people, begin teaching and they

don’t progress, but we find they have friends or family who have just

soaked in our message. But yeah Africa is still great! Not a ton new!

It rained this week, like usual.. so we’ve been finding a lot more

lizards in our place, I hope they’re doing good work with the bugs, so

that’s nice! Desvergez is still the best ever!! He loves missionary

work and is no doubt the most zealous, fun loving missionary I’ve known

yet, so its been the absolute best! You definitely have to be fun

loving with these people, and they love you! We have a new p-day

activity, and that is finding different random basketball courts

around Gbegamey and asking people to play us in pick up games.. they

love it, (because its two yovo's).. till we start to play.. I will be

honest right now when I say that we one 32 straight games this

morning, 2 on 5.. On top of that though we got 5 new contacts from it,

so its definitely a good activity for the work as well! ha-ha but no

doubt its been 8 months since Desvergez has played but hes still got

it in him! Ha-ha, so things are going great here in Gbegamey! I hope

all is great back in the U.S.A! I love and miss you all!

Elder Oliverson

Kids here are the best!!