Bonjour!
This past
week has gone really well too! Not a ton new though! We’ve been able to do much more work as well as it has been just
us two, so that’s been good! A lot of it has been in getting all of our recent
converts ready to get the priesthood, which they’ll be getting next week so
that will be really exciting for sure! They’re all doing awesome! The work is
still going really well too, we don’t have a ton of investigators right now, so
wave been doing a ton of searching. We have an ami named Carlos. he’s been awesome to teach and has come along really
well, along with that he wants for his girlfriend to hear our message as well,
she lives a ways away though so we’ve been teaching him and having the other
missionaries in Fidjrossey teach her, they aren’t married yet which is a
problem, and also means they won't probably be getting baptized any time soon,
but I definitely see the two of them getting baptized together in the next
month or two! So I’m excited about that, we have two other Amis as well, who
are two sisters of a member in the branch, who have received almost all of the
lessons, have loved it, and are getting baptized in two weeks! The problem is
the summer vacation is over, so they are both moving back to Togo, so we’ll
pass them over to the missionaries in Lome to baptize them... that will make
three baptisms that we’ve sent over there, they must be doing something
right in Togo, to just get those people moving in like that. It’s been
good though!! We do have a baptism in two weeks though with an ami named
Antoine, he’s an older guy and his wife has left him, we’ve only been able to
see him once a week, yet he’s still progressed really well and loves church!
With him coming in, we have a lot of older single men in the branch, which is
good, but it would be somewhat better if we had more whole families, but we for
sure have a solid single adults program now! Another big thing
in the branch this past week happened with a member. There is a partially
active member I don’t know too well, and apparently about five days ago he
became really sick. The other companionship here in Gbegamey went over to visit
and see how he was doing; they ended up giving him a blessing, then left
afterwards. The next morning at church, we found out that late the night before
he started coughing up blood, and after a couple of hours he passed away.
Obviously the family and the branch were all pretty sad and down about this,
but the problem was is there is a rumor that someone killed him, with a voodoo
spell or something, so overall people are all being really skeptical with the
whole thing, and there are many rumors going around with that, and some members
in the family are wondering about the blessing that the missionaries gave; and
if there is anything with that, luckily most of the members understand to stay
away from voodoo, and understand the gospel well, yet there are still some that
are worried in a way.. It was really sad though; as he was a pretty young guy
as well, but really no one has a clue why he died, so we’ll have to see what
happens there. I’m hoping all will turn out well in that situation. We
have a Nigerian ami we found a couple weeks ago that I’ve been teaching in
English, who is coming along great, something I’ve seen is a way to see that
someone is really interested in the message is when they invite everyone they
know to hear it as well, and that is what she has done, she’s really nice, and
I see things going well with her. Her name is Blessing, which is kind of
ironic, but yeah she’s been great, and she’s already married which is nice as
well! Its been tough though, as with their English they don’t understand any of
my English, and I can barely understand any of there’s. It works though!!
This past week we went to our rendezvous with Wesley, the American ambassador
guy, but his two friends weren’t able to end up coming, so we had dinner with
him and invited a member over as well, it was the best once again! Also it
turns out that it is Bryant’s friend! He’s awesome though, it’s so crazy eating
food like that and talking to an American. His house is gorgeous as well. We
barely knew what to do with ourselves!! Other than all of that the work is
going really well!! It was Elder Desvergez birthday this past Sunday, and that
was fun because everyone made us food once again! Also I made him breakfast, as
it was his birthday as that is what Sister Weed suggested we do. And man I’ll
be honest I’m a good cook. If anyone doubts that go ahead and ask him!! It was
a good day though for sure!! I love him though, its great being able to work so
hard and well together, also to see the French continue to improve as I’m with
a French elder! But yeah, we don’t have many dinner
appointments but when we do they’re always really nice, they are really giving
in that way. They’re awesome!
But yeah with the branch, me and Desvergez have been doing a lot more that way
and have actually organized a kind of mutual night for the youth, to help the branch
improve more. Also we’ve rearranged the branch cleaning, as it wasn’t working by
family, so we moved it to getting done by the auxiliaries, so were hoping
that improves as well, as there aren’t many service projects here to do, that
was one that we figured we could for sure get everyone involved in. Also we
organized a talent show thing each month, in hope that that will help us get
more people interested and involved, and help them bring friends and new
contacts in! So things are going pretty well with the branch and such! This month has gone by so fast, and then as I was thinking about it, it
is probably because we’ve had baptisms each week. It’s nice having the work up
and going like that!! And yeah we had the cleanest apartment, so we got the
prize, which was nice!! I’m
still in the same place as I was before! And either way there isn’t a single
area in the mission where we can clean clothes. Its all hand washing. I’m a pro
at it now so it’s not a big deal!! We haven’t had a ton of power this past week
as well, so all of our food has gotten rotten. Then we haven’t had water
either. But I found it better that way, because instead of cold shower, I fill
a bucket with boiling water, and then normal water, and its a nice bucket
shower! So that’s been good! When all the food in the fridge went bad
though, all we had left were noodles, but we didn’t have water, so me and
Desvergez went out and collected all of the water we could to cook the noodles,
then we had no water to make sauce, so we put margarine on the noodles and have
been able to enjoy that ha-ha, we have one of the bigger apartments, but there
is rarely water or power so its not the best. We loved the pineapple season so
much, that we’ve been living off pineapple juice since then, but now the
papayas are coming on so we’ve moved to those. But yeah things are all great
here! I love and miss you all a ton! Thanks for everything again!!
Elder Oliverson
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