The day after Thanksgiving

Bonjour!                                                                                    12/02/2013

 Things have been pretty good this past week! I love my companion and we’ve been able to really start getting things together. We’ve been putting a ton of planning in and searching to see what we can do with the secteur, as it has been so rough, so we started out

seeing Frere Attiogbe, who brought the church here, and a couple other members, as we only have one in the actual secteur, but it’s been really nice, and we’ve still been able to center a lot of the work around the  members, even with the lack of them we have. Home teaching has been a  huge problem here in the branch so we're trying to get that back together, we’ve spent a lot of the past week meeting with the ward leaders trying to help things get going, so that has been a lot of where our focus has been!  No doubt if you want to work hard you have to work smart as well, or you won’t really get anywhere, so it’s been really nice to be working with Elder Kouau in getting things together, they’re coming along well, hoping the  secteur will be a better place when we leave. Our Amis are doing well! One of our baptismal dates has to go up north to get treated for some health disorder she has, so that’ll have to wait a little while! Other than that things are good with the Amis, I love teaching with Kouau though as he teaches really well, and we do really good together in lessons, so it’s a lot of fun! The big news really from the past week is President Weed found out this last Monday from the church headquarters that we’ll be getting the first stake in Togo this next weekend!!  It’s a huge step for the church here and very exciting!  Elder Vinson is coming again with another Seventy to do the dedication, so that will be really cool. 

      We had a meeting with the assistants as well this past  week to finally map out our secteurs and figure out the limits, so that was good to get done as well. It was also good seeing Elder Ritchie, as he’s the new assistant and it’s been a long while! He’s no doubt a stellar missionary and you just feel good after talking to him! 

      I talked to the first non-member white person ever in the past 9 months!!  So that was pretty crazy! It was this French lady named Pascaline, who wanted to talk with another white person I think, but didn’t want to hear our message. I wasn’t too surprised after hearing what Desvergez would tell me about the French Ha-ha.

         Another high note from the past week, was the day after Thanksgiving.  We had forgot it was Thanksgiving till we got a call from the Senior couple, they had dinner with President the day before, and had a ton leftover, and invited us to help them come finish it, as we're the closest missionaries to their house. No doubt the best thing of my life!! Ha-ha they have a gorgeous house and it was insane just sitting there and having a table with food, and the food was incredible!!  They took a picture, and I think they’ll be sending that to you soon if they haven’t  already, but no doubt that was the best meal I’ve had since coming here, and much better than our make shift Thanksgiving we had. The work is going good though, this secteur is tiring and the most difficult but its coming along pretty well which is nice, slowly but surely! My companion is doing good as well, and thought the 24 days of Christmas countdown presents you sent were the coolest thing ever with the scripture on them! He loved that part and is really happy and thankful! The work is coming along though! It’s taking a ton of work but its good.

I’m so thankful though no doubt for sports, and the work ethic that helps you gain, there are so many that don’t see if you don’t work, nothing will produce, but I can see that really thanks to sports you learn how to do that extra mile.

I know there is a place in Lome where you can Skype, and a lot of people do that, so I think that could work. But I don’t know how the connection is, so I was thinking maybe to do half and half Skype and phone, but well see, I’m really excited for that though!

Is there snow there yet?  Thanks a ton again for the package! I loved the Jesus picture with the McConkie quote, that’s one of the coolest things! But yeah thank you so much for that! Thanks for the love and support I miss you all a ton!

Elder Oliverson