Ambroise

Bonjour! 01/20/2014

Things are going well here! I hope all is great back there in America. We had a good district meeting this past week, I love the district and apartment that we’ve had here in Be Kpota. Elder Kouadio mentioned something that I love and is very true, that every companion will have his weaknesses, but if you focus on those too much, you lose sight of their strengths! But if you do the opposite in focusing on their strengths it can help you lose sight of their weaknesses, and it really reminded me of something President told me, in that, we can't change people. So sometimes you have to work with what you have, and not worry about certain things, and that’s the best way. The work is going well though. We have three baptisms coming up on the first, and some more the week after that so that’s really exciting! The best part is I realized every baptismal date we have is a contact from a member, and someone we’ve worked with the members. This ward seriously is the best no doubt. We actually visited a young family this past week in our ward, and the husband found the church in Ghana in 1999 and got baptized, and his wife followed and was baptized in 2001. I came to realize then that they have actually been members of the church longer than I have. We have some amazing members here in the ward! Along with that our English Class was awesome, we got 19 people there this time which is my record, and like we told them we'd only do it if they brought us contacts, and sure enough they all came rolling in with different friends so its been great for us with the work as well! We also got some news Friday night though, there was a little problem in a secteur, so they had to do a transfer, so now my companion Elder Imoukhuede is getting transferred, and Elder Sahue an Ivorian is coming to be with me. I’m hoping things will continue to go well, I really enjoyed the time that I had with Imoukhuede actually! We got along great together, and put in some good work in the secteur. At church as well we got to see our baptisms from a couple weeks ago get the priesthood so that was awesome as well! One top of that I got the best news finding out that the wife of Ambroise back in Gbegamey is now Relief Society president over in Benin, and his daughter is Primary President, I was so happy to see how well they are all doing!! We have an Ami in particular right now as well who I’ve been thinking a lot about. It’s an 18 year old named Aquete. He is an Ami we found with some of our ward missionaries. The first lesson we found out he is an animist, or voodoo, but we still had an amazing lesson with him, left him to pray, and some other commitments. Since then he’s had the strongest desire to follow the lessons and to come to church. The problem though is his family found some of our brochures, and found he’d been talking to us and has disowned him, and only takes him back if he stops. He’s still continued following though, and technically he’s 18 so he doesn’t need permission to be baptized, but at the same time, he is extremely poor. Which is strange saying that because everyone here is very poor, but in his case its something I really notice, so being disowned by his family would be an extremely rough thing and hard to take. We’ve been working with him still, and with the members in trying to help him, and he’s no doubt been in my prayers hoping he'll be able to have the blessings of the gospel in his life. On a lighter note though. It was a little funny when we were with a member, and this year they are now on the Joseph Fielding Smith manual for the third hour, which they think is the coolest thing. And they just started to realize how many prophets have had the name Smith... And were convinced that God loves the name Smith, so if you have that name your chances of becoming a prophet are high, Ha-ha, I think we helped them understand a little though! This past week we also got three talks by Elder Bednar that Elder Whitney Clayton asked us to study before he comes, so that has been really cool as well! But yeah all is great here, I love and miss you all a ton and hope all is going well there!

Its incredible how much your testimony grows on the mission, and how close you grow to the Lord.It’s the best having the love and support from home.

Love, Elder Oliverson