Bonjour, 06/28/2014
This past week has been pretty well!
Started off the week with another FHE with Ambroise, which was pretty awesome
once again! One of the coolest parts came where he was wanting to give a
blessing to his daughter who was sick. As he has the priesthood now he was
planning on doing it, but wanted our help. We did the anointing, and gave him
some instruction and let him do the blessing. It was really one of the coolest
things to see that, and to see him get the chance to be able to use his
priesthood in blessing his daughter. I’ve really enjoyed being back here for
that part of things, and getting to see all these people again.
Another highlight of the week is that I’m finally getting to drive a little. And it was one of the strangest things ever; as at first it was like the first time I had ever done it. But of course I caught back on quickly and it’s never felt so good to drive again! You would be very proud as well seeing that the mission trucks are all stick shift, and I own those things... Ha-ha, so thank Volkswagen for that! Driving here will be pretty crazy, but fun at the same time. One of the driving around highlights from this past week came from just a few days ago... Usually most of the roads are covered in mottos, but there is always some rich CEO or soccer player that decides to come out. In Cadjehoun it isn’t rare to run into BMWs or Audis. But when an Aston Martin Vantage rolls by, that doesn’t happen everyday! That’s the confusing thing about this place, is one second you can see the poorest people in the world, a huge family living in a one room cinderblock house, then next second see an Aston Martin or a Maybach driving around. Anyway's the work is starting to pick up well for us.
We have starting teaching a lot of new Amis this past week, and that’s been a lot of fun. One family in particular has been pretty cool. There is a young man in the ward, who is the only member in his family. It’s been a while since his baptism, and his mom and sister have talked to the missionaries before already. Luckily though even though it’s been months he’s invited them to accept the gospel, he’s continued to do it. We’ve started the lessons a bit, and its been awesome to see that even if maybe they weren’t ready a few months ago, with the time the Lord can help prepare people. His mom and sister are very catholic and told us from the beginning, they weren’t planning on leaving where they are but they would listen to us. Even just the day after the lesson we had on the restoration, the sister came to us and told us that it was all true. She went from telling us there wasn’t really hope in changing, but that she would pray and see if these things were true... and sure enough and very quickly, she has already started to gain her own testimony. It’s been really cool to see how the spirit can confirm these things to anyone that really wants to know. It strengthens my testimony a lot to, and gives more faith in making promises to people with these things we always ask them to do. We have another Ami that has a baptismal date fixed, but has ran into some problems when we taught the word of wisdom. He has trouble with coffee, as that is what keeps him up for work, as he is a night guardian for a house. The story of Nephi and his family in the wilderness came up in my head, from where they obeyed the commandment to go into the wilderness, and ended up not having anything to eat, and were living off of raw meat, but it explains that living off that they were still able to live and travel in really good shape, and that if we keep the commandments the Lord will prepare a way for us to do what we need, but that will come in his way. We were able to help him leave try leaving the coffee, and promised blessings in return. But the problem after was that he would leave his coffee, but not his sniffing tobacco just yet. We ended up coming back the next day and he was stunned. He was asking what he did, and we were clueless as to what he was talking about. He said with the tobacco, did you guys send a curse or something? We still really had no idea. He began to explain that the night after we left, he stayed away from his coffee, but went to his tobacco, and found it opened and all the tobacco had poured out, and he could no longer use it. Ha-ha, we tried to make it clear that it wasn’t us that had done it, but maybe he should think about why that just happened to occur right after he found this commandment. So were hoping things will continue to go well with him. We have some good other Amis, but most are all pretty new right now.
Things are going good with the work though and its fun working with my companions.I love my Nigerian companion I have now, he’s pretty awesome. Its pretty crazy thinking about what is going on just next door to us right now in Nigeria with Boko Haram. Elder Izekor is awesome though. We had a funny time this past week. He has been a member since primary actually, so he spent primary in the church. He was asking about the primary songs, and brought up the song "Once there was a snowman". He said he’s always been so confused, along with everyone there as to what that meant, and what a snowman was... Ha-ha, it made my day. But yeah Its been super rainy this past week, but that has cooled things down a lot, and the world cup is still in full swing, and hey the U.S. advanced as well! Ha-ha surprise surprise. But yeah all is well here! Next week will be pretty crazy with the change from President Weed to President Morin.
Another highlight of the week is that I’m finally getting to drive a little. And it was one of the strangest things ever; as at first it was like the first time I had ever done it. But of course I caught back on quickly and it’s never felt so good to drive again! You would be very proud as well seeing that the mission trucks are all stick shift, and I own those things... Ha-ha, so thank Volkswagen for that! Driving here will be pretty crazy, but fun at the same time. One of the driving around highlights from this past week came from just a few days ago... Usually most of the roads are covered in mottos, but there is always some rich CEO or soccer player that decides to come out. In Cadjehoun it isn’t rare to run into BMWs or Audis. But when an Aston Martin Vantage rolls by, that doesn’t happen everyday! That’s the confusing thing about this place, is one second you can see the poorest people in the world, a huge family living in a one room cinderblock house, then next second see an Aston Martin or a Maybach driving around. Anyway's the work is starting to pick up well for us.
We have starting teaching a lot of new Amis this past week, and that’s been a lot of fun. One family in particular has been pretty cool. There is a young man in the ward, who is the only member in his family. It’s been a while since his baptism, and his mom and sister have talked to the missionaries before already. Luckily though even though it’s been months he’s invited them to accept the gospel, he’s continued to do it. We’ve started the lessons a bit, and its been awesome to see that even if maybe they weren’t ready a few months ago, with the time the Lord can help prepare people. His mom and sister are very catholic and told us from the beginning, they weren’t planning on leaving where they are but they would listen to us. Even just the day after the lesson we had on the restoration, the sister came to us and told us that it was all true. She went from telling us there wasn’t really hope in changing, but that she would pray and see if these things were true... and sure enough and very quickly, she has already started to gain her own testimony. It’s been really cool to see how the spirit can confirm these things to anyone that really wants to know. It strengthens my testimony a lot to, and gives more faith in making promises to people with these things we always ask them to do. We have another Ami that has a baptismal date fixed, but has ran into some problems when we taught the word of wisdom. He has trouble with coffee, as that is what keeps him up for work, as he is a night guardian for a house. The story of Nephi and his family in the wilderness came up in my head, from where they obeyed the commandment to go into the wilderness, and ended up not having anything to eat, and were living off of raw meat, but it explains that living off that they were still able to live and travel in really good shape, and that if we keep the commandments the Lord will prepare a way for us to do what we need, but that will come in his way. We were able to help him leave try leaving the coffee, and promised blessings in return. But the problem after was that he would leave his coffee, but not his sniffing tobacco just yet. We ended up coming back the next day and he was stunned. He was asking what he did, and we were clueless as to what he was talking about. He said with the tobacco, did you guys send a curse or something? We still really had no idea. He began to explain that the night after we left, he stayed away from his coffee, but went to his tobacco, and found it opened and all the tobacco had poured out, and he could no longer use it. Ha-ha, we tried to make it clear that it wasn’t us that had done it, but maybe he should think about why that just happened to occur right after he found this commandment. So were hoping things will continue to go well with him. We have some good other Amis, but most are all pretty new right now.
Things are going good with the work though and its fun working with my companions.I love my Nigerian companion I have now, he’s pretty awesome. Its pretty crazy thinking about what is going on just next door to us right now in Nigeria with Boko Haram. Elder Izekor is awesome though. We had a funny time this past week. He has been a member since primary actually, so he spent primary in the church. He was asking about the primary songs, and brought up the song "Once there was a snowman". He said he’s always been so confused, along with everyone there as to what that meant, and what a snowman was... Ha-ha, it made my day. But yeah Its been super rainy this past week, but that has cooled things down a lot, and the world cup is still in full swing, and hey the U.S. advanced as well! Ha-ha surprise surprise. But yeah all is well here! Next week will be pretty crazy with the change from President Weed to President Morin.
But yeah thanks for everything, and
for all of the love and support! I love and miss you all a ton.
Elder Oliverson
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