Bonjour, 09/13/2014
This past week has been pretty good!
President left to Togo as well, so we’ve been a little more busy here than
usual. We had a really long meeting with him on Monday, a little longer than
usual, for planning and such. A lot of it too was about how we could apply the
things that Elder Curtis taught, more in the mission. He talked again about
Elder Curtis’s calling, and how it’s true that he knew some things about the
mission already, but still if you look at the things he taught, it was exactly
what we needed. So I really like how President wants to make the most out of
the visit, and see things improve because of it, so we’ve been working a lot on
that for making plans. Along with that we’ve had a lot of appointments with the
missionaries, and President has had me translating some stuff for him. Usually
the translating wouldn’t be too difficult, but when you start reading the
letter and realize its very important, that makes you a little stressed, then
you see that it has to do with business and law stuff, the kind of vocabulary I
don’t have, it took a while. Ha-ha it was the types of words I wouldn’t even
know in English, and even when showing it to a couple of French people, they
didn’t understand either, so I didn’t feel to bad, but all in all I was able to
finally get that finished.
The past week we’ve had a lot of missed rendezvous.
Yet we’ve been able to find people to fill in for them, meaning we’ve found
some really good new Amis, and some older ones as well. So we’ve had many
prayers answered for sure. As we’ve been really busy, we’ve done our best to
get out and look, but haven’t been able to a ton. But still were finding Amis,
for example the other day, when we walked outside there was a lady looking at
the sign for the church in front of the bureau. We asked what was up, and she
told us she wanted us to start teaching her, so we took contact and started a
little lesson. We didn’t have much time, yet still talked a bit, and the four
questions she asked were. How do you guys baptize and confirm people, do you
have the Sacrament, do you have a Prophet, and how can I join your church. It
was either she is a little crazy, or just someone really prepared, so we’ll
have to see how that goes. We picked up an old Ami as well, that has been
taught by the missionaries for a couple years already. But has had a few rough
experiences with them. Well have to see how it goes but it’s going really good
so far! It’s a mom and daughter the mom is Congolese, and the daughter is
Congolese/French. And oh her French is just wonderful. Either ways they’re both
actually really intelligent, so teaching them is a bit different than usual.
We're hoping it will work out though, as I’ve seen that on my mission where
because of one reason or another someone wasn’t ready at one time, then later
on they were there finally.
We also finalized the transfer this week, so that
got out a few days ago and it will be a pretty big one. Usually we will do the
transfer over a two week span where we do one half the first week then finish
it the next. But we decided rather to try and get it all done in three days. So
next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will be pretty busy, as we have a big group
of new missionaries getting in, and then on Wednesday we are going over to Togo.
Things are going good with my companion, and we’ve learned a lot together.
Something I’ve always known that I’ve gotten to know better is that if there is
any contention in a companionship, the spirit won't be there. Even if you think
you are right, and the other is wrong, and there are problems because of it,
things won’t work out, you have to be completely unified. I remember a MTC
branch president saying that he would tell his missionaries that when they came
to him with problems he would rather they both be right, or they both be wrong,
rather than one right and one wrong. It was kind of hard to understand at
first, but it makes much more sense now, so we’ve been putting a lot of work in
being more unified, and its paying off in our lessons as well so that’s been
really good!
This past night there was a little voodoo party (where they just
hit their drums) going on outside our apartment. It started at like 10 but I
was still able to fall asleep with it. I woke up again at 2 though, to hear
them still hitting the drums, then again at 4 still hearing the drums, then
again at 6, and they were still hitting the same drums. I realized that they
really had been playing their drums the entire 8 hours that night. Then in the
morning when we went out, we were driving down the road and saw a huge crowd,
which usually means someone got hit by a motto or something. But then I saw
that in the middle of the crowd there was a revanon, one of those so called
voodoo "ghosts" that have legs and look an awful lot like a human
body. Either way he was laying in the middle of the road, so I’m not sure what
was up with all of that, but assumed it was probably the long party they had
the night before. I remember hearing from the brothers about the chicken fights
that would keep them up at night, so now I better understand what that is like
to have your sleep ruined. Ha-ha, other than that though things are going
really well here.
But yeah thanks again for all the
pictures!! They were the best! I love and miss you all a ton! I hope all goes
well there this next week.
Elder Oliverson
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