“Remember the teacher is always quiet during a test"

Bonjour,                                                                                                                   11/08/2014

      This past week has been nice to get back into our secteur and working there. We had a little missionary activity Monday morning, and threw the football a bit, which was nice as usual. Our meeting with President was a little longer than usual so we didn’t get out too much to teach on Monday. We were able to get out to teach lessons most of the other days, and to try to get things going with our Amis. We have to work a lot on keeping our Amis occupied and keeping their commitments even when we're not there, otherwise they don’t progress as much, and as there are some weeks we don’t get to see them, it makes a big difference. We have some pretty good Amis right now though. One in particular is named Carlos. He is really humble, but doesn’t speak much French, so we have to teach him with a member. He went to school before, but his dad thought he was worthless so he pulled him out, and ever since then he has had to work up till today, and now he is an adult and really doesn’t speak much French. Still though he has accepted the Gospel really well because of his humility, and you can see that it is something that is starting to bring much more joy in to his life now. This past week we were able to fix a baptismal date with him, so were hoping things will go well with getting him ready for that. 

We’ve also found some other new Amis this week that were hoping will start to progress more. Because we're often so busy we’ve had to work on just talking with everyone everywhere we go, because its hard to find time just for tracting, so whenever we go out we’ve had to keep our eyes open and looking for people. The work is going well though. 

Its crazy to see how fast the time is going now, and that there are only a couple transfers that I have left, but it’s pretty sad at the same time. Elder Rybin is doing a little better, they found a few kidney stones actually, and he only has less than a month left anyways, so hopefully it will get worked out. This past week as well, I did a little split as well with Elder Merrill, as there was a meeting at Gbedromede with some of the leaders, and President wanted our companions to go there, so we were able to go work together in the secteur. We visited our Ami Rebecca, who still to this day is waiting on the baptism even though she really wants it, because she is not married yet, and their papers are taking forever to get through. Along with that her husband really doesn’t want much to do with the gospel either anymore unfortunately. We decided to restart going over the lessons with her a bit, and focused a lot on the Plan of Salvation in particular. That is a lesson that is really fun to give, as it gives so much comfort and reassurance. It also helps us understand why we’re on the earth and why this time is so important. We talked a lot too about the trials in this life, and why they come and how we react. She was talking about how even when we do pray and keep the commandments in trials, why does no response come when we need it most. I remembered hearing once for an example that when you are going through something hard and wonder where God is, “Remember the teacher is always quiet during a test". Its interesting to think about it like that, I remember in the MTC one of the Seventies talking about sometimes in trials the Lord waits a bit to watch us, and see how we react to certain things, or what we do, because he has a lot of trust in us. In the end it was a really good lesson that we had with her, and one that helped her put things in perspective, and understand that there are many things in life we can control, but also many that we can’t, but that doesn't change the fact that we should do all we can to please the Lord. So the work is picking back up for us, which is nice and we're hoping it continues that way. 

Its been raining a ton lately here, which is a little weird for November, we’re still just waiting for it too start getting really hot again like it does this time of the year. Things are going pretty well in the mission also. A new couple is getting here today, so that will be a good help to the missionaries in Benin. Not too much else is new this week. Things are going great here though! The work is a lot of fun as usual, and teaching the gospel never gets old either. I hope all goes great back there this next week!

                   I love and miss you all a ton!

                                                                        Elder Oliverson