Bonjour! 12/06/2014
This past week has
been pretty well; it’s been nice to be back in Cotonou and to get back to
working in our secteur again. The secteur is doing a lot better as well, and
our Amis are coming along more too. I’ve known for a while, but my wish
came true! As I can now tell you guys that I’m getting transferred and will get
to spend the last 12 weeks of the mission training a new Congolese missionary.
It was great working close to President and I’ve learned a ton in the past few
months, and there are way too many blessings to count, but it was getting a
little exhausting, so it will be great to get to put all the focus these last
few months on the new missionary and the secteur! I’m going up north of
Cotonou, to a little area outside of it named Calavi North. Its pretty far
away, and pretty far away from the nearest church which will be difficult. And
along with that we will be reopening a new area, so we will basically be
starting from scratch, which will be very difficult, but a lot of fun. It
would be really tough as a new missionary to get to the mission and open a secteur
like that but hopefully he will be patient as well. Ha-ha, the new missionaries
name is Elder Tshiunza, there is a good chance he will probably change his name
as Congolese usually do. If it’s the case he'll be Elder Kasonga. I’m looking
forward to it as he is the only Congolese coming in the next group, as the
entire group of elders is almost all American. He will be getting here on
Tuesday so it will be fun to see him! Its good as well as President puts a ton
of stress on training, as he sees it as one of the most important parts in the
work, as if we want the mission to change or improve it comes in the training,
as we can either make or break the missionary with the habits we help him
start. The situation will be really difficult with the secteur opening and
being lost, but hopefully it will go well! President said that most of my focus
should be on him more than anything in making him the most effective missionary
he can be. We talking a lot about the example with an apple, where you can
count the seeds that come from an apple. But you can’t count the apples that
come from a seed. As we can see directly some of the success we had as a
missionary, but we can't really see how far the seeds we planted and the things
we prepared will go. It should be a lot of fun as well. There are already 4
missionaries in the apartment there so we will just add on.
This past week I tried to make the most of the time I have left here. We have some pretty good Amis, and I see a few of them getting baptized in not too long. We have one in particular we’ve had for a while named Louise, who was progressing well, but was fearful to get baptized as she didn’t want to make the commitment then make mistakes afterwards which would ruin that. So we’ve been talking with her a lot about the commandments, like the law of chastity and the word of wisdom, in hopes it will help build her confidence to be able to keep these commandments after baptism. Its been really cool as in the past she has made many mistakes, and since learning more about these commandments she’s been pretty sorrowful for all she has done. So we shared the story in Alma 24, of the people after having received the missionaries, and choosing to change and repent, and then they were forgiven, and to keep strong they buried their temptations far so they couldn’t really even fall back into them if they wanted. It’s really cool to see how merciful the Lord is to us no matter what we have done in the past. Our other Amis like Ken and Constantine are doing pretty good as well. Ken is still held back a bit by his father, but again I see him being able to be baptized soon as well. This past week when we were visiting him, we ran into the chef de quartier. Its weird how it works here, but he’s sort of the leader over the area, and works a lot with the government, so he was a little arrogant to say the least. We went to talk with him, and were surprised at how well he knew the church, as he has visited Ghana multiple times, and has even seen the temple. He started by bombarding us with the classic questions like why we don’t let everyone enter in the temple, and how we should start doing that otherwise people will start wondering and thinking we do terrible things, and on and on. It was interesting though as I’ve understood by this point that arguing, or trying to prove a point just doesn’t work, as they aren’t there to try to understand, but rather to attack. I really liked the talk last conference by Elder Anderson though where he talked about Joseph Smiths name being known for good and evil, and it’s our job to do have of that, in testifying of him. So that is what we did boldly, then leaving the guy with a Book of Mormon, so we will see how that will turn out! But yeah the work is going well here, and is better than ever. The next week should be exciting with all the changes coming up also, before I leave I will get to order mine and Elder Ringle's flight plans so its crazy to think those will be here before I know it. Along with that I just saw today that Elder Dube from the Seventy will be coming to visit the mission in January, so that will be really cool! I hope all is well there though, I love and miss you all a ton! Thanks for all the love and support! Love and miss you guys a ton!
This past week I tried to make the most of the time I have left here. We have some pretty good Amis, and I see a few of them getting baptized in not too long. We have one in particular we’ve had for a while named Louise, who was progressing well, but was fearful to get baptized as she didn’t want to make the commitment then make mistakes afterwards which would ruin that. So we’ve been talking with her a lot about the commandments, like the law of chastity and the word of wisdom, in hopes it will help build her confidence to be able to keep these commandments after baptism. Its been really cool as in the past she has made many mistakes, and since learning more about these commandments she’s been pretty sorrowful for all she has done. So we shared the story in Alma 24, of the people after having received the missionaries, and choosing to change and repent, and then they were forgiven, and to keep strong they buried their temptations far so they couldn’t really even fall back into them if they wanted. It’s really cool to see how merciful the Lord is to us no matter what we have done in the past. Our other Amis like Ken and Constantine are doing pretty good as well. Ken is still held back a bit by his father, but again I see him being able to be baptized soon as well. This past week when we were visiting him, we ran into the chef de quartier. Its weird how it works here, but he’s sort of the leader over the area, and works a lot with the government, so he was a little arrogant to say the least. We went to talk with him, and were surprised at how well he knew the church, as he has visited Ghana multiple times, and has even seen the temple. He started by bombarding us with the classic questions like why we don’t let everyone enter in the temple, and how we should start doing that otherwise people will start wondering and thinking we do terrible things, and on and on. It was interesting though as I’ve understood by this point that arguing, or trying to prove a point just doesn’t work, as they aren’t there to try to understand, but rather to attack. I really liked the talk last conference by Elder Anderson though where he talked about Joseph Smiths name being known for good and evil, and it’s our job to do have of that, in testifying of him. So that is what we did boldly, then leaving the guy with a Book of Mormon, so we will see how that will turn out! But yeah the work is going well here, and is better than ever. The next week should be exciting with all the changes coming up also, before I leave I will get to order mine and Elder Ringle's flight plans so its crazy to think those will be here before I know it. Along with that I just saw today that Elder Dube from the Seventy will be coming to visit the mission in January, so that will be really cool! I hope all is well there though, I love and miss you all a ton! Thanks for all the love and support! Love and miss you guys a ton!
Elder Oliverson
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| Ouidah, with the voodoo priest over the snakes. |
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| Trip from Togo to Benin. |
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