Bonjour, 12/22/2014
Things have been
great here this past week. We were finally able to get in and focused on the
work so it was awesome. It was a week full of many miracles as well. My
companion is doing great and is obedient and humble, as ever, so we’ve been
entitled to many blessings because of it! Its been clear that the Lord has
helped us come across many new Amis that were prepared in advance as
well. In Calavi, as our secteur's are so far from the church, about 45 minutes.
President authorized us to create a group here in our apartment, which we will
be starting up in January, so in turn, as all the converts we have here are
leaders in the Calavi branch, we will not really have anyone in terms of
members in the group, so we’ve seen that we really need to start getting to
work in finding people, especially men that can become Melchzeidek priesthood
holders. We’ve been praying a lot, and talking with everyone, and have seen
that the Lord has quickly answered out prayers.
This past week we’ve continued
working with Eli, our Ami that was at church last week. Again like I said I’ve
never met many people that know the Bible as well as he does. He has many
talents and I can see what a powerful member of the church he could be if he
gets baptized, so we’ve been working a lot with him towards that. He likes
proof in everything we teach him, so to a point we we're giving it to him, then
he asked a question, that again I could easily answer, but my new companion
simply opened up to Moroni 10: 4-5, and gave the simple response that all truth
comes from the Holy Ghost, so in turn all these questions that he has can in
turn be answered usually by prayer. It was a good reminder to me as well that
we need to always rely on the spirit and let our Amis do the same. We noticed that as we had been teaching him his brother was assisting with us. His
brother is much more humble, and willing to listen actually, but much more
quiet so we didn’t notice him as much. His brothers named Jeremie. So in
English their names actually turn out to be Elijah and Jeremy, like the
prophets in the Bible. Ha-ha, but even with all of his brother’s objections and
such he stayed close and really understood our message. In our next lesson he
explained that he new our message was true, but was afraid to leave his church
as him and his brother were adopted by the pastor, who has taken care of them
his whole life, and paid for school and such. So in turn leaving his church
would be in a way disrespectful. We had a big lesson on the importance of turning
to God rather than the fear of men, and left him to pray again. The next time
we came back he had made the choice that even with the opposition that would
come he wanted to be baptized into the church. We fixed his baptismal date for
the 10th of January, and he was at church on Sunday and loved it.
Along
with that we came across another guy on the street the next day named Alfred.
He stopped us first asking me if I was an English speaker, as he was interested
in talking with me. It turns out he teaches English at the university here, so he actually didn’t speak to bad. In turn we were able to start
teaching him, and could see quickly that he was super interested in our message as we explained the restoration to him briefly. He explained how he has
always wanted that his family be together in the same church as they are
divided between multiple, which causes them many problems, so we fixed times to
be able to see all of them. He came to church with us on Sunday and
loved it. Just like Eli and Jeremie he is extremely intelligent and is
progressing well.
Along with them we received a contact from some other
missionaries named Olivier. When we finally contacted him we found that he
lives super far away, and is extremely well to do. At the same time you can
see that he is very humble, and gives most of what he has. He is in his late
twenties and lives with his wife. In the first lesson he explained that he didn’t
really believe in religion but rather in personal worship and such, his wife
though is Methodist. We’ve really worked towards showing all the blessings for
the family in our message and such, and in turn explained the restoration and
the story of Joseph Smith. He understood really well, and was incredibly open
to all that we taught him. He promised to pray, and to come to church. Sure
enough Sunday he was with us at church, and explained to us afterwards
that the spirit confirmed to him that what we have taught him was the truth and
that we were really the Lords servants, and in turn we were able to fix a
baptismal date with him for the 17th of January, and are hoping that his
wife will soon follow! We’ve been extremely blessed no doubt the past while,
and have seen that our baptisms that we have fixed and our Amis in
progress are people that could do a lot to help the church and especially help
in leadership with the group that we are soon forming here in Arkonville. It’s
been amazing to see how well all of our Amis were prepared and how quickly the
spirit has testified to them the truthfulness of the message. Honestly when I
got here as we were opening a secteur, I was planning on the first couple
months being contacting and planting seeds, but we’ve been able to get things
going quickly. Along with that we already have too many Amis that we really don’t
have the time to visit all of them. This past week we headed a bit out
farther west, where it becomes just village. I thought Kegue my first secteur
in Togo was out there, but here you feel like you’re camping, its about a 45
minutes walk just to arrive there so we don’t go there too often, and along
with that its extremely far from the church, so we will probably wait till we
get the group here to go back out there, but there is surely a lot of promise
there. We’ve been exhausted though with all the work, but it’s been
great as it’s been very productive for us!
My companion is doing well and is
still learning also. He’s come a long ways for sure! Today I taught him how to
mop the floor, so there are always little things like that I forget about. He’s
doing really good though, and has a strong testimony. He comes from
very humble background, but you can see it has made him a really good person. I’ve been really working with him in helping him talk to people and rely
on the spirit as he is a little timid, but like I said he’s come a long way!
We're hoping to still be able to get work done this week even with Christmas
coming along! The mission Christmas party is tomorrow so we're looking forward
to that, and as I’m one of the three drivers in the mission I'll get to drive
the truck again:). Our secteur is really nice though. Its calm and reminds me a
lot of Togo, a lot of brush and plants, and apparently pretty big
snakes, but I still haven’t seen with my own eyes so not sure about that. I
know that out towards the village area there is plenty of
voodoo, so we will see how that goes for us.
The training is going
great too! I was thinking the mornings would be tiring with the extra hour of
training, but it’s been good, as it’s more of a mutual companion study and we
learn a lot together. The apartment is doing well. Some of the Elders
like Destribois, my comp and Agui are learning English, so we’ve been helping
them a lot with that too. Things are going really well here though; I hope all
goes well there for you with Christmas this week!
Elder
Oliverson
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