Waterfall

Bonjour!                                                                                                                         03/17/2014

 Sorry I don’t have much time today as we just barely got back from the trip to Kpalime, so the time is short! Things have been pretty well this past week! The work is still going along good also. We had our baptism with Koko this past week, which was really awesome to see. He was one that had many many changes needed in his life, from chastity, and the word of wisdom. But thanks to the example of a member, he was really touched, and has made huge changes in his life to be baptized. So that was big this week. This past week we had a lot of time with our recent converts as well. It was the best being with them, and one in particular, Jacques, who we baptized back in January is more zealous than ever. This past week while we were walking back to the apartment one night, I was walking with him, as my companion was with his brother. He bore one of the best testimonies I’ve ever heard, and just about how thankful he is for the Gospel in his life. He’s on his way towards his mission, and was just going off about how big he hopes the church will be in Togo one day. He was saying he would do anything to have a temple here, and will do all he can to get one here. He’s also going to be working all summer, in the hopes of having enough money to be able to go on the temple trip next fall with the members... It was a very humbling experience to be with him, and to really see once again, how many things I take for granted, with the gospel, and the temple for example as well. 

The work is going smooth though; we fixed a few more baptisms this past week, one with Joseph, who has been an Ami for a couple months now, but has accepted to be baptized and will be in a couple weeks. Along with him Aquete as well, the young man who has made many sacrifices to accept our message. So that is very exciting. Along with that we got to have our interviews with President Weed, which as always was great! He brought the picture of the new president that will be here in a couple months, and he looks like he will be awesome. It will be very strange though, and also sad to see President Weed leaving. Interviews were great though, and very uplifting. 

On Friday we got to have a leadership conference, which was basically a zone conference, but for the leaders. But that was awesome as well! We had a lot of great lessons, but one in particular from President Weed that I loved a lot. He talked a lot about how Elder Bednar gave a talk saying that when missionaries fall into routines while teaching, or just teach in other ways rather than by the spirit, it isn’t of God, and our calling is to teach by the spirit always. That’s a big problem for many missionaries, as it is much more easy to just give the same lesson each time, and fall into routine, but it was something that really helped us see that when we do that, we aren’t teaching by the spirit, so we aren’t doing things the Lords way. It was very good for sure! The week went by great though for sure!

 On top of all that, we got to go on our trip to Kpalime today, the trip up north to the waterfalls, which comes like once a year and it was a blast!! It was a couple hour ride bus ride up north into the hills and mountains... and it actually wasn’t too bad, as we all got to be together as Elders. But then afterwards, we had a hour and a half hike which, was a different path than they took last time, and I’m not sure why... Either way, I loved hiking before the mission, but on the mission is a different story! Ha-ha the good part, was because it is so humid, when you took a break, you got your breath back quickly. It was seriously gorgeous though, pure green jungle, with huge cliffs, and hills, and as we were on a mountain, you could see for miles in every direction!! It was no doubt the prettiest part of Africa I’ve seen yet. Along with that, we found cocoa beans and passion fruit, which was the best... it was by first time with the cocoa beans, so we didn’t eat them, as you have to dry them out then mix them with sugar, but there is a goo inside, that is very fruity and tastes incredible!! It was no doubt an awesome trip though, and a great time being all together with the Elders, and it was so gorgeous! The waterfall wasn’t as big as I had hoped, but with the jungle around it was well worth it! 

All is great here though, the Ward is doing great, we had the birthday thing for the Relief Society, so that was pretty cool to see them start even celebrating that here as well! But yeah its pretty crazy that I have been out a year now, and the time seems to be picking up a lot for sure.  I’m really excited for the new Americans!! We haven’t had a group of Americans since mine! Just a couple like Elder Barton, so that will be interesting to watch them adjust, I remember having good older Americans like Elder Layton who called me my first night to see how I was doing. 

 I’m very thankful for the patriarchal blessing as its a blessing on the mission, and a good reminder to have for sure. I love and miss you all a ton! I hope all is well there and you have a great week! I’ll try to catch up more next week, thanks again for everything though! I love you!

Elder Oliverson

The baptism of Koko

Kpalime

OBEDIENCE

Bonjour!                                                                                                                        03/10/2014

             

This past week has gone by pretty good! The work is still going along really well and our Amis are progressing good. I was worried if we would still be able to have as many Amis to teach with all of the baptisms, but thanks to the members we still have a constant flow of Amis coming in, so that’s been really nice! Lome also had one of their Temple trips over to Ghana this past week, so that was good as always for the Ward. Along with that two of the young men getting ready for their missions were able to get their endowments, so that was awesome to see as well. We have some great Amis right now, and its really fun to see them progressing. One of the biggest things I’ve seen with that is how much they progress right after baptism as well, getting started in the church and stuff. That’s been one of the best parts is seeing them get callings right away, getting the priesthood, and getting into institute and such. The ward here is still awesome and I’m really happy to be working here! 

Last week Michelle was asking me to send her some miracle stories, and I was thinking and its really hard to pick them out, because if you are looking you really see the blessings the Lord gives each day. For example a couple weeks ago we were walking back at night again, and as our secteur is a 45 minute walk from the apartment, we were tired as it was the end of the day, so I was a bright one and thought about taking a short cut. By taking that I was taking a little dark back ally back to the apartment. Maybe because I was tired or something I didn’t think much of it, but as we got started on our way down, some guys came running behind us. They were coming to us to warn us to not take the road. I then remembered that a big white guy carrying a big bag walking down a dark long ally on the edge of Be Kpota late in the evening probably wasn’t the best idea. Later on though really thinking about it I really realized that those men were being nice, but at the same time the Lord was really watching out for us. You see a lot of things like that that don’t just happen by chance at all. Things are all going well with the work though. 

I’ve been studying a lot this past week about avoiding sin, as a problem in the Ward has been with the youth, and problems such as chastity and such, thinking they can just repent later on. A verse that I love in the Book of Mormon relating to that in a way was from Alma 59, where he is talking about how they worked hard to build up a city that was about to be attacked by the enemies, because it is better to prepare, rather than have to repair. That made me think a lot about that principle in that it is better to resist, rather than to have to repent. No doubt it’s always easy to rationalize a little, and plan on repenting later, but not till we start taking steps away, do we forget what we're doing. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately since Elder Vinson came, and gave the lesson on the importance of perfect obedience. Its very true the second we start letting small things slide, we start to slide ourselves toward sin. Thanks to those studies, I was ready once again when I got called on to give a talk on Sunday with no warning in advance... Ha-ha the mission is doing good as well. 

Elder Barton and me were looking last week at Mormon.org and the profiles, and were able to see there is a group of 5 or 6 Americans coming in a couple weeks. That will be good, and something new for sure, as in the past 9 months or so we’ve only had 2 more Americans come into the mission! 

The health is still all well, even though it seems like just about everyone here gets sick all the time. We had a nice rainstorm this past week and it got me pretty excited for the rainy season soon to come! At the same time though it was a little scary, as the night after it rains here, I don’t know how, or why, but all of these little wasp looking butterflies come out of no where, and they come in swarms. When I walked out our front door that night, a swarm came out of no where and filled part of our house, the weird thing though is they only live for a couple hours, so then they all started dying. Which was cool and all, but then we had to sweep them all out, which was a pain. 

 Things are going good though, I hope all is going well there, I love and miss you all a ton! Thanks for everything!

Elder Oliverson

Baptism of Espoir

Elder Vinson

Bonjour!                                                                                                                         03/03/2014

This past week has been pretty good! The work is going along well and we’ve been able to get some more baptismal dates fixed so that was good. We had the baptism for Espoir as well this Saturday so that was really fun. She is one of those who is from a part member family, and really made things way to easy for us, she easily accepted everything, and gained a testimony very quickly. We were able to have some of our Amis at the baptism as well, which helps a lot. I don’t know what it is with baptismal services but they are killer for the Amis. Its usually easier getting them to come to baptismal services, and with the spirit that is there at those, it helps a lot with motivating them. We still have many great Amis though, and many that is making big sacrifices, and will no doubt be blessed for that. We had one for example that was living in Concubinage, and had about every word of wisdom problem possible. But he is a good friend with one of our members, who is sealed in the temple, and has an incredible family. He has seen the blessings in his life, and how happy he is, and as a result has already started turning his life almost completely around, it will take some time to leave where he was, but he is on a good start. I’ve had other Amis do that like Gilbert and Ambroise, but none yet that have changed that fast. We have another one that is getting baptized later this month named Ayele. She had already received the missionary lessons before, but her problem was that she lived with her conjoint, and it was him that was her financial support, and on top of that, she doesn’t have living parents to help. We worked towards trying to talk with her boyfriend and help him accept the gospel, but have found that he is very Muslim and isn’t willing to change. Her faith has been amazing though, and she has already started to work towards getting on her own, and leaving that behind, which is hard as she depended on him, but no doubt she will be very blessed because of her sacrifice. It’s really strengthened my testimony that if we put the Lord first, he always takes care of his end, maybe not right away, but he will. 

On Thursday we had our conference with Elder Vinson, and it was seriously incredible! It was based off of the results that he got on the survey that we took and was very inspired as well. It’s incredible how they can completely change the direction of the lesson by inspiration from the spirit. It was centered on every topic from the atonement, and how the Lord can and will help us carry our burdens, and also to obedience, and the importance of following our spiritual desires rather than carnal desires. Once we can master our carnal desires and control those it really changes everything almost. As always as well, his testimony was incredible, and when he testifies about his relationship with the Lord, the spirit is seriously amazing. He also talked a lot about how great this area is in general. He actually didn’t have the opportunity to serve a mission as he was converted after he was married, but did say that if he had the choice on where he would serve a mission, it would be here in West Africa, and said that no part of the world has been more fertile than the Africa West area. It was an incredible conference though no doubt, and you left seeing many things you could improve upon, but at the same time with a very good feeling. As always as well, another thing that blows me away is how strong their wives are, they are just as strong spiritually as their husbands, its awesome!! Things are all good here, its pretty funny having Elder Florion in the apartment, its been a little tough for him adjusting to West Africa, but he’s doing well. He shaved his arms and legs hoping it would cool him down but was unsuccessful. He also won’t stop tickling me at random times of the day, and as he is about twice my size there isn’t much I can do. It’s not too much of a problem though! Things are all going well though here!

 I hope all is well there, I love and miss you all a ton! I hope things go great for you this next week!

Elder Oliverson

Sorry no pictures this week we're at a different cyber and the USB drive isn’t working for some reason? I'll send them next week though!

Sacrifice

Bonjour!                                                                                                                        02/24/2014

            

This past week has been pretty good! Not a ton of new stuff really. It’s strange sometimes working in a tri-companionship, but it was still good! On Saturday Elder Haggard got the missionary he’s training who is a Tahitian named Elder Florion. I can’t even tell you how happy I am to have him in my District!  He’s seriously hilarious and is just a big teddy bear. I forgot at the same time though how big Polynesians are, but then quickly remembered again. I was messing with him while he was in the shower as the light is on the outside, then quickly remembered he could probably tear my skinny body in half, so I backed out of that one. Things have been good though, and it’s been the best having him as a new missionary in the apartment. Along with that, Tahiti seriously sounds like the best place in the world, and I would die to live there one day seriously!

We won inspections last Monday in our apartment, so that was the best! And on top of that on Tuesday morning we had to go to the couples house to call all of the contacts we took a couple weeks ago. They were very nice to make us lunch!  I can’t even express how incredible it was! Sister Christensen made us lasagna, as one of their sons served in Italy. It was honestly was the best. 

On Thursday we had a zone meetings so that was nice to be together as always! One of the best parts is with the latest transfer; Elder Merritt and Elder Barton came over here from Benin, so it doesn’t get much better than that! It was great to see them again! I’m excited as well as next week we have a mission conference again with Elder Vinson, in where he is specifically coming for the mission rather than for the Stake. So I’m really excited for that, and again he will be interviewing a few elders, so that would be cool to have that opportunity as well! 

 We didn’t have any baptisms this past weekend, but are hoping to have one this next week! It’s another Ami who is a contact of a member, like almost all of them we have, and I’m really excited for her! One of the best parts in seeing that someone is really devoted and has the faith, is when they make the sacrifices to follow the message, or come to church; for example, the church is super far from our area. Yet she walks each Sunday, as she doesn’t have the way of paying for a moto ride, and is there about 30 minutes in advance! I’m really excited for this next week with her! All of our other Ami's are doing good as well. We have another Ami for example who has had problems in accepting the message as his family is very very voodoo... and we can never teach him at his house. Along with that he is very poor, just like everyone else here, but is even more poor which is hard to believe. But he usually works on Sunday to make just enough money to be able to pay the rent for their little parcel. Rather than going to work though he decided to come to church in place of that understanding the importance of it, and also that the Lord will do his part. I was amazed to see the faith he had, and honestly, I’m not sure how things are going, but I’ll be finding out soon, I hope all is well with him though. I love the ward here as always. I love our bishop and his counselors. They’re incredible, they’re at the point even when they name their kids after people in the Book of Mormon, for example the bishops daughter is named Sariah, and his counselors son is named Lehi. Ha-ha seriously its the best!  I had an ingrown toenail yesterday and that was seriously the worst thing. I’ve never really had one but that was rough, I was able to figure it out though and fix it at least, I think!

 Today we went to the beach with some of the elders from the zone and that was really fun! The best part is Elder Potter fixed his football so we had some football on the beach. Best thing ever! Elder Barton and me ended up being captains and we had a pretty good game! Unfortunately though there was a blowfish that had gotten washed up on the beach and he stepped on it cutting himself. It was actually really weird but he’s all good! 

One of the things I’ve learned on the mission big time, and from President Weed, is that you can’t change other people, and in some cases your situation, but you can only change yourself. So if there are problems with a companion for example, even if it is their fault, change yourself and make yourself even better and more patient and more charitable, and it will be less of a problem.

Thanks again for all of the love and support! I love and miss you all a ton! I hope you guys have a great next week, and things go good for you! Thanks for everything!

Elder Oliverson

 

                                     Its nice having the secteur with the lagoon!

                                                Beach today with the Elders! 

Peace

Bonjour!                                                                                                                        02/17/2014

Not much that is new. The work is still coming along. Elder Kouadio left this past week as he is transferred to Benin, so Elder Haggard has been working with Elder Sahue and I, so that’s been a good time for sure. The assistants also came over and stayed a night with us due to transfers, so we had a nice sleep over with them! We were hoping to baptize one of our Amis Linda this past week, but because of family problems, we had to push that back a bit unfortunately but its fine. Our Amis are all doing really good, and finding people is definitely not a problem in this secteur. We have a new Ami that I’ve been really excited about named Koko, its a older guy that is actually very intelligent and educated, with a family as well, which is rare to find here. We found him from a member named Joel. He’s been a member since 2004 and I swear I’m pretty sure half of the ward is his contacts, he’s incredible. But anyways we just got started with him, and he’s someone who’s explored about every church, from catholic to Jehovah witness, and he’s been frustrated on why they are all so different, and why they aren’t in line with the Bible. It was like the perfect situation, we were able to get him the message of the restoration right away, and left it with him to read. The next lesson he came back having read everything, and was happy as ever. We had a great lesson going over the restoration, and he is right in line to progress a lot. One of the coolest parts was at the end of the lesson when he expressed his appreciation that he had found us, and the message we had given. He’s only been an Ami for like a week and is already bearing his testimony! But he explained to us that in his life he had so many problems, a ton of problems with his kids in college, with his wife, with the work and just about everything. But when he found us that first time everything has seemed very at peace. He compared it to being in a storm, then all of the sudden everything clears up and becomes calm. It reminded me right away of the story of Jesus with his disciples on the boat with the storm, and how Jesus calmed the storm, and that affect that he can have. It was incredible to see how much peace this message, and the spirit has brought to him in just this past week. He’s loved everything about the message, and has studied it a ton already, he’s already becoming one of our Faithfull’s at church these past two Sundays, so I’m really excited to see things go forward with him. No doubt someone very prepared and ready for the gospel. 

We’ve also been putting a lot of work in with our inactive's, as this ward is full of them. With some it is pretty easy, but with many it is a challenge. It makes you very thankful for the spirit though in how much it helps you deal with the different situations. You see so many different reasons, and situations as to why they are inactive, and having no experience with any of these, it can seem very difficult to have any idea how to help them or what to do. But I can see as well that the spirit will take over and help you, if you let it. That is one of the biggest things I’ve seen, and as it says in Preach my Gospel, you are supposed to listen to the person, rather than thinking of your response, and if you do, the spirit will let you know what to do. That is no doubt very true, and we had a really cool experience with that this last week with a young man in the ward that hasn’t been to church in months. It turned in to a really great lesson on repentance and how it brings hope and can heal us. Inactive's are very important, as you think that if this one-person falls away from the church, think of the generations following that will miss out on these blessings if this person doesn’t come back. The spirit is incredible and it reminded me a lot of our last zone conference and a lesson we got. It talked about the story of Nephi we all know and him getting the plates. And in chapter 4 where he talks about how we went forth not knowing in advance what he should do. As the story goes on you see the way was completely prepared for him, and the spirit continued to guide. In Lemuel's side of the story, you see they had the same situation, but when he went forth, nothing was prepared, and he had hardly any if any guidance from the spirit, and failed. It’s incredible how important the spirit is in the work. Things are all well here though, and the work is coming along great! 

       That was one of the talks that we studied by Bednar (Oct 2012 Conference) and I loved it, it was awesome. That is very true though, and its good to have a testimony but its really just the beginning. The conversion comes as we put the testimony into action. Elder Vinson is actually coming back next week for another little conference, so we have even more talks to study so that will be good!

       Thanks for the letter and for all of the support as well!  I love and miss you all a ton!

Elder Oliverson

Its nice to have running water..

FHE night with the ward!

Book of Mormon

Bonjour!                                                                                                                         02/10/2014

       Things have gone pretty well this past week!  We were able to get pretty good work done even with the Zone conference being that week, and our baptisms. I forgot to mention last week we’ve been having some bandits breaking into our little area and stealing our stuff. I wouldn’t say they’ve broken in as they simply hopped our wall, but luckily all they stolen were our chairs... Either ways we were blessed as well as we usually don’t lock our roof access in the night, but did this night, and we know they tried to break into the house through the roof, as they stole all the stuff we had left on the roof. Either way I miss my chairs a lot for putting on my shoes.

      Our candidates all finished the lessons well and were able to be baptized this past Saturday, it was nice as there was an activity at the church, so there ended up being a ton of people there for the baptism, so I’m sure the Amis liked having the support!  We have a couple more getting baptized next week, so I’m hoping they all continue to progress well. Most of them are all member contacts, but one in particular was just a guy that stopped us on the road. We get stopped on the road ever day almost, mostly by either crazy guys or Nigerians. But I remember this guy stopped us asking who we were, and what our message was, because he’s been looking for a church, and the Bible isn’t clear enough for him to understand.... Clearly someone who was very prepared! Since then though he’s never ceased to amaze me with how well he’s progressed, his name is Joseph.

       We do have a member contact that is really good, but at the same time he’s done a ton of research on the church, and apparently the best way to do that is by the Internet, so in turn he has found a lot of anti Mormon material... Its not a problem at all, but these people are hard to get to understand that all truth comes from God, rather than men, so why not take his question to God and ask him, rather than searching out his answers in the other ways. He’s a tough one but he is coming along.

     I was looking at it as well, and have seen how amazing some of the members in our ward are. There are many younger members that come from part member families, which is already difficult. But on top of that, many of those families are in big opposition against the church, and others are big on voodoo, which I haven’t seen a problem with really since Benin. I’ve really felt bad for these people in those situations, but at the same time, we know that the greatest blessings come from sacrifice. If we didn’t ask for sacrifice, their faith would never grow.

     Our zone conference this past week was really good as always too! It was a big lesson again on agency, and a lot of what the general authorities presented before us last week. It was awesome though. On Saturday morning, we decided to have a zone activity to help one of the areas that was struggling, so we went to the area and set up some tables, and started a contact getting session for a couple hours. In just two hours we were able to get 140 contacts, no doubt one of the big blessings of being able to serve these people here are who are so open to the gospel!! The work is going well though in general, we have good help as always from the members and things are coming along.

    Things are all good with my companion and we get along well, he’s been teaching me Gnushi as that is really the language they speak in Cote DIvoire rather than French, the problem is its still French, but with many words changed so its kind of a mess but its cool, ha-ha, but hey if I have any Ivoirians in the future I’ll be well prepared!

      All is good here in Africa though! I’m still getting skinnier, I think; even though I’m working out, but it has too stop somewhere but well see!

      A big part I like in the secteur is how much inactive work we have as it keeps us busy. Its a common trend with all of them though, you rarely if ever will find an inactive that still reads their scriptures, and those little things. So that’s always one of the big focuses, we had a really good lesson with one of them this past week named Folly. I remember having always heard that when you testify yourself, it strengthens your testimony, and that is something that I know is very true now having been on the mission. Having the chance to testify of the Book of Mormon every single day is no doubt a big blessing and something, that brings the spirit like none other! That book is incredible! We had a lesson one of the nights this past week in the dark, not too unusual, but luckily on our phone there is a light, so in the lesson everything was dark, and you couldn’t see anyone. And everything was black, except for the light on the Book of Mormon, and I really just started thinking about that literally and how the Book of Mormon really is a light like that in our lives while the rest of the world can be dark, along with the Temple, Church, and things like that.

      I think its interesting too seeing that for the third hour at church the people here are studying the same manual as you are over there. I’m sure it’s a lot different, but you’d be surprised coming to a meeting here, they are pretty impressive.

      Things are all going well here though! I hope all is great there this next week! I love and miss you all a ton!! Thanks for the letters and such!

Elder Oliverson

Elder L. Whitney Clayton, and Elder Vinson

Bonjour!                                                                                                 02/03/2014

This past week has been pretty good! The work is still going along really well too. We had our couple baptisms this past week, and we decided to just do it at our church house rather than going all the way up to the building in Kegue! The only problem was the font hadn’t been used in a while, and as a result the water coming out was pure green... Ha-ha on the Bright side though I had a member do the baptisms for us, so that wasn’t too much of a problem! It was awesome though, and the best part was yesterday as it was testimony meeting, one of our converts that was confirmed the same day gave one of the most powerful and sincere testimonies, its seriously the best to see things like that here! The work is coming along though in the secteur, in big thanks to the great members we have, this is no doubt the most efficient way of doing missionary work, but unfortunately not all the branches and wards here are as developed as this one, so I’m trying to make the most of the time I have in this one. As of right now though we are hoping to have baptisms each week of this month so that will be very fun! This past week has been great though! I had the lesson in District meeting and it ended up being on the importance of using the Book of Mormon like usual:) It was good though! The week was great also in that we got to have our conference with Elder L. Whitney Clayton, and Elder Vinson again. Seriously those are the best things ever. Just when they walk into the room you know there is something special about them, they are the best! It was really cool as well, as Elder Clayton started his little lesson on one subject, as he was quoting a scripture though, he stumbled a little and his wife helped him, as she stopped him, he slowly made a different transition in the lesson to a whole different subject in companions and how we work together, as he was giving that lesson, someone brought him a water bottle, as we was talking again, he looked at the water bottle, and opened up to 2 Nephi 2, and started a whole other lesson on Agency and how to deal with Companions and others, but at the same time respecting their agency, while using an analogy with the water bottle... It was clear that not very much of what he said had he already planned out, but much of it was simply guided by the spirit and inspired. It was seriously incredible to watch, they can really look into your eyes and change the subject like that just off of some feelings or inspiration they have. It was an incredible lesson though, and one of those that motivates you even more. Another cool part was when he was talking about mission presidents and how they choose them. I remember hearing to keep a close eye on your mission president and how him and his wife get along and such, and I as I have done that the whole mission its been incredible to see the example that comes from it. He confirmed though that when they choose presidents that is a big part of it is the relationship of the spouses, as they hope for them to be example to us as to what a celestial marriage should look like. It was funny too because before he started talking about this subject, he called them up to the front, and sure enough they were close and President Weed was holding his wife close at his side, and they looked very in love! Ha-ha, it was awesome to see though and was very true for sure. Along with that, of course at the end Elder Clayton invited us for the question and answer session, he said first off, "no new doctrine will be exposed, We don’t know where the sword of Laban is, I don’t know if Adam had a belly button, and we don’t, I mean I don’t know where the lost tribes are". Ha-ha, but it was still awesome! One of the coolest parts to see, is someone asked the first question, and as we had 3 seventies there they switched off, but for the first question which was pretty tough, he turned around and gave it to his wife... And man, I was blown away, as she was just as spiritually strong as he was if not more!! It was incredible to see her answer and to feel her testimony as well!! I’ve never though much about how strong their wives are as well, but its insane! It really gave me a good perspective on someone I want some day though for sure! He gave a really cool analogy about the gospel and our church as well; he was talking about how Elder Packer was explaining an analogy with our church, in that we are like a piano, with all of its keys... In other churches, they have many of the piano keys, but not all of them, with their keys they can do many great things, and play many beautiful pieces, but not all of them, and because of the lack of their keys, they sometimes play certain keys too much, and as a result that key goes out of tune, and compared it to how certain churches focus too much on certain keys for example the Sabbath day, or the name of God, and as a result it causes many problems. But in our church we have all the keys necessary, and we should never play one key too much. For example a question was regarding the Sabbath, and if it has to be Sunday, and he explained that for example in Hong Kong they have a sacrament meeting each day of the week, because of certain conditions there. But that the important thing is they do it. Yes those things are important, but we should never focus too much and too hard on certain points, and as a result hinder our testimony. In the end of his testimony as well, he testified that one day there will be stakes dotting Togo, which coming from him, was really powerful, and very motivating and comforting for us all as well to hear that. Also this week we had a visit from President in the apartment, and that’s when he gave me the news about the passing of Grandpa Oliverson. It was tough, but I picture him very happy right now as he is in a much better place. No doubt its incredible the knowledge we have of the Plan of Salvation and the comfort that gives. We had a really good talk though, and it was great as always to just talk with President Weed. The work is coming along really well though, and things are good with my companion. He stopped me after one of our planning sessions and sincerely was thanking me for my patience with him, and for how much I have helped him. It really is true that when you treat someone well they will act well, usually, but when you treat them like a bandit, that is how they will act. I’ve done my best with him to love him even with the little things that go on, but it was for sure nice to hear him thank me for the sincere love and such that I have shown him. He’s actually coming along pretty well now, not a ton, but he’s made a lot of progress in just these past couple weeks! So that’s been good. The work is certainly going forward though, and it’s really fun to see it progressing! No doubt a big blessing though at the same time, and for sure you see the Lords hand much in how prepared many of these people are. Thanks for all of the support and prayers as they are certainly being answered!

       Thanks a ton for the letter as always! I love and miss you a ton!

Elder Oliverson