This week had some sad moments a week of good byes. We said good buy to Jacob, the MTC employee who was in Benin to teach english classes for 8 weeks or somthing like that. He is the guy we found that one day trying to go to chuch, I forgot if I told you that story or not, I'm sure I did, but hey my mind is pretty fried, it's in the heat 24/7. However, his time was up and he gets to go home and celebrate Christmas in some thing called snow, idk, they say its cold but I don't know what that means.
To explain my situation now I have to talk about Elder Warr, it's quite sad for me to say that he had to go home early. It is sad because it wasn't his choice or his fault. He really wanted to stay, but his immune stystem is not the strongest and according to doctors and the area 70 and the brethren, his heath is more important and that he needed to go home. Which is really sad he is an amazing guy, loved the people, worked hard and stuck through some of the hardest things. Like getting his toe cut open without anesthesia and getting malaria and a ton of other viruses at the same time, what a strong Elder. I miss him already.
Warr's companion Elder Olela is still healing form his hernia surgery so he went to the mission office to work so now Elder Ranaivoarisoa and a mini missionaray are in our district and are supposed to work in Menontin but they don't know the sector so this upcoming week will be an adventure but me and my dad are still together and are like best friends. Today he told me he wishes he could just spend the last 7 months of his mission working with me.
And for your information Elder Ranaivoarisoa is from Madagascar and we call him Elder Ranaivo because his name is impossible for us to say without taking like 4 breaths. It's like reading a book, I'm just kidding. I already kind of knew him before but he is super cool. He speaks english that he learned here with english companions and studying, he loves to sing and is a good cook. I dont know how long he is here, but we will see at transfers this Christmas Eve.
So that's what happend this week some of that stuff took its toll a little bit, However there are 2 amazing missionary things that happened that I just have to share. One was something that just made me love being a missionary here, like in Zogbo right now. And it really helped me see the real value of what I can do and its all about St__. St__ became a member of the chuch here in Benin in 2004 and was super active with a call and everything. She moved in 2008 and fell inactive because there was no chuch where she went. She lost her bible and book of mormon in the move. Her contact with the chuch completely cut of and she fell inactive. Fast forward to 2016 me and Mukendi are walking around Zogbo and we hear "elders!" a lady that is sitting in a chair taking a break from work with a huge smile says, "how are you doing!" Because no one knows who elders are ever we know she had aready talked to the missionaries at least a few times, come to find out she has been inactive for 8 years, but still has a strong testimony. We had a few lessons with her, and invited her to come back to chuch, she didn't come. We called her for a few weeks every Sunday morning she wouldn't answer her phone, we were so sad and gave up. Then this week I'm sitting up at the front, because I was blessing the sacrament and who do I see walk in but St__!!! with a huge smile on her face!!! that matched me and Mukendis. Many members rememberd her and were so happy an amazing reunion and I have no doubt she'll be here for the next week and hopefully forever. There is no key indicatior we send to the president for reactivation of a really old member, but wow what joy me and Mukendi had that day, and the joy she had too, so much joy. I'm so glad I was in that one spot that one day and that St__ decided to open her mouth and say hi and not let us walk by.
Another amazing thing is we found a family to teach!!!! They come to chuch, the kids are super cute the husband and wife are super receptive to the gosple it's a little difficult because they can't read and are not civilly married yet and the marriage thing is required for baptism, and teaching without reading is hard however I have no doubt if they keep progressing like this we will for sure baptize them, so cool and we found them because they just walked into chuch one day, what a gift of God.
Each week has its ups and downs, but the joy is always found in the work.
Mukendi and Jacob
Me and Jacob
Me and Warr
