I'm back!

Well, what can I even say to sum up my mission. I thought about writing a "what I wish I would have known" but I realized that's not the best idea because my mission was specifically built for me by God. He knew what knowledge I had and exactly what trials to give me to shape me into a morally better person. I don't have much to say about the last week of the mission. I worked hard. I had my last baptism, fixed up one last couple and the person the sisters' baptized with us was someone Gardner and I first contacted. I visited the Mikamona's for a last supper. I got to see the "Benin Boyz" all together since the first day in Benin. Well, we did start with 16 and we were 11 by the end. We had a cool testimony meeting together and the advice President Goury gave us with his encouragement and testimony was amazing. He was really called of God to be our mission president.

This whole week I was feeling many, many mixed emotions. The only world I can remember is Benin. I know coming home will be a much bigger culture shock. For example, we had a short stop in Niger on the way to France. A guy got on with apple headphones, but it was stupid because for some reason he had snipped the cords off. So he only had the buds in his ears. I thought it was super weird, but wow, I was too quick to judge. I get to France and this trend of buds only is a thing. I soon figure out this is the new iPhone thing and I bet in a few days I'll have those weird things in my ears too...dang it. I thought that was funny. In the France airport we all had the hardest time using the automatic soap and water dispensers. 

I have learned SO many things on my mission. I am so glad it was so hard. I think the biggest lesson I learned is that God, our Heavenly Father, plays an incredibly active role in our lives. His hand is everywhere. He is a perfect being and His only job is to help us get immortality and eternal life. He is always doing many things to help people become ready for the gospel. He often uses angels, angels are beings that help accomplish the work of God. There are unseen angels. However, humble servants can be God's angels if they listen to Him and do what He says. If God has the choice between spirit angel or person on the earth angel, He will send the person every time. I was helped by angels on my mission. I am so glad God helped me be an angel for others. He loves us, He sees us, He knows us, He is always there. I have seen it, I can't deny it.

Last Baptism

Good bye to the Elders Quorum President in Fidjrosse

Saying goodbye to people in Fidjrosse - including recent converts

Goodbye Mikamonas

Goodbye Gardner

The Goury's saying goodbye at the airport

On the plane home with Dorsey

The top part of the picture is the "Benin Boyz" first day in Africa in 2016 (with Nubert the office elder at the time). The bottom part is our last day in the same spot 2018. (with AP's McKrola and Martial)

Back in Iowa (hugging my mom)

With my family in the airport. My brothers grew taller!

CARPET!

An old Man's prayer & Mission Evo!

I’m not gunna like my brain is super scattered now. I have only one full week here on the mission. I have this week filled with rendezvous’ so I can stay focused, but it’s gunna be a big mental battle.

I don’t remember much of what happened this week except for one thing that made my mission. Remember that old guy last week who got easily confused that Peter was Fabrice. Well, he with his super sweet heart, made my life with a prayer he offered. When we first met with him we asked him to pray and he said he didn’t know how so we gave him the assignment to read in the brochure. There is a little box that explains the steps of prayer under the title how do I pray? This week we ask him to give the opening prayer. This is his prayer word for word translated into English:

"Heavenly Father, Express the feelings of your heart. Gratitude, question, request to confirm the truth of the Book of Mormon and the teachings of the missionaries in the name of Jesus Christ, amen"

We were shocked he took the time to memorize that little box and that had been all of his prayers from when he read it until we saw him. But he was so sincere. We were so happy and we helped him see that the part in the middle were just suggestions and he can pray for what he wants.

So, this is the last week I’m going to get to write a weekly email. I will probably add any pictures taken when I get home, just so you know. Next week I’ll have two last baptisms. We’re baptizing the wife and child of a recent convert trying to complete his family, so that is super exciting. A really great way to end the mission.

Well, I can’t believe this time has come. I remember one moment in my mission where the realization hit me that I had not yet seen Jesus Christ. However, this is not a super big deal it kind of surprised me. Because over these last two years of my life I have come to know my savior in a way I never could have otherwise. I have relied on His strength and promises so many times to get me through so many situations. He has always helped me with my best interests in mind.

The Benin Cotonou mission was exactly the mission I needed even though there were many, many times where I thought this place was outer darkness on earth. I’m so grateful for the adversity. The comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing grows there.

My knowledge of the Gospel has so greatly increased, I can’t believe it. The little testimony I shared in primary are the exact same words I share today. But now I share them with so much more confidence and personal experience that support what I have always said. There are eternal truths. The Gospel is real, it works. The church is true. God lives. Jesus is the Christ. And Russell M. Nelson is his prophet!

See you all real soon!

One last thing made in pine

Some lady looking through our trash

Thou art Fabrice, and upon this rock I will build my church

First, a funny story. Last Sunday Gardner was teaching a lesson about the organization of the church in our gospel principals class. And he asked who was the prophet after Jesus Christ died? The room was kind of silent... so he looked at me as if he wanted me to respond to help the class out. But then I saw that one of the investigators in the class named Fabrice whispered the answer. So, I looked at Gardner and pointed and said "Fabrice." But Gardner didn’t hear and so he looked over to where Fabrice was but his hand wasn’t raised. Fabrice said the answer again, "Peter," but he said it so quiet Gardner didn’t hear. Gardner looked at me again and asked who had the answer. I said, "Fabrice" but the room was kind of noisy so he didn’t hear so I raised my voice and said, "Fabrice, Fabrice!" Gardner calls on Fabrice and finally the response to the question is given, "Peter" and it’s all good. However, in the class that day was an old man, and this whole exchange confused the heck out of him. When we went to his house to go over the lesson we found out he thought the name of Peter was Fabrice. So, when we explained the organization of the church he would get super confused. We would say Peter, and he would try to correct us, "do you mean Fabrice?" Through the whole lesson I didn’t connect the dots why this old man would think Peter’s name is Fabrice. I thought back to Sunday and realized what had happened. When I was telling Gardner to call on Fabrice, he thought I was giving the answer. But for the moment in the life of the old guy, Joseph Smith received the priesthood from Fabrice, James and John.

On Tuesday in our district we had planned an activity to say good bye to Elder Djossou, who was in my apartment but left on Thursday because his visa came for his real mission in Sierra Leone. Everyone was told to make something from their country. Gardner and I woke up early and made a bunch of french toast. However, when we were about to go to district meeting all the sisters in our district called in sick. We ended up going any way and eating a bunch of french toast with the zone leaders who also had planned to come.

On Wednesday we had a service activity. The stake center here has some patches of grass around it. Whoever mowed and cleaned these grass patches when the stake first was built had stopped a long time ago and they had become super gross. So, we all got together and cleaned them, cut them, trimmed them up and also cleaned up other parts of the stake center. It was a good activity. Way better than the disservice we did in painting that house.

This place does a great job at weirding me out. We went over to one of our investigators house and the guy said, "hey you guys are Americans, right? Well I got two cousins that are visiting form the US, you can talk to them in English." So, this 9 year old girl and this 5 year old boy come out, and it was too weird. They spoke real American English. They lived in New York and Atlanta, Georgia. But the bad part is that the little boy was a typical snotty little American kid and he disturbed us the whole lesson. I tried to distract him on the side while my companion taught, so I tried to show him pictures in the brochures and ask what he thought the people were doing. He said American things I had long forgotten about "they’re poopy-heads, they’re ugly." Typical things a snotty kid would say. I have gotten so used to African culture where all kids don’t understand me and they are all kinda scared because I’m white. Not gunna lie those American kids intimidated me because they were more American than me.

We also walked a ton this week!! I made it a personal goal to go to every bishop’s house in every sector and I’ve done it so far. I just needed to go to the bishop’s house here in Fidjrossé, but dang he lives far away. It’s a two hour walk if you walk fast but that’s just going there it’s another 2 hours back. Gardner lost his mind on the walk back he started saying “hi” and using all the Fon greetings he knew on people to make them laugh because if you want to make someone laugh super hard here all you have to do is be white and speak their language. It was some funny stuff.

Making french toast

MY SON! Kouadio came to visit me in the cyber

Appointments are freeeeeeee, free fallin' through

Well this week was interesting. One of the funniest things that happened is we were walking in the sector and this bigger lady was walking towards us. Instead of just passing us quickly she grabbed my companion and kind of takes him to the side of the street and looks him in the face and shouts "YOVO!" into is face (meaning white in Fon), then she just walks away smiling. I was thinking Gardner must know her and it must be a joke so I asked him who the lady was. My shocked and confused companion says, "I have no idea". Then I laughed so hard I cried because it was just so weird.

I have an even stronger testimony about how God always answers prayers. I was out in the sector this week and all of the sudden my lunch decided to betray me. This reminded me of my horrible experiences in Togo running back to the apartment in complete stress. I realized that I could not make it to the apartment with my current situation but I did not ask God to take away this trial I just wanted a way to fix it. We turn a corner and before me was my answer, a big section of tall weeds and bushes. So, in I ran! (Mom, idk if you want to add that story, but there it is.)

I’m not quite sure what it is but there is something here that happens a lot. Here is how it goes. We find someone we ask if they want see us. Everyone says yes, but you use the spirit to see who really wants to see us. Then you pick one and call, hey when can we come see you? They say I’m free Tuesday at 15h00. We say great. Right before we go out there we call again, and say hey can we still come. 60% of the time they will cancel here, but if were really unlucky they will say yeah come. We walk to their house; sometimes crazy distances get there. We knock on the door. No answer, ask the neighbors, they say they are not there. We call the phone and there is no answer or the number no longer works. We wait for 15 or 30 mins. They never show up and that’s what we call arretez-vous. They are the worst and that’s been my whole mission. However, this week was bad we had a ton of people fall through. We always were able to pull off something except for Sunday afternoon. We weren’t able to find anyone because I guess there was a World Cup and the whole country went to drink out of it or something. I don’t know, but all I know is that I don’t like soccer at all.

We had my last zone conference this week it was really great. Linderman and a sister in my district gave really great lessons. I got to see Dorsey, that was great. And I saw my ex-companion Elder Martial, all good stuff.

Our district eating some good traditional food

The tall weeds and bushes

Everyone tried to find where they could watch the World Cup. So people were in the streets looking into little shops with TV's.

So many Mangez-vous

This week was a week full of work, which is great. I remember back in the day when I was with my old companions and it was their last few weeks in the mission. I was always trying to push them to work harder, but they kept saying, “hey I’m old on the mission. When you get to where I am you will understand.” Well guess what? I’m here and they were lying because I’m at the end and I have even a greater desire to work and make the last few moments count. I’m being the most obedient and working the most efficiently I have my whole mission. So being lazy at the end of your mission was just a vain tradition of my fathers.

There are lots of families here that our super nice and even though money is always tight they often save up to try to feed the missionaries. There are some people that have a little more money and want to feed the missionaries more often. Now there is another level, I have met two families like this on my mission. There are the families that if you pass by their house, whether you have time or not, they’re gunna feed you a meal. I had one in Hevie and I found a new one here. It is a couple in the ward where the husband is member but the wife is not. If we go over to their house we are gunna eat, and we’re gunna eat a lot. However, the first few times we didn’t realize it was gunna be like that. So, we got surprise fed a bunch of food right after we had eaten lunch, twice! But now we can plan on it. Here the food is never weird, I’m so thankful. There is no pig feet or cow brains. Whatever we’re gunna eat if it’s rice, spaghetti or pat, I know it’s gunna be a ton. In our mission, we have terms for these kind of rendez-vous we call them mangez-vous and since I’ve been here I’ve had so many.

I talked about it raining a lot last week. Well, there was a huge hole in our wall, Big enough for a softball to go through and so much water came through that hole. So, we called the mission and they sent a plumber to patch the hole. Afterwards I came into my room and like I expected there was a bunch of cement chunks on the floor and all over my bed. So, I just started cleaning it up automatically. Then I realized wait, what kind of service was this? This man came into our house and just got the place super dirty and left and I thought this was just normal because that’s how things work here. Haha and I realized I’ve been here a long time because that plumber in the US would have had some complaints filed against him.

This week I got to do a split with my zone leader Elder Linderman, my MTC companion. We have not been in the same country for most our missions but we have seen each other from time to time. We went through how our missions have changed us and how much our testimonies have grown. It was super fun. We went out and taught something we hadn’t done together for almost two years. It was so fun to see the difference of teaching after years of experience compared to when we didn’t even know French saying who knows what in the MTC.

We found an investigator the first day I was here named Chris. He called us over to ask what we were doing. We started teaching him and asked him to do what we ask everyone to do and that is to pray to see if our message is true, and that if he prayed sincerely he would receive a response. He, unlike most others, actually did it and read the parts in the book of Mormon we asked and he prayed. He explained how he felt the presence of someone enter the room and it gave him the chills and he told us without a doubt he knows we were sent from God. It’s so cool to see how fast God accomplishes his promises if we do what He asks. I mean I have a huge testimony of this gospel but it’s so great to see others gaining one for themselves.

The patched hole in the apartment

Me with a rice cooker

Fidjorsse apartment

There aren't weights in Fidjrosse, so I use a stick and two bottles of bleach as my weights.

These guys wanted to fix the roof, but had no ladder. So they put two rickety tables and a chair to get up there. It was super sketchy, so we took a secret picture.

Fidjrossé, a great place to die

Let's do the numbers. This week I walked into my 7th area on the mission I met my 12th companion and I feel like this is the perfect situation in which to die on the mission. There was a super cool young man waiting for his baptism his name is Marsel and he became my 25th baptism this week.

Fidjrossé is a cool sector. It’s right by the beach, it’s also right by the airport. So, the constant sound of airplanes talking off is great to help me concentrate on the mission. However, I do feel super focused on the work. There is a lot of work to be doing in Fidjrossé. Like I said we got to baptize a young man. He had participated in that big celebration of the 100th stake last week. I didn’t get to know him for much before his baptism, but he asks a lot of good questions and we clicked pretty fast. He chose me to do his baptism, so that was cool.

Sadly, as I have said, something has to go wrong for the baptism curse. When we got to the building where we were supposed to do the baptism (because our ward building has no baptismal font) the font was not filled yet again. But this has happened so many times on my mission it was barely a shock. We just started filling up the font and pushed the baptism back two hours.

I have talked about how when it rains it floods everything, right? Well this Sunday either Satan had control of the weather or God really wanted to test the faith of the members and investigators of the church because it rained hard all Saturday night and all Sunday morning. The streets were soaked. We had to do some crazy routes like climbing in trees, over cars, hop on stones and bricks to avoid falling into huge lakes that had formed on the streets. A walk that normally takes 15mins to the church took 45mins. When we got there, just on time at 9h00 there were only three members at the church building. It kept raining all of church. People slowly came in, but going home was a nightmare with even more water. As I have said before, if it rains in Benin it’s as if the church is no longer true. Let’s just say that no missionaries in our whole mission had investigators that came to church last Sunday.

I’m with my new companion, Elder Gardner from Idaho. He is cool. I’m also in the apartment with a missionary from Togo who is waiting for a visa to go on his real mission to Sierra Leone. He is cool; he is working with what we call a mini-missionary. A member here in Benin who comes early in the morning, works with him the whole day, and leaves at night to sleep at his house. It is cool because between the two of them they speak all the tribal languages people know. We are doing our best to pick up phrases and work with them. It’s pretty fun. I’ve never lived with either of those nationalities before. I’m also a district leader for four sisters so I’m trying to help them out as well.

Things are going good.

Final picture with Gbego kids

New Companion, Elder Gardner

Baptism in Fidjrosse

KEMBO-KEMBO

Well, right after leaving the cyber last Monday we went to a family home evening, it was fun. I taught a lesson on spiritual gifts that went over well and then came the dinner. The dinner was classic pat with a tomato sauce and fish. It was really good actually, but the amount they gave us was insane. But as is the culture here you have to finish. But you have to be carful. If you eat too fast, they will add more of that hot dough on your plate. After eating that they gave us each a bottle of bisap, a drink made from hibiscus. I don’t know what did it but that large amount of pat and bisap killed all of us that were there. McKrola was the least affected, but Kerr, Naneon and myself were all suffering all night long and then the next day on the toilet. Oh, how it hurt.

Then we had another family meal the next day with a member. That meal we had a special pat where they use basically rotten corn to make the corn flower. It’s pretty intense and it’s pretty bitter. Anyway, we ate that and the 3 year old daughter of the family took some pictures. Some look really weird. I’ll put some down below.

One day in the past when I was with Martial we went to eat somewhere and we saw a guy with his daughter. Martial’s heart was softened and he secretly paid for his meal (the guy with his daughter) and ours on the way out. Martial just wanted to do a random act of kindness. Anyway, I totally forgot about that until this Wednesday when walking out of the church after a district meting a guy stopped Naneon, thinking it was Martial, and thanked him for paying for his meal a few months earlier. Naneon explained it wasn’t him but that it was Martial and I. I saw the guy and I remembered the time we did that. So we got his contact. Turns out he lives right by the church and Kerr will start teaching him.

On Saturday there was a huge talent show to celebrate the creation of the 100th stake in West Africa (Nigeria). So, here in Benin we all went to the Stake Center. I saw lots of members and converts and my converts, the Mikamonas, did two songs in the show, they were the invited guests. It was so cool to see them sing because that is what Papa Mikamona does for a living. I bought his CD after. It was so cool. His singer name is KEMBO-KEMBO.

We had yet another baptism with a bunch of problems. We put the baptism at 15h00 because the celebration at the stake center was supposed to be at 10h00, But, it ended up starting two hours late, which really screwed us over. So, all of the branch members were at the stake along with one of our candidates while the other candidates were headed to the branch for the baptism. None of the members wanted to leave the stake talent show till it was over. So, we did a bunch of scrambling and yet again the font did not get filled all the way. Kerr had to baptize with just a tiny bit of water. But in the end Romans 8:28 pulled through for us again and everything worked out.

It was sad saying goodbye to Cocotomey. I bore my last testimony there. It was great to see the ward totally full. I baptized 9 people while here and over the time I’ve been here I’ve seen 17 baptisms total. It’s been great. The branch has progressed so much. I also gave two blessings for the sick because it is rainy season everyone is gunna need blessings because everyone gets malaria this time of year and that is super hard.

I finally know my last sector and last companion. I’m the king of Benin. I have the most time of any missionary in Benin in the whole mission right now, including the mission president. I’m going to my sixth branch in Benin, Fidrosse and Elder Gardner from Idaho will kill me. I’m very excited. I know this transfer was inspired. I will move over to my last sector on Wednesday.

Dinner and FHE (pictures taken by 3 year old)

Good Bye, Kerr

Saying good bye to Damian

Saying good bye to Viviane

Saying goodbye to Serge and his family

Mirisse (Serge's wife) was thinking about how hard it would be for a mom to let her kid leave for two years on a mission. She felt so touched, she got a present for my mom. 

[Kaelyn here: I am SO touched she would think of me. I love her for taking care of my boy in Africa]

Kembo Kembo live 

I bought the Kembo-Kembo CD

Last baptism in Cocotomey