Riley in Africa : The zémidjan-man brotherhood

I have talked about motos before but I have become fascinated recently with the social impact and brother hood of what we call the zémidjan-man, zém for short. In Benin there are taxi motos. The drivers all wear these bright yellow shirts and pick people up with whatever they want to carry with them and bring it all to another spot. I have seen the craziest things on zéms. I’ve seen a family of five, another moto, huge mirrors, 12 chickens, 8 goats, refrigerators, huge mamas, and more. These men (moto drivers) are the heroes of Benin. Thy are more organized then the police force and catch many criminals in vigilantly justice. They are old and young, all men, and they all have had many great experiences. From morning till night, they ride. Who knows how long they have to live, because accidents are daily occurrences. I could go on and on about these fascinating people, but experiencing it yourself is so much better. Kerr and I saw a mama selling zémidjan-man shirts and we bought some to enter into the brotherhood. It was the best decision I have made. We wore those shirts into the office and the couple missionary and the president and his wife had some good laughs for sure because we all know these guys all so well.

This week we started teaching Serge's two oldest kids who can be baptized and teaching them has been an amazing experience because we get to see the faith and humility of these children. They are so smart. They eat up the gospel, they read the book of Mormon, they love meeting with the young men and young women at church. It makes me so happy to see them at church with their new-found family and friends. I know they will be some of my strongest converts for sure.

I have found it’s very easy to do contacting here if you and your companion are both white. Just the other day we stopped to talk to two men on the street while we were talking to them another guy stopped on his moto to listen. Then some kids came out and two other people started listening Little by little we were surrounded by 8 people and 6 kids and we gave out all the brochures we had. It was hilarious, we found the work here is just too easy. Normally people begin to talk to us for bad reason, like they want money or they want to go to the US and think we can help them. But the great thing is we have a true message and when they let us in and we show some members of the church to them they see that our church is actually true as well and we get some great investigators. So, my white skin is not all a curse.

One funny thing we find with people here is sometimes people will believe our message too fast. We went and taught this new investigator for the first timed named Am__ and he said he had read the brochure on the restoration already. We asked him how he felt he said he wanted a bigger book because the brochure was too small. Then we gave him a book of Mormon, he was so happy he immediately converted to the gospel and told us he is going to teach the truth of the book of Mormon to all his friends. We tell him to slow down and pray to get a testimony first, and he says he doesn’t need to pray, he has a testimony already. This is a very common occurrence. Sometimes it’s harder to get the people who already believe to actually believe then the nonbelievers.

Elder Kerr is all about eating good and eating healthy which is great because we have started eating amazing home cooked food. We had fried rice, hashbrowns, chicken spaghetti and many other flavorful dishes. He has opened me up to the amazing fruits we can find here too, so were eating that too. I’m very blessed.

Things are going great, I’m working hard and finishing my mission strong, making the most of every day.