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

FREE PIZZA!

Well I must be doing something right. There is a place close to the mission office that has real pizza, which is so hard to find here. You might have noticed in my emails seeing as I have had pizza only twice on my mission before this point. So, Kerr and I decided to eat there for lunch after our trip to the office. It was a great pizza, it had been so long. After we were done eating a family walked in. They are an American family from southern United States, Louisiana, I think. I have seen them out and about. They use the same hospital as the missionaries, so when I went to the hospital for my sick companions, I saw them and talked with them. Turns out they are on a mission for their church. When this family walked in they saw we were about to leave. We said hi and then the father of the family went up and bought our meal. We were shocked because we had to save up our money to eat at this place because it is pretty expensive, and they just covered it. It was too nice. So, I got a free pizza in Benin. That’s one of the biggest miracles I’ve seen.

This week was all about the visit of Elder Vinson of the 70, he is now in the presidency of the 70 and was doing a tour of West Africa. We had a leadership council with him on Wednesday and a full conference on Thursday. We talked a lot about how our mission is not the best, which I knew, and how we need integrity. It was pretty cool. I learned a lot about what I need to do going into this last transfer.

After one of these meetings with Vinson I walked outside and there was an activity at the stake center for the young adults. There I found Elizee! One of my converts I baptized in Hevie in July of last year with Hypote. I lost contact with him because he doesn’t have a phone, but he was there and I hear he is active and he is bringing his friends to the church, that was great to see.

Elder Kerr got his first bead tie made in the flag of Benin and because I had one too we decided to be twins and wear them out into the sector together. Seems like a good idea, right? Wrong. I realized as two white guys in white shirts we stick out way too much already. Add some bright Benin ties to the picture and it attracts a bunch of weirdos, for some reason. People were calling us over, asking for the ties, wanting to talk with us about anything that was not the gospel. They would all stare at our ties and mock us. It was awful, so we both wore normal ties in the afternoon.

That was my week. This week we are going to have two more baptisms, which will help me reach my mission goal of 24 baptisms. On my mission, I baptized by far the most in Cocotomey. Transfers will be this week so I will get to know who is gunnna kill me after all this time. I’m so excited to work with my last companion. It’s been such a journey up to this point and I’m excited to sprint the last bit.

The Free Pizza

Matching bead ties

A gift from Serge's daughter

A weird spiky fruit we ate. We didn't know what it was, but after we ate half, we found out it was rotten.

I found this really weird cement structure and took some pictures on it

Surprise Baptism

I would like to share the example of Mirisse, a recent convert. She has so much faith, I can’t believe it. She got her first call in the church a week after her baptism. Her calling is in the nursery. There was no one in nursery before her. She is starting the nursery in the branch of Cocotomey and she is the only one to take care of 13 kids every Sunday for two hours with limited toys and materials. It’s amazing to see her optimism and humility in the calling as she doesn’t fully understand all the gospel and is relying on faith to do a very hard thing. I’m amazed.

We have been preparing a couple for baptism for a while now. We got their baptism interviews done on Saturday for their baptism next week. However, after the interviews they were super excited for their baptism so they asked if they could do it the next day. So, we changed the baptism to after church on Sunday. There was complete chaos when the baptism font was not filled in time. So, we asked the neighbors if we could use their well and the members filled up the font with well water transported on their heads. It was so nice of them and the baptism was a success. Another example for Romans 8:28 coming to pass.

The rest of the week was normal. I pray often to have my day filled with stuff and it often is filled with stuff, so I’m grateful. We are getting new member contacts as all of our progressing investigators are being baptized.

It’s kind of crazy how superstitous everyone is here. I have found people really don’t like to take the blame for their problems all over the world. It’s the governments fault or it’s the economy’s fault. Here people blame evil spirts or devils for their problems and it often causes problems because many churches have days of deliverance where they chase away the "demons" that are bothering them. We don’t do that because that’s actually not that wide spread of a problem that you need deliverance every Wednesday night. However, what we teach in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is that you can’t blame your lack of obedience and consequences on evil spirits. So that drives some people away, but those who want the truth come running.

The Surprise Baptism

Funny picture Kerr - Larson

With Serge's family

Foofoo and poopoo

On Tuesday, we went to a district meeting for a district in our zone. It sprinkled a little bit while we were there. When we got in our taxi to go back to our sector, the driver told us there was a huge storm in our sector. When we arrived... I couldn’t believe my eyes. The roads here flood when it rains just a little, but it was as if all roads were changed into muddy swimming pools. We had to go out into the sector that day. Let’s just say I went swimming. However, at our investigators house the lady dried my socks out on a line.

When it rains it gets cold and if I don’t exercise in the morning the ice cold shower is so uncomfortable. So, I found the two biggest pots we had and put them on the stove with water, heated them up and put them in a bucket to pour on myself in the shower. But without wisdom I used a glass cup and in the middle the cup dropped and shattered into a million pieces. I cut my hand and foot on it. We also had a rendezvous really early that day so all the cleaning up glass time took up my personal study. With these experiences and the flooded streets, I wondered why everything was working against me. And then I realized my great companion, in his righteous desires, had prayed for mountains to climb and because I’m his companion I had to climb them too. But looking back on it those experiences were for my good.

On Wednesday night, I went to do a split with elder Kalonji in Cococodji. I was super excited. Elder Kalonji is Congolese and I have not had foofoo Congolese since I was with Kadima and I really wanted to eat that. But, Kalonji was new in the sector so he didn’t know where to find the ingredients and he had no money. So, we had to go out and buy all of the ingredients. We started searching for ingredients with a member at 20h00 which is what 8h00 pm. We had to go all over the place to find the stuff. We walked and walked for miles to get these things. My white shirt was drenched in sweat. Finally, at 10h00pm we got all the ingredients and got back to the apartment. But it takes at least an hour and half to cook so we didn’t get to eat till 11h30pm. It was a great price to pay to eat some foofoo. But it was so good I’m gunna miss that dish a lot.

The rest of the week was good. We worked hard, stayed busy, had some people cancel on us, the usual until we got to Friday. On Friday, there is an investigator in the sisters’ sector in our zone. The sister missionaries wanted us to come help teach this guy. This guy was one of the best people I’ve ever met. This man is so, so incredibly smart he is a professor of sociology at the university here. And he is not yet baptized but knows everything there is to know about the church. After about one year of research he also knows about every other religion. He tried to ask us a lot of questions to test our knowledge of our own gospel to try to trip us up. It was a mentally tiring game to teach him, but the spirit was with us and at the end of the lesson he was smiling congratulating us on our methods of teaching and knowledge. He can’t get baptized yet because of some personal decisions he has to make first. But, I have no doubt that guy has been chosen to be a leader here in Benin.

On Sunday, we were wondering what we could eat. We didn’t have a lot of food so we looked at what we had and we realized we had all the ingredients for no bake cookies, except neither of us knew how to make them. We tried anyway. In the end it turned into crap. It looked so gross. We realized we should have put the oats in last or something. So, we had to eat some nasty stuff for dinner. Pictures below, warning, it looks nasty.

The no bake cookies gone so wrong

The moto packed streets of Benin

This is a normal toilet here. People are lucky to have this here.