Riley in Africa : 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.