Riley in Africa : 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.