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.
