5/11/15
Hey!
It was really great talking to you all yesterday for Mother's Day;
it was definitely something that was on my mind all week. It almost feels weird
to call home and hear everyone's voices. I really appreciated it. Now I guess we have
to wait all the way until Christmas.
I'm doing well; sadly my sector isn't doing
quite as well. We just were not able to get much work done this past week.
Tuesday through Wednesday morning I did a companion split with Elder Mayamba. We
had a good time in their sector, so that was great. Thursday and Friday, though, my comp was
sick so I had to stay in the apartment with him. I've really had
little chance to get out and visit with my amis this week. And the less you see them, the less and less they progress. I will have to visit with them this next week for sure!
General Conference was definitely a highlight
of my week. Though it took a lot of planning and work for it to be a
success. I didn't get word that we would have the chance to have the Conference
DVD until late Saturday night. I then had to make a lot of calls to look for a
member with a TV that they could lend to us, and also a DVD player. Then I had to
make sure the Branch President knew about the plan.
It worked out well. We got the TV, the
DVD, and the DVD player. However Sunday we had no power in the building.
Luckily, we had electricians working in the building the day before and they
left a generator. We decided to 'borrow' it for a while. It started
working and we got to watch Conference until the generator ran out of gas and
the power cut off. We decided to make an emergency run to a roadside gas stand
while the members sang hymns to fill time. We got it up and running again, but it
cut out twice again because of a problem with the connection from the generator
to the television.
In the end we got to nearly finish the
Saturday afternoon session, It took three hours to watch the two hour session,
and it cut out again before the closing hymn and prayer. After the last time,
the President jumped up and told everyone that we'd just have a closing prayer
and everyone could leave. (Usually, we watch two sessions here).
I really loved listening to the choir most of
all. I found it difficult to understand the talks because they use a real French person to translate, and it is very different from the way French is spoken in Africa. And the quality of the speakers we had was very poor. But I understood and loved hearing the choir. In the middle of the session, there is a congregational hymn, and I loved singing along in English.
We also had a Zone Conference this week, which
is always a lot of fun and a good chance to learn from our missionary leadership.
There were a lot of good things I learned, but the best part had to be the end,
where they sang for all the recent birthdays. I normally wouldn't care too much about that sort of thing, but I saw that Elder Jenkins (who shares my birthday)
had made a cake for all the May birthdays. The cake had REAL Betty Crocker icing he'd gotten
from home!!!! That one little piece of cake made the whole day way better than
my actual birthday (which had been a few days before). Jenkins has an easy bake
oven that he inherited from another Elder here, which is how he was able to bake
a cake.
No complaints here. Sounds like you guys are doing well as well.
Take it easy and have a great week!
Elder Walls
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