6/15/15
Hey!
We've had a pretty productive week. Lots of different things
going on and I don’t really know where to begin with it all, so I guess I'll just
go in order of when things went down.
First of all, we found a monkey! I know people think that
Africa is full of elephants, giraffes and all sorts of animals, but we never
really see any of those here in the more civilized part of the continent. We were just walking around
doing some street contacting, and we stumbled upon a slightly drunk guy who
wanted to show us some of his neighbors (we'll take any chance we can get to
meet new people). We walked into the little parcel and immediately saw the
little monkey sitting in a cage off to the side. The monkey’s name was Bobo, and
he was very nervous to see us and couldn’t stop jumping around. We did
manage to pet him a little without him freaking out or biting anyone.
Our next-door neighbors got robbed.
Which is surprising because most of the houses here have better security than
the others. Apparently, the robbers are pretty well known in our area and are
pretty good at their job. Mom, don't worry about us, our apartment is the smallest
of them all and is full of men instead of women and children like the others. We make sure to lock everything up securely.
I also got to do my first baptismal interview this week with
Solange, the ami of Ribera. We had a baptismal service on Saturday, and it went pretty
well. We showed up at the church with the plan to take a taxi to the hotel pool
like usual, but found that the baptismal font at the church was finished, with
plumbing and tiling, everything. So we starting filling it up, but the workers
at the church showed up and insisted that we had to wait until the next week. The
members wanted to use the font anyway, but
we convinced them to listen to the workers. So we all piled into the taxi. As usual, we crammed it full with as many people as possible. In the past we’ve
gotten as many as 13 people into the little 5-seater, but this time I’m not
really sure how many we had in the car because Ribera and I had to ride in the
trunk (see photo below). Definitely, not a very comfortable ride, but it makes for a good story.
I got to direct the service, which was a first as well;
everything went well except the pool management tried to give us problems.
Every baptism we’ve done this past year has been at that pool, and we’ve always done
it the same way. We can wear the baptismal clothes in the pool and we only have
to pay 1000 cfca for each person that will enter the pool. We called the night
before to assure that everything was fine, and they said it was. However, upon
arriving, they insisted that we pay 500 cfca for every single person that
watched the baptism as well, and that we could not wear the baptismal clothes
in the pool. We already had to pay 6000 for the taxi and 200 for every single motocycle
taxi for the members. We weren’t looking to compromise. All we said was that
we were going ahead with our baptism as planned, and that we would never be
coming back (that kind of shocked them--I don’t think they get much business). Luckily
for us they didn’t know that we now have our own font and weren’t
planning on coming back anyway.
Also during the week we found an exciting new ami. We were
staying with one of our amis who cuts hair in his shop, and a young guy walked
in to get his haircut. We talked a little with him and gave him a brochure with
our contact. He seemed more interested in getting our help to obtain a US Visa then in hearing our message. I liked him though. And something about him caught my attention, more than other guys we have met. We called him up later in the week to fix a rendezvous, and he said that
he would come to find us so that he could show us his house. (That is usually how we
found people's houses here, seeing as there are no addresses.) What was
different about this time was that he came to get us in a car! Definitely a
first, no one here has a car unless they have money or unless they are a taxi
driver. His car was much nicer than any taxi—it was a midsize SUV. We were
both pretty impressed, and not sure how he had this sort of money. We showed up
to his house and found that it also was very nice (much nicer than our own
apartment). Turns out, he still lives with his father, who is the equivalent to a Senator. He has had much more education than our other amis.
We taught both him and his father together. We were actually kind of nervous because we don’t usually
teach people who have this kind of status. I felt kind of like being before King
Lamoni. He says that he’s heard of our church before and is impressed with what
he’s heard. We shared the Book of Mormon with him and taught a little, but he
insisted that we'd have to be quick because he had to go to a devotional at his
own church. We let him go, and then headed back home to teach one of our
neighbors. We were sitting in front of our house with our neighbor, and we
saw his car again heading to his church. We waved, and they waved as
well, but continued on. We said an opening prayer with our neighbor, then saw
that a crowd of people was assembling at the end of the road; we all went
to go see what was happening and saw that his car (that we had been in just an
hour or two beforehand) had caught fire! We put it out quick with dirt, and
everything seemed fine, so we rolled it off to a mechanic and he remarked that
this was God's way of telling him that he needed a new car. Interpret it how
you like, in any case he wasn’t able to make it to his church that evening.
Well hopefully be able to see him again in the week.
On the funnier note, we ate at Isaac's after the baptism;
nothing special, just akassa, which is another genre of patte. He did however have me eat cow skin; which wasn’t that appetizing. It was very rubbery. I’m getting
very good at disguising my reaction to foods, and also at swallowing without thinking about
taste.
Sunday was crazy as usual as well. We left around 7:30 to
make sure we'd be there well before 9:00, but a few minutes into our walk we
started seeing heavy clouds and strong winds (uh-oh). Rain starting pouring about
halfway into our walk, so we spent a decent 20 or 30 minutes walking/running in
the rain. It was tiring because we were drenched and I honestly felt like I was
swimming at times. But made it! On time! Completely soaked with no towels or
changes of clothes or anything. We were a little worried because
only a few other members were there. The actual Sacrament meeting started at 9:40
because of the difficulty for members getting there in the rain. We held
Sacrament, then I taught Sunday School, and then we sang some hymns and closed because many of the other leaders weren’t there.
I really liked the Sunday school lesson; it talked about
reasons why people fall away from the church and how we need to stay firm
in our belief. I shared Hel 5:12 about being built on a strong foundation and
then used an example I’ve always liked to convey the idea. I had Ribera stand
on a chair, and had three young men come to knock him down.Then the second
time I had the other missionaries come to support him and help him stay up.
People liked it pretty well. Definitely one of upsides of being in a young
branch is that people have never seen these object lessons before.
Anyways, that’s what’s going on with us, we were planning on
having the baptism for Saurel this upcoming Saturday. However, with the rain most
all of our amis didn’t come to church, so we are postponing.
Glad to hear from you all. Make sure to tell Grandpa
that I got his message and that I’m thinking about him and praying for him as
he goes through chemo.
Have a good week!
Elder Walls
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| No, I haven't been kidnapped! Just traveling in style to a baptism! |
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