November 23, 2009

Here is Sam's e-mail for this week. His birthday is this Thursday, which is also Thanksgiving Day. 20 years old!! He received his birthday package a week early! Yay!!! Now we just have to wait for the Christmas package to arrive. Oh yeah, he's kidding about the malaria. So far he hasn't gotten sick at all. Our prayers are being answered.

On Nov 23, 2009, at 12:04 PM, Sam Bertoch <sbertoch228@hotmail.com> wrote:

Haha you should see my big smile as I'm writing this email home! It was a really great week followed by some really funny emails. I'll let you know about some of the highlights of my week:

Monday we (my district and I) found a nice little pizza cafe that we ate at. It was deliciousss. Best pizza I've had since I got to Togo...also the only pizza I had since I got to Togo so thats probably what made it so good.

Tuesday I got your package! It was awesome! Everyone was jealous of the calandar! What a great idea! Also, thank you for the wallet...I'll try to hold on to this one for a little longer haha. The drivers license was also there safe and sound and so was the candy...for about a day and half and then is was promptly all eaten haha. I'm not good at saving things. I also loved hearing everyone's voices, the card was a great idea!! I also loved the homemade card Jack! Especially how you taped the candy in haha! It was the first thing I ate!

Saturday was also extremely productive! It was a great day to be a missionary. We are teaching a girl named Brigette who has a baptismal date for the 12 December and on Saturday we met her family and committed them all (minus the dad, we haven't met him yet) to be baptized with her! It was awesome! Then later that night we met with another investigator named Fabrice (27 yrs old, great guy) and committed him for the 12 too! This week we're looking to continue, we're so grateful for the Holy Ghost and the help its given us to find and teach all these amazing people. We're two english speakers but with our Heavenly Fathers help people are able to understand our French and our message. In fact, we were teaching a Nigerian speaker this week and we were havng a lot of trouble actually speaking english haha! At the end of the lesson he was like "I thought people from America were supposed to be able to speak english". Although when I do speak english I do have a pretty cool Nigerian accent now haha.

Sunday was a really amazing day too. Me and Elder Halterman had 13 investigators at church which was awesome and Elder Bowman and Elder Carver had 7 so we had 20 investigators at our branch yesterday! Considering the overall assistance was 77 that was pretty cool. Then at night all the missionaries were invited over to a members house for thanksgiving! Her name is Natasha, shes from Maine but works here in the American ambassy. It was so awesome...she was a really good cook (tons of food, including turkey and pie) and has a really nice house. It was so nice of her.

This week should be pretty good too! We have more investigators to committ to baptism that came to church yesterday and we're also baptizing two brothers into young mens this Saturday so I'm really excited!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes too! We went out to eat today at a restaurant where we can buy cheeseburgers (amazing) to celebrate. It was fun. I don't really feel like a teenager anymore (I think I've aged like 20 yrs since I got here...i guess thats what happens when you have members and investigators always turning to the missionaries for advice...dont worry I'm sure I'll regress and be fighting with Jackson when I get back) so i thinks its rather fitting I turn 20 this week.

Also, in reponse to your emails:

Thats cool that Brother Lovejoy is in the bishopric now! I always loved him. Thatll be great!

Great job on your talk, Jack! And thanks for the email! Keep on doing that homework!

Sounds like Thanksgiving should be fun! I'll be thinking about you guys!

I think I should be able to expect my Christmas packages this week! I'll do my best not to open them until Christmas!

I love you all!

Elder Bertoch

PS Still working on the pictures. I'll try to get some more home somehow.

PPS I have no idea what the weather is right now...like honestly there is a certain level of heat and humitity after which i dont notice any increases. 101 degrees with 95 percent humitity does sound a little high though. Dont worry though I'm pretty tough and I drink a lot of water. No heat is going to stop me from working.

PPPS O my goodness a little old ingrown toenail does not deserve time in my already busy emails...a long with my 5 cases of malaria...:)