April 5, 2010

Hey family!

I'm glad y'all had so much fun this week! That sounded like quite the trip! I heard youdid some great skiing Jack, way to go! Dang your hair has gotten pretty long too, I barely recognized you.

So the big news this week is that I got transferred. I'm still in Benin but I'm now serving in the branch of Akpakpa. Its only like a 10 minute drive from my old area buts its still pretty different. The branch here is the smallest in the mission- the last two weeks they haven't been higher than an attendance of 40 people. What basically happened was that I switched areas with the zone leaders, they are in Gbedjromede now and we took over for them here. I'm still with Elder Tshibasu and we've already gotten all settled in. Once again, we're both new in this area so it might take a little bit to get it down but the second time around it should be easier. We are going to do splits with the zone leaders this week to show eachother around.

I've already had fun meeting everyone in the branch. They were all very nice and welcoming. Whats funny about this branch is that must of the members arent even from benin. Theres some from Congo, Nigeria, Cote D'Ivoire, etc. Its a branch of foreigners haha. I got a chance to bear my testimony last Sunday and I'm excited to get out and get to work in my nex area.

My appartment is smaller and the refrigerator just broke but nothin to complain about. We live with Elder Geisler (from north Salt lake, started three months after me) and Elder Andon (really cool ivorian).

The baptisms did not happen exactly as planned. Christoph got stuck at work; Herman's mom couldnt be there saturday so we pushed it pack; Richard lied in his interview; Jule was out of town all last week...o well. The zone leaders will baptise them all next time.

By the way, I got the smaller package you sent, thanks! The big one is still sitting at the airport, I havent been able to get out there with the Leavitts yet but i hope we'll go soon!

Haha still no rain here. I've heard two different reasons for why there is no rain. The government is building some big thing and i guess rain would really mess things up so I heard that they had the voodoo do some rain stopping spell. The other story I heard was the the Chinese built a machine that stops the rain from coming. In either case, there is no rain.

K well thats all I can think of! I love you all so much and am so grateful for your prayers and support!

Elder T. S. Bertoch

PS The Leavitts get us each a liahonah so i'll have the conference issue in a few weeks.