May 3, 2010

Only 6 days until our Mother's Day call!! Can't wait! Here are four more pictures that Sam posted today:

Branch missionaries of the Gbedjromede Branch

They are saving to go on their own mission

Franck's Baptism

Elder Geisler (Sam's roommate) at the beach on P-day

Africa

Hey everyone! I'm excited for next sunday! Hmmm...if you call me at 12:30pm here what time is it there? Oh no thats too early. Hmm...bon, lets say 8am your time 4pm our time. We already have an appt at 3 and 6 so we can talk at 4.

The baptism went great! Franck got baptized and confirmed without a problem. Hes actually the only french speaker baptized in the last five months in Akpakpa (all the other were nigerians) so he'll be good for the branch.

So we had another great week this week. We got to watch general conference which was awesome. We watched the saturday afternoon and the sunday morning sessions. Loved Elder Holland's talk. The voodoo curse actually picked a bad moment to weaken- it started pouring rain an hour before church was supposed to start so we didnt get to many investigators to show up which was too bad. We were expecting quite a bit. But Frank made it and got confirmed and a couple other investigators and the faithful members all showed up.

Hmm so we only taught 36 lessons this week, the mission goal, but not our best effort. Our best lesson might of been with Jessy the nigerian- her 14 yr old son listens with us too now. We taught the plan of salvation and they loved it. The spirit was there and I feel like her and her family have really been touched. She would be a big help translating in the branch as she speaks french too and her and her husband are a lot more well to do than most people in africa. The branch president has gotten a little discouraged i think because of the lack of baptisms in Akpakpa since it was formed (its way behind the other branches in Benin) so i think a whole family would really raise spirits here. We'll pray hard.

This week we ran into another "yovo" on the street. Rudy Colemon from calgary, canada. It was weird speaking to another white person who is not a missionary, he's lived here the last 11 yrs with his wife- they are jehovah witnesses. He was actually a pretty cool guy, chatised me a little bit for not wearing a hat haha. He said he already knows the latter day saints, even read the book of mormon. I gave him a few brochures anyway...you never know. (He also said he was a calgary flames fan, reminded me of Bro Paries haha)

President Ayekoue is coming this thursday, we'll have zone conference on friday so I'll let you know how that goes on the phone. I'm always very excited to see President, always look forward to our interviews. He really is inspired and i love him as a mission president. We're in good hands out here.

P-days here are actually pretty fun, we usually find something good to do. Today we started by cleaning the appt (like always) and then headed off to the market to buy stuff. Sometimes we'll play soccer, or the beach isnt far like last week, or meet with the other missionaries at a resteraunt, stuff like that. We usually have to wash our clothes too which takes some time (in my next package i request a washing machine), and then the night we do a contacting activity with the district.

Haha i'm getting enough to eat. I think i've consummed 1000x more rice in the last 9 months than in i did in my 19 yrs at home. Actually that might be a low estimate haha.

Well I'm still as happy as ever to be sharing the restored gospel. Dont know where'd i'd be in life without it. I see other people going through life without direction or purpose and that makes me even more grateful and strengthens my desire to share it. I love you all and cant wait to talk to you!

Elder Bertoch