May 31, 2010

Not only did my birthday fall on a holiday this year, it is also p-day and I received an e-mail from my son. It was the icing on the cake to hear that his investigator thought to pray for me on my birthday. What a day!! In addition, his one year anniversary is this Thursday (June 3).

Hey familly!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! Hope you'll have a great birthday today! Funny story- A week or two ago we were teaching our investigator Carine (with the broken leg) and she was wondering if there were 30 or 31 days in may. I said 31 cuz i could never forget cuz thats my moms birthday. Then yesterday we were teaching her and she gave the opening prayer and prayed "and please bless Elder Bertoch's mom, for tomorrow is her birthday bless her to have a great year". It was very touching that she remembered. How old are you now anyways??? Twenty? Twenty five?

Well had a great week this week. We were able to bring Adele to the waters of baptisms which is always very rewarding. I actually was able to baptize her which was very nice. She'll be a really good member, the branch president is getting ready to call her as counselor in the relief society so that is exciting. Here they need members to hold the callings so they get callings like that right after being baptized. In fact even i basically have two callings- i'm sunday school teacher for the english speaker and i teach the only young man in the ward during young mens/deacons class. That has to make me young mens president or deacons quorum advisor or something.

Wow. One year ago from today i was getting into the car for the drive to Utah. Me and Elder Startita celebrated with the zone today by going out and eating at a nice restaurant. I may or may not have eaten a "kingburger" and a individual sized pizza and an ice cream cone. It was delicious.

Anyways, nothing else really exciting happened this week. We're now just getting ready to baptize in June. I'm feeling a transfer to Cote D'Ivoire coming soon actually, maybe in about a month, so i'll keep ya posted.

Well I love you all and i cant wait to hear from you newt week! Sorry you didnt get to go to Ameritowne, Jack! Honestly, it wasnt that memorable anyway. I still love being a missionary and am actually kinda sad i only have a year left. I still got a lot of goals to accomplish and time is running down. Time to get to work.

Elder Bertoch

Sam Bertoch & Yao Marc Stephane (roommates)

May 24, 2010

Salut ma famille! Great to hear from you all! Had another great week this week. First, Adele is all set for her baptism this saturday. She's super excited and so are we. Her interview is on wednesday. She will be a good addition to the branch, shes from benin and works in a lab doing medical tests (hiv, malaria, etc).

Less good news is that our investigator Carine (the one with the broken leg) was finally going to have her cast removed last wednesday and be baptized next time, but when she went to the doctors they said she has to keep it on for 45 more days. We went to her house wednesday night to celebrate with her (shes been stuck at home in the cast for at least 2 months) but when we got there she was just sitting there crying. We shared some scriptures with her and tried to encourage her. Shes feeling better now. We even felt prompted to tell her that if she has faith they well be able to remove the cast early.

Easily the best news of the week is that my recent convert at Gbejromede (Victorine) is going to recieve her first calling this week. She will be...drum roll...RELIEF SOCIETY PRESIDENT! The old one was not exactly magnifying her calling so Victorine is going to take over. Shes only been a member for like three months but I know she will be able to handle it. Wow, hearing that made me proud.

Jessy is kinda up and down right now. She didnt come to church yesterday (it rained a little so she used that as an excuse). We went over there after church to see what was up and we had a very good lesson. We shared a scripture in Alma 5 about there only being two shepards, and two folds. We are either the sheep of Jesus Christ or the Devil. We asked her which one she wants to be in. We went over the restoration again. She knows she needs to join the church. The problem is she said it will be complicated get permission from her husband. Hes actually a nice guy, we say hi to him every time we see him, but everytime we try to fix an appointment with him he says he is never at the house, waaaaaaaaay too busy. Mais ça va aller.

Migan (the guy from benin who lives with the member but needs to get married to get baptized but according to his family needs to have two children to get married) is a little on the downside right now. We had a very direct lesson about the law of chastity...but couldn't get him to make a decision. We'll keep trying. We actually are having a lot of success with another man from Benin right now (his name is vincent). Hes older, already married with a 18 yr old daughter and a son that has already moved out. Hes definitly not lacking money either which is good. He came to church yesterday and loved it so we'll go ahead and commit him to baptism tomorrow.

I'm enjoying being with Elder Yapo. Hes been a member for 12 yrs (since he was ten) and his whole family are members too. Like I said last week hes like 6'5" 220 lbs so i look pretty small next to him. We working well together and will baptize a lot.

Being District Leader is going ok. I do my first baptismal interview this week so that will be exciting. Nothing has really changed that much from before.

Yep, I've given lots of blessings as a missionary. To other missionaries, and members, and investigators. I love giving blessings. That is really cool about Dean Cook. 84 yrs old! Wow. Thats awesome.

O yaaaaaaaaa, i remember Ameritowne! I totally did go there. I remember interviewing and being like president of some country or something. That was really fun. I really hope you get to go, Jack! I'll pray for ya!

OK well thats about all that happened this week! It did rain a lot more, got to go "swimming" to our appointments which livened things up (for a country where it supposedly rains a lot, they do not have good drainage...everything was flooded after like five minutes of good hard rain). I have more pictures to send so i'll try and get those to you! Love you all!

Elder Bertoch

May 17, 2010

There were a couple of changes for Sam this week. He has a new companion who is from the Ivory Coast and he is now a district leader.

Hey family!

Sorry but not too much time this week. We were stuck at the appartment all day cuz of tranfers (ppl coming and going) and then our normal internet cafe was closed so we had to find another and this one is slow.

So anyway, i have a new companion now. His name is Elder Yapo, Ivorian, hes elder staritas old companion. Hes big, like 6'5", so i dont think we should have any problems from thieves or anything. I'm now District Leader here at Akpakpa so I'll try my best to represent the Lord and the Mission President as a leader.

haha i wanna see the photo they sent you! There were eleven baptisms for Bénin but i didnt have any this time. We did bring an investigator though (Adele) who will be baptized the next service. Other good news too is that Jessy finally came to church this week and made friends with the other members so thats a big step to getting her baptized with her family.

Hmm, what else? Theres a guy from Togo that keeps showing up at the church that claims to have been baptized and going to church in England (and then Ghana then Togo) the past five years but he says he lost his passport with all his money and asks everyone for money. We asked him if he had a temple recommend...he doesnt know what that is. Or the book of mormon. Or the priesthood. Although he did have a nicely laminated baptismal certificate. OOOO the people in Africa. I'm sure this guy just looks for church members in different countries, says hes a member, and then takes their money. Crazy.

Well thats all I got time for. Still lovin life in Benin. Ready to baptize like crazy, we have people that are ready, just gotta get them there. I love you all and cant wait for next week.

Elder Bertoch

May 15, 2010

The Leavitts (the senior missionary couple in Benin) sent us a very nice e-mail and picture of Sam and the little girl he held during today's baptisms while she slept.

Just some thoughts to share on your son. What an outstanding young man he is...such a privilege to work with him. Today we had a great baptism day in the Zone...10 people.
While the missionaries were busy making sure the baptisms were going well your son sat in the chapel and held the cutest little girl while she slept and while her mom was baptized. While his companion baptized, he did service and baby sat. I took this picture, thought you would enjoy it. I love your son, thank you for raising up such a great example.

Sister Leavitt

May 10, 2010

Here are a couple of pictures that Elder Halterman posted which have Sam in them.

They are eating Attieke', Ivorian food

The zone after playing football - notice the two different balls. Sam is in the gray shirt on the end of the back row

May 10, 2010

We had a great conversation with Sam yesterday. He sounds really well and very happy. He is still staying healthy, but has lost a lot of weight. He eats mainly rice and some kind of potato. He told us of a zone meeting they were having when a king crab walked through it. The zone leaders (from Ivory Coast), stopped the meeting, held the crab down with a stick, cut it's pinchers off and took it home for dinner. I suppose if he were willing to do that, he could be eating crab too. He says, though, that he mostly sweats off the weight.

Sam was saying that in Benin there are two main religions - voodoo and the Catholics. People from Benin are not very friendly to them and generally want nothing to do with the church. The branch he is in is made up of members from Nigeria, Togo and Ivory Coast. They are worried what will happen if the members move back home. They are working hard to try to teach people from Benin. However, it is difficult to get married in Benin until you have two children, so that makes it a little tricky.

They haven't had much rain even though it is the rainy season. The Africans are blaming it on the Chinese. They say the Chinese have built a big machine that blows all the clouds away. They got a little rain the other night, so Sam was saying the machine must have broken down. He was also saying how very dusty it is there. There is always a thick layer of dust on the table and on the floor. They have to clean it off before sitting down to study and they have to sweep the dust off the floor every day. They use fans in the apartment, but it is so hot you still need to open the windows.

That covers the highlights of the conversation. Of course, we updated him on a few things here, which would be of no interest to anyone reading this blog.

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