January 17, 2011

Hey again!

Had an awesome week this week, really buckled down and worked hard again. Really LOVE working with Elder Starita, feel like we can do anything together. Biggest news this week was that President came out to see us. He flew out wednesday and was planning on doing two conferences with us thursday and friday. Thursday was good. He talked alot about giving baptismal dates to EVERYONE we meet. It was very inspirational, and weve been trying to put it into practice. Friday we were supposed to have another conference but thursday night the area presidency called and told him that he had to hurry back into Ivory Coast cuz apparently things were heating up again. So the conference was cancelled but he still hurried and did our interviews. Mine went well; i always love talking to president. He told me that Id be staying with Elder Starita this transfer which made me super happy. After that Elder Starita went out and got to work. We gave five more baptismal dates in just two days which was awesome; we really want to baptize before the month ends.

Also Saturday, we decided to fast since we have been having problems getting people to church on sunday. So we did and our double the investigators came this week, totally an answer to our prayers. I love this work. The church is true.

Haha glad Jack and Dad had fun and scout camp! I hope mom was not too lonely by herself at home (probably appreciated the peace and quiet). I was also asking President about the "decision" and he says its looking good- in CDI all of the missionaries are in their areas and working pretty regularly. All the new missionaries that our coming will just come straight here to Togo Benin.

Also Happy Birthday to Grandma Sharyn and Grandpa Brent! Hope you both had great days! How old is that now...like 45? Thanks for the email to, i always love hearing from you all!

Also great job on your talk too Dad! Only heard great things about it! ;)

Well I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Bertoch

January 10, 2011

Good Morning!

Well, glad to hear that you all had good weeks! That movie sounds cool, I'll have to see it when i get home. Did jack end up getting a snow day? I miss the snow, its too bad i'll have to wait a while to see it after i get home!

No, the first presidency hasn't decided anything yet. The couple says that they are still reflecting. No matter what happens, we'll be getting a lot of new missionaries in Togo and Benin pretty soon- they said 14 africans and 6 americans are coming this month. By the time Togo and Benin become their own missions they want to have fifty missionaries here which will have to mean a lot of new branches and areas. That is pretty exciting. Maybe i will get to train one more time before i go.

So Elder Starita and I worked super hard this week! We really enjoy working together. We focused a lot on contacting new people and really found some really good families. We'll be praying that they work out. Sunday was still disappointing though. We only had three investigators at church. We had talked to almost everyone saturday night or sunday morning and they all said they were coming but when church rolled around they weren't there. We'll see whats going on with them this week, we might end up having to let a lot of people go. I hope not though, a lot of our investigators seem very promising.

I also got the chance to speak in church yesterday and teach sunday school. I spoke a lot about missionary work. I think a lot of people think that there is a lot of sucess in africa because the people are humble or poor or something, and while that might play a part, really most of the reason is just that the members here work a lot harder than in other parts of the world. They all do a ton of missionary work, thats what makes the real difference. So, to answer your question that is probably the best think about being a missionary in africa. i really made sure to thank them and encourage them to keep it up.

The Herrs also said that you wrote them and that they appreciated it. Thanks!

Ok well thats what i had for today! Not much changed this week, just work as usual. I love you all! Have a good time camping too haha! Good luck!

Elder Bertoch

January 3, 2010

Hey family!

So happy new years and happy anniversary mom and dad! Wow, 27 years, thats like older than I am! Wait thats probably a good thing...

Yep so at the couples house last week we had a lot of fun. We ate a nice christmas meal and then got presents and watched the Princess and the Frog and The Princess Bride. It was really nice to relax with everyone and the couples are really nice.

So for our New Years there was another baptism but we didnt have any canidates. We worked hard and gave some baptismal dates and our goal for the month is to baptize six. The only problem is that our investigators are having trouble coming to church so we'll have to work hard this week to jump start their faith. Other than that the work is moving forward quite nicely. Me and Elder Starita have really decided to really buckle down and work during this new year so I'm planning on being completely exhausted by the time i get home. Anyways, so for New Years we were invited over to another wealthy member's house and he fed us a bunch of good food again. Afterwards our district went out for ice cream, im thinking that these last few weeks in Togo are probably the first time on my mission i might've gained weight.

So apparently the situation in the Ivory Coast hasnt changed much. The First Presidency is making some sort of decision about our mission today. I'm not exactly sure how that is going to effect us but we'll see. The only thing is, they might decide to close the mission, which might make Togo and Benin its own mission early or they might put us with the Ghana Cape Coast mission until July. In either case, that would leave a lot of missionaries in Cote DIvoire who would need a place to serve but there is not too much room here in Togo or Benin. We'll just have to wait and see.

Well I think that is about it. Nothing toooo exciting planned for this week. Today we played some football again (lost this time) and tonight we are going to a member's house to participate in fhe. It should be fun. Ok, love you all! Have a good week!

Elder Bertoch

December 27, 2010

I'm so glad to hear that Sam was well fed at Christmas. Here are the two pictures he was able to send us:

First Quarantine Group in Cote d'Ivoire

Hey family!

So I really enjoyed talking to you all! That was like the best christmas gift ever!

So Christmas was a really good day. It started off with the baptism in the morning and we got all of our three canidates baptized. We are going to try to add to that again next saturday. It was a really cool experience to be able to baptize on christmas day, our candidates could not have given Heavenly Father a better christmas present.

After the ceremony, the missionaries were invited over to a wealthy member's house and he fed us really good food. Salad and bread, some sort of pineapple, plantane casserole, cous cous, chicken, and ice cream. Super good. We ate until we were full which actually was a problem because me and Elder Starita had another eating appointment right after that! We went over to another family's house in our area (their son is a missionary in Cote dIvoire that i knew pretty well) and ate some more food and by the time we were done a felt like i was going to explode. Overall, a very good christmas.

Yesterday started off we church. Our three converts got confirmed and we had three more investigators at church again. It was a good, Santa even came and visited the primary which made all of the kids christmas' really nice. After church we had a nice devotional at the Herrs house (the Gublers were there too) where we were able to watch the First Presidency's christmas devotional and then eat really good food (chips and dip, fudge, brownies and ice cream, watermelon). Today we are going back to celebrate christmas some more (thats why im writing so early).

Sydney's adventures sound really exciting! Shes much better at writing emails than i am by the way. Puts details and emotions and everything! Sorry about that...

Ok so I'm gonna stop there. Rest of the time will be devoted to trying to send at least a couple of pictures home! Have a great week!

Elder Bertoch

December 20, 2010

So for the phone call i was thinking maybe just the same deal as last year? Christmas Eve, at 8 pm here so i think 1 pm there? That sound good? It it doesn't...well i hope it does cuz i wont be back on the computer before friday.

So I've just been having a blast this week. Elder Starita and I have been contacting people like crazy because we didnt have any investigators and it went well. We gave three baptismal dates and had three people come to church. Me and Elder Startita are not zone leaders anymore (or even district leaders), but its looking like in January we might get shipped out near the boarder of Ghana to start a new branch from scratch so that would be exciting. Like we would rent a building over there, run church (at first there would just be sunday school but after we baptize the first member we'd add other meetings) and thatd be pretty cool. But we'll see, thats just the plan for the moment. If i ended up doing that, i dont think id have much of a chance to go back to Benin.

So i have got an african artist working on the nativity sets. You guys probably noticed i took out a lot of money a couple weeks ago...can you guys make sure my account stays pretty full, i'm going to start buying things soon.

So what other news? Our zone is having fun together. Im with Elders Call, Cunningham, Cruz, Lewis, Ghisquiere, Leach, and Mbunga and a Madagash plus our district in the zone. This morning we all went and played two hand touch football together and it was a blast. Not to brag our anything but our district totally won, even with a future BYU running back on the other team.

Also, I shaved my head pretty dang short saturday night. Like preeeeeeeeeeetttttty dang short. I'll try to send pictures.

The couple here is the Herrs. I've only taked to them a few times but they seem really nice (like all missionary couples). We are actually going to do a christmas devotional at their house sunday night and a christmas activity with them next monday too. It should be fun.

Hmmm...dont know my address anymore. It should just be the same address you were using a year ago. Do you still have that?

So let me know what is going on with you guys! What are the christmas plans with you three? Actually as i m writing this im realizing i'll just ask you on friday! Cool!

Ok well thats all! I still love being a missionary and am going strong. No time to get lazy, gotta grow the church in Togo! I have a testimony of this work and am super happy with where i am! I love you all! Cant wait to talk in five days!

Elder Bertoch

December 13, 2010

Sam was sent to Togo again last week. It's good to know he and the other missionaries are safe and sound.

Alright, well an interesting week has gone by. Very eventful. So on Wednesday we had a special mission conference in which President (he finally got back into the country Tuesday) announced that things had calmed down enough to start to move back to our old areas little by little during the weekend which got us all pretty excited. The next day we went to a second mission conference again and during the conference President got a phone call that America was about to step into the whole election mess so there were going to be anti american feelings in the country. So the interregion decided it was best to get us out (the us embassy workers evacuated too). So thursday was spent running back to our old appartments and getting our bags and then Friday morning they flew all of us out. I ended up in Togo and President totally granted a favor that I asked him and put me with Elder Starita!!! After the conference on thursday I had realized that that would mean that Togo and Benin would have a lot of Americans so i went and approached President and requested to be companions with Elder Startia, promising that we would be the best companionship ever. This is going to be awesome. Our new branch is called Ablogamé, is just got created last week so we've already started to contact a bunch of people to get investigators. I'm super happy, we are going to work like crazy here and I know that we will see miracles here. It was really hard to leave Cote D'Ivoire, like I was depressed thursday night, but President made the transition a lot easier with this transfer and i have already loved seeing a lot of the old members i knew from a year ago, soon im going to try to visit people in Hedzranawoe.

So in our appartment we have us two, Elder Zufelt (was in the MTC with me), Elder Winter (french), Elder Geisler and Elder Shaffer (newer american missionary). We are going to have a blast. Our appartment is huuuge and really nice compared to my appartments in CDI. We have running water now which im really excited about. We already have seen like four mice and a bunch of cockroaches in the appartment so last night we went hunting (killed one mouse) and this morning cleaned like crazy.

Im not exactly sure how long i will be here though. President talked about in CDI that very soon he's going to start sending missionaries to start brand new branches from scratch, like in areas that have no members our investigators. The missionaries would run the church and everything and slowly grow the branch in that area. I think that sounds hard but would be suuupppper cool too. I really hope me and Starita get sent somewhere like that. Like reallly wanna open a new branch from scratch to finish my mission.

So i never did get those packages unfortunately. I guess its possible that President could send them over but im not sure. Its pretty sad but i'll survive. I'll be able to survive the next six months without new shoes or garments though, dont worry about me. I'm still excited for christmas though!

Ok well i better go! I hope I answered all of your questions! I love you all!

Elder Bertoch

December 9, 2010

Got word today from the missionary couple that they are flying the non-African missionaries out of the Ivory Coast. They will be going to either Togo or Benin. Don't know yet where Sam will end up. Some of the missionaries left today, but according to the pictures they sent, Sam does not appear to be one of them. So he will be leaving tomorrow. Sam loved the people of the Ivory Coast and I'm sure he is disappointed, but I have to imagine they are all relieved to be out of that cramped apartment. Here is the e-mail we received from the missionary couple:

Yes, Soeur Ayekoue & I did go shopping yesterday. It's not exactly the same thing, but all seems very good. Yet, we understand how quickly things can happen, and so does President Ayekoue, (and the Area Presidency) so....there are 15 tickets to Togo and Benin tomorrow abt 5:30pm for all expats (those from USA, France, & New Zealand). We have tickets as well, but may stay a little longer. Is it for a short time or for good, or to another location? For the missionaries, it is for the duration of their mission.

Remember there is always an upside: There are plans to finally split the mission, making Togo & Benin their own mission, hopefully by or before July this year. These elders are in a great position to help get things set up, organized, leadership, fellowship, etc. Plus, Elder Legere has wanted to experience Togo or Benin, even if only for a week (until he returns to Las Vegas). We will update you as things progress. Very busy right now. Can't imagine leaving the President at this time, or at any time. We've included a couple of pictures of some that left today. Keep in touch.

Lots of love,

Soeur Gubler