July 23, 2012

Hi Everyone, 

Well, this rainy season is just about over. All it really does now is
pretend like it's going to rain right before church starts. Which
gives all of the investigators an excuse for why they didn't come to
church. There will be another short rainy season in a few weeks
apparently. Then it will get hot. Reallly hot.

Missing pageant wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. This
last week the only thing that really ended up bothering me is that I
got the Song of Cumorah in my head a few times. Some things just don't
fade easy I guess.

Saturday was an utterly strange day. It was amazing because I got to
baptize Brice. I also baptized an older man that I taught a couple of
times when I was on exchanges with the zone leaders. Brice was at the
church even before we were! That was cool. he was so excited. There
were a lot of people there, 15 were baptised in Benin.

 Warning Alert:
Saturday also was a terrible day thanks to my health. I don't even
understand what happened. I woke up at 4 in the morning extremely
bloated. It turned into gas, and I farted so much I woke up my
companion with the smell. That whole process happened twice more
throughout the day. It sounds really lame, but it was actually one of
the most painful things of my whole life. It was at least tied with
falling off the rock climbing wall, and maybe worse. The only idea we
have is that some bread I ate may have had too much yeast in it. I
don't even know if the science behind that works? It's either that, or
I ate a whole potted plant. We're guessing my total fart count by the
end of the day was well over 200. And I broke my personal record for
biggest fart several times. Hope you weren't eating while reading
this.

We failed our apartement check this week. We were the most messy
apartement in all of Benin. Not my fault, I tried to clean, but it's a
big apartement. The good news that came with it was a letter from
Grandma Lundstrom. Mail appears to be getting through pretty fast
right now, the last two things I've gotten came within 2 weeks of
sending.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about change lately. When we
"become" something, are we accepting the new, or are we rejecting the
old? It has been very interesting for me. Do we accept Christ's love
and promise, or do we reject the natural man? As long as you change,
does it really matter? Which one would lead to a longer/stronger
conversion?

I'm always learning about how patience and humility. And yes, by
learning I mean I'm being given opportunities to be patient and
humble. There isn't really any other way to do it. Not that knowing
that conceptually really makes it any easier. That seems to be the
story of my mission. I've been so conceptual for so long, getting back
down to the nitty gritty application is a weird transition.

I'm going to teach Ninja destruction at an FHE tonight, we'll see if
it goes over well. I think it could. Just so long as I don't drink six
bissap again I should be fine.

Do you all remember Klouieklouie? The fried rings of peanut butter?
Guess what. I bought some this last week. They actually weren't as
miraculously amazing as I'd kind of hoped they'd be, but they weren't
bad. Crossed that off my mission to-do list.

I was about to buy a giant bag of laundry detergent when a member
stopped me and showed me that I could buy more and cheaper if I bought
the smaller bags. Isn't that backwards or something? Maybe the
shopkeeper just didn't think things through.
 
As far as things I need, there isn't really much. You can buy pretty
much everything you need here. Good electric razors are pretty much
the only thing that I'd like that you can't get. I'm assuming that
that's something you can't mail out in a package, so I'll just be
patient until I get home. by the way, I've only got 18 months left.
Isn't that crazy? I'm a fourth of the way done with my mission. Opened
my second jar of peanut butter to celebrate. The last month has just
absolutely blown by. And I hear it only gets faster. And I've
written in my journal every single day. Love you too.

Vous tous me manquez,
Elder Christensen