These young women are in the street outside the
Doumassesse Branch building sweeping the street dirt and trash surrounding
their meeting house so that on the Sabbath it looks perfect.  
Picture taken by Sister Leavitt

Hello Everyone,

So it turns out that Elder Ta just likes to talk about transfers even
when he doesn't know. I'm not getting transferred to Togo yet. I am,
however, being transferred within Benin. I'll be serving in the
Fidjrosse branch with Elder Kiputa. That will happen Wednesday
morning. I'll actually be in another tripanionship for a week, Elder
Mukenga will be training an American, and they don't arrive for
another week. That makes me and two Congolese, so I think I'll be
eating a lot of foufou. We'll see. I'm excited though, I hear the
apartment is really nice. I'm moving from right by the lake to right
by the ocean, which is a little bit different. The Van Duyse (no idea
on spelling) family lives in that branch, so it'll be weird to see
white people at church who aren't missionaries.

Speaking of the beach, we went to Ouidah today. That was an
interesting experience. We did the temple of Pythons and the beach.
Yes, snakes were all over me today. Also, I had a really reflective
moment as I pondered the fact that I was on a shore that had changed
history (I think something like 8 million slaves left Africa from
there), and the fact that there was nothing but water between me and
Antarctica. Yes, I got lots of pictures, and I mean lots.
Speaking of pictures, I need more photos of me from pageant. Dad too.
I gave them to Elder Kabongo for souvenirs. Haha, souvenir is a french
word.

We had a conference of all the Benin missionaries this last week. It
was really cool, we talked about a lot of things, but what stuck to me
a lot was loving your companion. My companion and I have grown pretty
tight. Obviously not as tight as we could be, but I'll definitely be
sad to see him go. I'm hoping I'll be able to get to work on that
right away with Elder Kiputa.

So update on my last baptism. We went and asked Amour why he agreed to
be baptized. He ended up telling us that the night he met us, he had a
dream that I baptized him. That kept him interested long enough to
give us a shot. I hadn't seen that coming. Elder Kabongo says that
whenever people dream about the missionaries, it's almost always the
yovo they dream about.

Last week Elder Kabongo found out that his uncle had died. It was the
older brother of his already-deceased father, so it hit him really
hard. I realized that I really have no idea how to comfort people in
situations like that. I did the best I could, but here's to hoping I
never have that situation again.

So you know how I said to send a few oil vials in the next package?
I'm actually thinking about more than just a few. Those are almost
impossible to get here right now. I think it'd be a really good thing
to leave behind. 

If you noticed the withdrawal on my bank account, yes, that was me. I
figured I'd just pull a bunch right before the card expired to limit
the risk of getting frauded.

We had an interesting diversion this week. We got to hold the funeral
for the mother of the first councilor in the branch presidency. That
was an interesting.

Sorry I have just about zero time to write today. Elder Gundersen came
down with malaria, so we have to go back and do a split so Elder
Bukasa can come to the cyber and write President. So I'll write you
next week!

Love you all!