Novemeber 26, 2012

Hello,

Thanksgiving was pretty fun, in a fashion. I found some instant mashed
potatoes at the supermarché, and Elder Perkins bought pretty much an
entire chicken. It all tasted good. I was happy with it, even if it
was small. Zone conference was the day before, so we decided to
celebrate by writing some thanksgiving messages and photos to the
Presidents wife. She was actually really happy with it, told us it's
the first present she's received since she arrived here. So that ended
up being mega brownie points for us. Best part is, because she
actually has an oven, that could one day actually be cashed for
brownies. Not likely, but you never know.

So the big news is that I'm being transferred! I'm going to be serving
in Doumassesse. Yes, that's in TOGO. I leave Wednesday. I'll be senior
companions with Elder Gnahore, who is from Cote d'Ivoire. He's been
out for about 6 months I believe. I don't know too much about
Doumassesse, but I'm told that that's the branch where the stake center
is being built. So that will be exciting. I don't think we'll use it
every week, but I'll definitely be there when it's dedicated. I'm
surprised I'm leaving Fidjrosse so fast, 3 months isn't much time at
all in one sector. The interesting thing is that Elder Kiputa is
staying to train an Elder who's coming in from France. He's already
been in the branch for six months. I know it will all work out fine.
The only disappointing thing is that I'm going to Togo for what is
supposed to be the hottest part of the year. So it'll be even hotter
now. Yay. On the other hand, I think I'll be in an apartment with
Elder Burkhart again, which will be fun. What is sure, they say
Doumassesse is full of red dirt, you have to wash your clothes a lot
more.

This week a funny thing happened. It's as though the news about the
Mayan doomsday scenario just barely reached Benin. Multiple people
have asked me about it this last week. I'm pretty sure they don't
believe it any more than we do back in the states, but that means that
some people do believe it. That's me, Elder Christensen, preaching the
gospel and breaking down superstition.

We were teaching this older Catholic man about the restoration and we
mentioned the fact that there is a living prophet on the earth today.
He seemed a taken aback by that. He asked in complete seriousness
"really? Does he talk to the pope?" well, maybe every now and then....
Other funny story, apparently Martin Luther King Junior was a prophet.
He had a dream about a white child and a black child, and somehow or
other Obama is the fulfillment of the prophecy. Go figure. Best part,
we were reading 2 Nephi 3 with a member, and she thought the prophecy
was about MLK. In her defense though, her reading skills are still in
development, and she had been sick for most of the week.

Zone conference was fun, got to talk to a lot of people. You can pick
up some interesting subtexts in what the leaders say. And then
sometimes they aren't so subtle. Turns out there have been a couple of
cases of rule breaking lately, oh well.

I've been wearing the two pairs of shoes, trading them out a little
bit. The problem is that it's the rougher pair that is wearing out.
I'm pretty sure that if I switch just over to the other pair, they
won't last for the rest of the mission. Now that I'm going to Togo,
I'm not sure what it's like to buy shoes over there. I'll let you
know.

I haven't gotten any mail in the last two weeks I would say, but I
know that there's at least one thing for me in the mission office. I
should be getting that tomorrow I think.

I'm pretty sure it's a fact of mission life that the week where you
find a lot of people to start teaching, that's your last week in that
area. We found so many more people this last week that could progress.
Looks like that'll be the job for Elder Kiputa and Méjean. I wish them
good luck. We have no more copies of the Book of Mormon here, and
we're starting to run low on brochures even. The situation is probably
even worse in Doumassesse though. We'll see.

I feel like I haven't written that much again, but I'm out of time.
Power has been out all afternoon, we were lucky our cyber has a
generator. All of our clothes are still wet because the fans aren't
working. Oh yeah, I'm actually packing in advance for this transfer.
Last time I just jammed it all in at the last moment. Took me a month
to find everything.

Love you lots,
Elder Christensen