December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas Everyone,

Okay, I know that I have to write a bit now before we talk, otherwise
no one who reads the blog will get to know anything.

This week has been a little crazy, like all of the weeks since I've
been here. Harmattan came in this week. There's a pretty constant
breeze coming in, and everything is a little bit dirtier, and everyone
seems to be a little sick around here. Go figure. I remember learning
about the Harmattan during my Geography class first semester at BYU. I
remember distinctively thinking "that's cool, but I'll never see it".
Turns out I was right kind of, it's not something you can see. I was
hoping for a giant dust storm, but it just ends up looking overcast in
the mornings. A little bit of a let down honestly.

My companion couldn't wait for Christmas and opened his stocking. He
loved it, he says thank you. I still haven't opened mine.

Got the birthday package, you guys are awesome.

We had an activity for all of the missionaries this Friday. That was
pretty fun. They made me play the piano, I guess I'm now one of the
best players in Togo. Yikes. At least I got time to practice. I had to
play in church again too, I played almost exactly the same hymns as
last week. Luckily I had practiced angels we have heard on high, so it
sounded a whole lot better this time. Looks like I'll be getting a lot
of practice on the piano from now on. I may even end up teaching
piano. It's looking pretty evident that I'm going to be teaching the
English class now that Elder Burkhart has left. That'll be
interesting. I don't know if I'm qualified to do that. I don't even
understand English.

So this week we had a really cool lesson where we were teaching a mom
and her son. The son was totally getting our message, was getting kind
of excited about it. The mom was just blown away by everything we were
telling her. It was literally one of those "I wasn't expecting to hear
what you are saying, so my brain can't translate it" moments. I still
have those, but not as much as I used to. But the son was totally
helping us explain things, it was cool to hear him explain it all.
They've invited us over for lunch tomorrow, I'm excited.

I got the chance last night to read a bit out of an Ewe bible. It was
pretty cool. The woman told me that she actually understood what I was
saying, which was interesting. Either Ewe is an easier language than I
thought, or they are really good at understanding people who pronounce
it wrong. Either way, I think I'm buying an Ewe bible as my birthday
gift to myself. Apparently they are only about 3700 FCFA so not too
expensive.

We got to watch the Testaments in French with a recent convert on
Friday, that was interesting. I understood it a lot better than I was
expecting, but it wasn't as cool without the cheesy voices. I'm not
sure if French has cheesy voices or not. If it does I can't recognize
them.

The end of the world was pretty uneventful around here. A few people
were getting anxious, but nothing really happened. I'm just glad it's
all over, I was getting tired of being asked that question.

Celebrated Christmas eve by giving the fridge a really thorough
cleaning and buying some soft serve ice cream. That ice cream was
sooooo good.

Okay, if I think of anything else over the course of the call I'll
write another letter. 

Love you all and merry Christmas!