January 7, 2013

Africa wishes you all a happy 2013!

Wow, yeah I'm glad to not have to be dealing with Utah weather for the
moment. It's pretty nice here for the moment, Harmattan kicked in a
little bit more, it's relatively cool and dry for this last week.

Wow, yeah it's hard to believe that Jacob leaves this week. Even
though it's been coming up for months now. But that's what it was like
for my farewell too. What's he having for his last few meals?

I don't really have any suggestions for last minute stuff to get him,
except that maybe he could have some reallllly cool ties to trade in
the MTC? But yeah, I don't imagine he'll be doing that much walking in
his mission. I still think it's funny that Wes worked in two states,
me in two countries, and Jacob will serve in about two city blocks.
But our missions probably all had about the same amount of people.

I heard a rumor that the new mission president has already received
his call. So keep an eye out in the church news. I'm definitely sure
that split will be this summer at the very least. We'll see which
country I end up in, I get a feeling I'll stay here while all the
other people from my time period go to Benin.

I haven't received any mail since that sheet music you sent out, but
I'm assuming it'll get here soon. As far as stuff I could use, the
only thing off the top of my head is that I'll probably need some more
of that shoe wax stuff. Maybe some more inserts too. I still haven't
gone to the America-like store here, I'm not sure what's there.

No, I was not the only one to clean before the cleaning check.
Everyone pitched in. I'm pretty sure we didn't win though, our desks
weren't clean enough apparently. Which isn't really our fault since
our desks are so small that the area book takes up 2/3 of my desk. Oh
well, lesson learned. Next time, I'll just chuck everything in the
closet.

As far as I'm aware, I'm staying here in Doumassesse until at least
February. There should be some transfers this week, but that call
would have come in yesterday. There was a huge round of emergency
transfers last week, but we weren't touched. So as far as I know, I'm
staying here. Transfers are normally every six weeks, but it really is
about when new Elders come in or old ones leave. Or when Elders make
bad choices and have to be transferred. 

Our branch doesn't attend the new building. In fact, thanks for reminding 

me. As of this Sunday, our branch will be meeting at 1:30 PM. The branch 

split off from us still doesn't have a new building, and the landlord for 

the missionaryapartment there refused to let them hold church there, so 

they have to keep using our building. Should be interesting to have to go 

out proselyting in the morning and then come back in for church. Could be
a few weeks, could be a few months.

Okay I'm low on time, I'm just going to copy-paste a few paragraphs
from my letter to President.

This last week had a couple of bright sides. The first was the Famille
Anti. We taught them twice. The first time there was a member of their
church there who batted heads a little with us. After the lesson, he
started feeding them a bunch of anti-talk. When we came back the
second time, they started out telling us that, and also informed us
that they still wanted to take the lessons with us. I was super happy.
I don't want to lose this family. The son Steve totally understands
our message, and he's ready to act on it. The mom still needs a little
bit of reassuring, but she's going to really take the time to
understand the Book of Mormon, because that was one of the things
their friend attacked.

We worked a lot with a member named Jean-Gaspard this week. He was
present at that second lesson with Anti and Steve. I love working with
him because he bears super awesome testimonies and pretty much every
time he's in a lesson, I have moments where principles and scriptures
click together in my brain for the first time and I feel the Spirit
working through me. It's so powerful.

Last night, we had scheduled to go see one of our newer investigators,
but I felt like we should go see if one of our other investigators had
come back from his vacation yet. Not only did we find him, but he told
us he's been reading a little from the Book of Mormon every night and
he thinks it's good. In talking about the plan of salvation we gave a
baptismal date and he accepted. So far so good. I get the feeling that
it'll hold too. I'm excited that we are finally having some success
with young men, it's a target group I've never been able to work with
a lot. If everything I'm looking at comes to fruit, at least two
missionaries could come out of these few weeks I've spent with Elder
Gnahore. That would be so cool, that would really give me the
assurance of a lasting difference thanks to my mission. That would
make up for a lot of my setbacks I had in Gbedjromede and Aibatin.

Everything will work out alright. That was the second
big message I got out of conference. Rough times are ahead for all of
us, but if we have faith everything will be alright.

As far as your question Mom, people around here don't really get the
flu. Even getting so much as a fever usually means you're pretty badly
sick. When the fever I had a few months ago made me shiver, my
companion wanted to take me to the hospital right then.

LOVE TO YOU ALL,
Elder Christensen

PS mom, I love the photos you attached, but next time have Dad shrink
the photos first, they were a little big for the connection.