Hi,
Yes, Africa was hot this week. Hot and wet. It has rained a number of times this week. Luckily, I never got stuck in the rain. One time we did a split though and my companions weren't so lucky. Please don't say it is going to be a bad winter. That scares me. I'm already going to freeze when I get back.
I'll be happy to get that over to Elder Gray. By the way, he said to tell his Mom that he really is fine, but his cyber is absolutely terrible so sometimes he isn't able to write. He just is never able to log in I guess. I've been really lucky, I've never had that problem. I will definitely still be in the office by the time Elder Sagers gets here. During my interview with President Weed yesterday he told me that he is going to keep me in the office a few weeks after this next transfer. I don't know if he means all the way to the next transfer or not. We will be opening a new apartment soon, so I think he is planning to have me go there once it is open. We will see I guess. At any rate, I think it will be about the end of October when I will leave the office.
I was able to get the personal money out finally. I'm not sure if I did something different, or if it's because I happened to use the ATM at the country headquarters of a bank. But I did get the money. I still haven't gotten the package, but I'm not worried about that yet. I would give it another 2 weeks still.
I did talk a bit to President Weed about departure dates, but he's still looking into it. It will happen when it will happen. But when it does happen, I will be the first to know since I will probably be ordering my own flight plans. You could get ahold of Jeff and ask if he knows of an opening if you want. I'm told that the ward I was in off-campus has been divided, I'm honestly not sure if I want to go back there or not. I know I said I would never go back on-campus, but I think it'd be interesting to live in the new heritage towers now that the BYU freshman demographic has changed a bit. I don't know if I would be allowed there or not though. Officially, my only request is that I not have to stay in a cardboard box on the street. Unless you get me a really good space heater.
Yesterday was one of my crazy African story days. I was invited to another wedding. This time it was a double wedding. One of my converts in Aibatin got married, and his cousin married one of my old investigators that later got baptized. So I was officially on the list. Thanks to the rain, the road out the the mayor's office was an absolute mess (we actually do most of the weddings here outside the city because it is significantly cheaper that way). Then during the wedding it rained some more, and it was even worse getting home. Overall, I spent about 4 hours crammed into the mission van, trying not to bump too much into a newly-wed bride I didn't even know. When I got back, I had a couple minutes to calm my head before President whisked me into his office for my interview. He asked a lot of questions this time, I think mostly because I was the absolutely last interview so he didn't feel the stress of having to rush somewhere else. It was a good interview. After that we went to go teach 'Hakuna Matata.' He is doing well, he and his wife came to church again on Sunday. They like being able to ask questions during the classes. They are really doing pretty well. After that we had a lesson with a woman from Burkina Faso that a member referred to us.
The day ended with us going to the church building so I could play the piano for a funeral. Except the funeral actually wasn't at the church. So we grabbed the piano and headed to the house where it would be held. Turns out they asked me to be there 2 hours before the service was actually scheduled to start. I wish they would have coordinated that with us before, because the service started about 20 minutes before we usually go home for the day. Lets just say that we did not make the curfew last night. But yeah, now I can scratch off "play the piano outside for 200 people (most of whom were not members) for a night funeral in Africa" off of my bucket list.
We had another baptism this morning. It was not planned very far out in advance this time. We have been teaching Catherine for about 5 weeks now, and she has come to church about that many times. She will be moving to Equatorial Guinea very soon, and asked if she could be baptized before she left. We asked President about it, and he said yes. So we did it. It actually was really good, her uncle who is a member of the church in another branch showed up without knowing she would be there. We also happened to baptize her on her birthday, which we didn't know in advance. She really does love the church, but I'm a little worried because there doesn't appear to be any church presence in Eq. Guinea. I know it might be a seed planted, but seeds often lie dormant for very long periods of time, and not every seed survives.
I want to go back to the temple so badly. Missionaries here don't get to do it. One is because it is expensive. Two is because it takes a lot of time. Three is because the Ghana immigration/border people are not good news. Maybe one day I'll visit that temple, but not during my mission. Going to the temple is pretty high on my list of things to do once I get home.
Well, looks like there are no secrets ever. But, as I feared, the application has run into some snags at the regional level. I give myself a B- on that project (partially for the faulty work, and partially for the faulty security).
Huh, looks like I wrote a lot this week. Cool.
Love,
Elder Christensen
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