Hey Mother :)

How are you doing? How is the little baby growing inside of you? I
can't believe that I will have another little brother within a month
or so. I keep on telling my investigators and people that I run into
around here. I am so excited! I need to start off and apologize for
last weeks email. I know it sucked. I was all over the place. I
promise this one will be better. So, I am going to tell you some funny
things that happened to me this week and then I will tell you about a
spiritual experience or two.

So, I show my little photo book to every investigator when I bear
testimony of eternal families and I showed one investigator the other
day and she saw Dad and she said that he looked like Thomas S. Monson!
I laughed out loud at that one. She must think that all white people
look alike. I am finally starting to notice the difference in the
faces and what not here. So those white shirts that you see on the
Jamesons blog are mine. I take good care of all of my clothes. You
would be so surprised to see how clean I am here :) Oh, and one more
thing... The Thompsons just told me that the couple in Douala just
received a package for me and the mice got into it. I guess there was
candy or something in it and so the mice smelled it and got to it. The
lady at the post office said that if you send packages with any kind
of food or candy to write "CHOCOLATE" on the package so that they know
to put the package in a mice free storage room. And the package is
only 2000 cfa which is equivalent to $4, so, way to be small!! (and I
don't mean that to complain). There are Elders here that have to pay
36000 to receive some of their packages.

Alright so this week was interesting. I am going to start with this
Saturday, which was baptism day. We had 3 investigators that were
baptized... Jimmy, Francois, and Nadeje. We were all down in the
changing room waiting for the investigators to come down and change
and one was not showing up. We had no clue where he was so we just sat
there waiting. The service was supposed to start at 1:00 pm and we
ended up starting at 1:30. The investigator was found sitting in the
relief society room where we have the service. He was sitting there
all quiet and to himself! haha No one told him to come down to the
changing room, so this whole time we thought that he was super late! So,
we finally got him changed and we started the service. I had to give a
talk on the Gift of the Holy Ghost and I feel it went really well.
Afterwards, Elder Thompson came up to me and told me how well I did and
that really made me feel good. I could tell it wasn't just one of
those "hey, you did good" compliments. I love Elder Thompson. So the
actual baptism was pretty interesting. The elders who live in Bastos
were in charge of filling up the font because the chapel we do the
baptisms in is in Bastos. Well, they turned on the water the night
before and the water, for some reason, was shut off in the middle of the
night so the font was super low in the morning... Like probably to my
knees. So Elder Wagman and LaFleur were hustling and trying to fill it
up more using buckets. By the time people were entering the water it
was probably just below mid thigh.... So yeah, pretty low. The first
elder almost went down in the font with his investigator when he
baptized her... poor guy. Next was Elder Lamb. He had to baptize
Jimmy. Now let me remind you who Jimmy is. Jimmy was the captain on
the Cameroonian rugby team. He owns a garage and a gym. This guy is
HUGE!!! His forearm is bigger than my flexed bicep. Now I know there
are probably some of you reading this and saying "well, that isn't
saying much" but really, this guy is so big. Elder Lamb was nervous
cause he didn't want to fall down in the water with him. Well, Jimmy
did everything he was supposed to do perfectly...bending his knees and
kinda squatting and what not so it went really well. Elder Lamb
baptized two others and then it was Nadeje's turn. She had a member in
the branch baptize her. When she was dunked she totally let go of the
man baptizing her and he had to pull her up all awkwardly. It seemed
like she almost passed out when she went under... but she did go
completely under so that was good. He pulled her up and held her and
she regained her composure. After about 30 seconds she started to walk
out of the font and she stopped on the stairs and sat there for a
while and put her face in her hands. We had no clue what was going on.
I thought she was just really touched or something and then all of the
sudden she passes out and falls backward into the font!! Luckily the
man in the font was able to catch her. He started to carry her out and
then she regained her composure again and was escorted out and into
the changing room... It was so bizarre! Only in Africa. So that is my
interesting story about the baptism.

So, on Sunday I was able to confirm Francois a member of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and it was incredible. Right before
the confirmation I was so nervous and I was shaking like crazy so I
said a little prayer and right when I set my hands on his head my
whole body became still and I was completely calm. It was incredible.
I KNOW that the Lord answers our prayers. The blessing went well!
After church we were supposed to meet this woman who wanted to see us.
We went to Jimmy's garage but she never showed up. As we were waiting
this man that always chills around Jimmy's garage showed up and
started talking to us. He was an anglophone (English speaking) so I was actually talking
to him haha. Well, we told him that Jimmy and Abraham (another worker
at Jimmy's garage) were just baptized and he couldn't believe what he
was hearing. He was so happy to hear that and he started to walk up
and down saying "Jesus! Jesus! Wow! Jesus!" This man was so happy!! I
then had the prompting to ask him what he knew about the Atonement of
Jesus Christ and one thing lead to another he ended up saying how
there are so many churches in the world today and he just doesn't know
which one is true... Elder Lamb and I looked at each other and were
like "RESTORATION!!" in our minds. So I went into the restoration and
we talked about Joseph Smiths story and the First Vision and the whole
time we were talking this man, Rodger, was smiling so big. I asked him
when we finished how he was feeling and he said that he felt soooo
good inside! The best he has ever felt! We told him that that was the
Spirit of the Lord witnessing to him that the things we were saying
were true. We then started talking about prophets and I showed him a
picture of Thomas S. Monson and he looked at it and looked at me and
said "I know that this is the prophet of God." It was so incredible to
hear him say that. He then said something sooo amazing. He said, "Now,
there is one thing that I LOVE about your church...one point, and that
is that you focus on families." Elder Lamb and I couldn't believe what
we were hearing. We busted out the Family proclamation and read to him
the third paragraph and he told us that he knew that that was true and
then he told us that he knew that Joseph Smith was a true prophet. He
said, "How could a man lie like that? He can't! I know that this is
true!" It was so incredible!! We talked about temples too and how
families can be together forever and we showed him a Liahona that was
completely dedicated to temples. So we were showing him pictures of
the temples and he was in such awe. He saw the Ghana temple and told
us that that was the prettiest temple in Africa. We told him that he
could go to the temple a year after he was baptized and he got so
excited when he heard that! We then invited him to baptism and he
accepted so he is set for December 3rd I believe. Man, that experience
was so incredible. Experiences like that make this whole mission
experience so incredible. I love my life!

I hope all is well. I love you so much. I need your prayers right now.

Love,
Elder Schmid