Bonjour ma mère!

I love your emails so much! I am always smiling throughout the entire
thing. I am so happy that things are going well back at home. Please
please please send me a video if you can of Bronson laughing when he
gets to that stage. Wanna know something funny? I laughed when you
were describing making that noise to Bronson. I guess I still have it
in me :) I am impressed with Aiden! What a little stud! His emails
crack me up... he always sends those little animation things that you
can put in your emails and he sent me like 50 little poop picture
things this week. I'm sorry bumper boats are lame... too bad you can't
come out here to Africa. You can experience bumper taxis. If a taxi is
mad at you he will brush up against you and nail your mirror or tap
your bumper. It gets intense sometimes! We were driving with this guy
today who got in an accident and he was pointing out the huge cracks
on his windshield and he pointed to a really big one and said, "yeah,
this one was caused by a persons head..." the way he said it was
really funny. Like "yeah, it was no big deal.. just another day here
in Africa." I'm jealous that you went to Elmers... I wasn't a big fan
of mexican food before I left. I liked it but I didn't really crave
it. Well, I am craving it big time right now. I want my breakfast
burritos and my Arizona burrito from filis!! Speaking of filis... I
love avocados! I get them every night and cut if in half and eat it
with a spoon! Mmmm :)

So, there was a lot that went down this week... I hope I can get it all
typed out. If not, you will have Elder Pisters email and that will
have more info in it.

So, last Monday after emailing, we went to this pizza place called Pizza
Roma and we were sitting there waiting for our pizza to come out and
these four white girls walked in. Now, for me it is weird seeing a
white person. Whenever I do, I always think to myself, "What the heck
are they doing here?" They sat down at this table next to us and after
a few seconds we realized that they were speaking American english. I
was tripping out! It was so weird to hear normal english. There is
english here but its really bush english. So Elder Pister asked them
where they were from and they started telling us and then they invited
themselves over and they all sat with us... not going to lie, it was
pretty uncomfortable at first. I was all the way in the corner and
there were two girls blocking my exit. They started telling us how
they were in the Peace Corps program and telling us what they did. At
the very beginning we told them that we were missionaries for The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints... and then about 15
minutes later I was explaining how we don't do any knocking on doors
because we are always in lessons. I basically said, "The missionaries
here aren't like your typical Mormon missionaries going from door to
door trying to find coordonnées..." and when I said Mormon all four
girls at once when "Ohhhhh, you're Mormon??" I wanted to slap my
forehead and say "DOY!!" I don't know what else they could of thought
we were... there was one girl there who then went on to tell us that
her uncle and aunt are mormon and she lived with them for 4 years and
went to church and what not with them... and she was the one who said
the biggest ohhhhh when I said mormon. She wasn't too bright. Elder
Hansen and Elder Graham walked in to Pizza Roma as we were talking
with the four girls. It was funny looking at their faces when they saw
us and realized the situation. One of the girls started talking about
saving the trees and all that... tree hugger. Good luck sister! They
could care less here in Cameroon. If it's there it's theirs! So that was
an interesting dinner. At the end Elder Pister said that that was the
best date he has had in 2 years. I felt like a freak because it was so
weird that I was sitting with girls... I'm going to be screwed for a
few weeks after I get home from my mission. Its a good thing Alex will
be on a mission when I get home so I can adjust and become a normal
kid again.

So, the other night I kind of had a runny nose and I found this Night
Time medicine on a desk so Elder Pister and I decided to take it... It
had been expired for a few months but I felt like it would be alright.
Well, that was a bad decision. I took it right before we started weekly
planning... and that usually takes around 2 hours. Well, this medicine
started working in 5 minutes. I was knocked out!! We finished weekly
planning at around 8:30 and I went to bed at 8:45 and woke up the next
morning at 6:45... 10 hours of sleep!! I was so tired the next day. I
am never going to take that medicine again. I am just going to tough
it out.

We have an investigator named Jean Pierre and he is a very well to do
business man. His big plans for right now are to have a huge brick
construction business. I was half joking around with him one day and
said that when I get back from my mission I will help him out and we
will go 50/50 and he totally thought I was serious... so I had to play
out that I was serious for the next 15 minutes as he went on to explain
how I could help him out. Elder Pister as well. I love teaching this
guy... he speaks very good english so I feel very comfortable when I
teach him. I can't wait until I will feel just as comfortable when I
teach in french. I can teach everything I need to do in french but I
have a hard time saying what I want to say... how I want my
investigators to picture things. Ca va aller avec le temps.

We have another investigator named Remy. We were walking home one day
and we stopped at this little boutique place to by some vegetables and
as Elder Pister was getting everything this man (Remy) walked by me
and looked at me and my name tag and kept on walking a little bit.
Then he turned back around and he started talking to me. His breath
wreaked of alcohol... I gave him a Restoration brochure and invited
him to church and then he was on his way. As he was walking away Elder
Pister said something like, "Good luck seeing him again." Usually
nothing ever happens after you talk to someone who was drunk or
partially drunk. But I had a little feeling that something good was
going to come out of that little contact. Well, a few days later I was
sitting in sacrament meeting and guess what? Remy came walking up and
did his little catholic cross the chest thing and walked in the doors
and sat down! I was so stoked! Well, we have been teaching him these
past two weeks and he is one of the most incredible investigators I
have had out here. The first 3 rendezvous we had he wreaked of alcohol
and smoke. So today we planned on talking to him about the word of
wisdom. Elder Pister and I were kind of nervous to bring this up because,
with what we have seen, he likes his beer and smokes. Our plan was to
have him read the word of wisdom brochure and hope that the spirit
will help teach him as he read. Well, our plan couldn't of been any
more perfect! He started reading and when he got to the part where it
says to not drink alcohol and smoke he started nodding his head real
big and stopped and paused real quick and said "Yeah, last night I had
a dream and Jesus came to me and told me to not smoke. So I stopped
this morning. I won't smoke anymore." We then asked if Jesus said
anything about alcohol and he said no and that he will pray tonight so
that he can receive that answer for the alcohol. But, for the moment, he
said that he will stop drinking and smoking. He has so much faith and
desire to do what is right!! The other day this kid came walking in
and started talking to us about all the questions he had about the brochure (this kid works right next to Remy's house and we gave him a
brochure as we were waiting for Remy). He asked us how he can can
offer a REAL prayer... and really before we could do anything, Remy
opened up to the page that talks about prayer in the Restoration
brochure and showed him and answered the question for us. We hadn't
even talked to Remy about prayer yet!! It was amazing!! He has
accepted to be baptized on Feb 18th!

We have another investigator named Rachelle. I am not sure if I have
talked to you about her or not. She is the one that can't get baptized
because she is not "married enough." Well, we met with her this past week
and we planned on talking to her about the law of chastity. Before we
could do that, she started talking about a lot of problems she had with
work and what not and how she was bummed that she can't be baptized
because of her marriage situation and then she strait up said, "I want
to leave Richard so that I can get baptized because that is more
important." My mouth just went to the floor when she said that. And we
didn't even have to bring up the law of chastity!! She knew exactly
what she needed to do so that she can receive the blessings that God
has for her!! What an amazing example of faith!! I asked her what
Richard thought and she said, "I don't care what Richard thinks... I
need to get baptized." Go Rachelle!! Richard is already a member so
she is really helping him too...

So Jimmy (rugby) and his wife invited us to go to this funeral thing
at hôpital general on Friday. Sœur Jimmy's uncle passed away and she
was really having a hard time, so Elder Pister and I asked her if there
was anything that we could do and she asked us to come to the funeral,
so we did. It was very interesting... it was EXACTLY like what
you see on "The Other Side of Heaven." Women were crying and wailing
all over the place and falling and what not... We got up to walk
around the body when everyone else did... it was very creepy. They
strait up glued the guys lips together... he had glue all over his
lips. It looked like he didn't have any feet either. There were people
walking up to the casket and taking pictures of the body... that was
bizarre.The culture here is sooo different. Before that, Elder Pister
and I were waiting for Jimmy to show up and we were watching this
retard try to parallel park. He almost took off this other cars front
bumper... so then he gave up and drove to go park somewhere else.
Elder Pister and I looked at each other and started to laugh. Elder
Pister offered to help but it was no use.

So, we still have a stupid mouse problem chez nous. They are all over
the place. We ran out of sticky traps so we have been going back to
our good 'ol ways... kill em any way possible!!! We got one in our
closet so we threw a bunch of clothes and what not around the closet
doors so when it ran out it would be blocked... we finally got it out
and it ran under this pillow and Elder Pister jumped and knee slammed
this pillow and killed the mouse! 1 point Elders! We put the dead
mouse in the other Elders room and the next morning they were so
confused because there was a random dead mouse in their room. It was fun
messing around with them. The next morning I noticed that our fridge
door was open... I was kinda mad because that meant all the cold air had
gotten out so I slammed the door shut. Well, I came back at the end of
the day and went to the fridge and I opened the fridge and there was a
mouse SMASHED in between the bottom seal of the door. I guess there was
a mouse in the fridge trying to get out right when I slammed the door!
I think God is on His Elders sides.

We have an investigator named Emmanuel and he used to be a Jehovah's
witness for 14 years... so he has some WACK views. We have been
showing him the truth and he has been loving every single minute of
it!! There was one day when we told him that we didn't believe in the
trinity (God, Christ, and Saint-Esprit all one being) and he stood up
in the middle of the lesson and shook our hands. He has done that a
few times. This guy LOVES learning about the truth! We started
teaching his friend too, who is a pastor, and we were talking about
Jean-Baptiste and the Aaronic Priesthood and at the end the guy said
that he has learned more about that subject in the last 3 minutes than
in his entire life. And this guy is a pastor!!!

We live by Chateau Mimboman. If you zoom in to google maps you can
find it. It's towards the southeast end of Yaoundé. We always walk by
it and we think to ourselves, "Man, I want to climb that thing!" so
the other day we walked up there and talked to the guy who is in charge
and we asked him if we could go up and he said, "Of course!" and he took us
right up! It was sooo humid inside the tank!! We had to climb a very
sketchy ladder too... it was really wasn't bolted down that well. The view
from the top was amazing! You could see almost all of Yaoundé. I took
some pictures and a video so you will see them when I send home my
memory cards.

Well, that is about all for this week. It was awesome! I love
missionary work so much! I am so blessed that I am able to be working
here in Cameroon. There is so much work that needs to get done and the
Lord is allowing me to do it. What a blessing. I love you all so much
and I pray for you every day!

Je t'aime,
Elder Schmid