Bonjour ma mère!

K questions... I am doing very good! Except for the fact that I have
been sick this whole week. I guess I have the cold or something. My
nose was running like none other for like 3 days, and now, for the past
4-5 days I have had that nasty cough. But it is slowly getting better.
It doesn't help that I am inhaling dust almost every hour of the day.
But other than that, I am fine :) Nothing to worry about. My French is
coming along great! I am about to finish Moroni in my English
scriptures, and then I will start my personal study in my french set. I
already study my french ones in language study so now I will study for
almost 2 hours in french... so my french will get better and better.
Yes, I have had a few dreams in french. The entire dream wasn't in
french but there would be certain things that were said and they were
in french. It was pretty funny. I remember sitting in the MTC and
wondering when that day would come. But yeah, french rocks. I am
definitely going to continue my french at college when I get back.
Tell David that I will help him out when he has to deal with those
french people again concerning his data centers... I'm still willing
to go 50/50 with him :)

I can't believe that you took that speaker back! What on earth!! Did
Dad have anything to say about it? When I get back I want to learn how
to make one and I will make it according to "mommas design" standards.
Not going to lie... I was really looking forward to coming back and
watching movies with that thing... you may have broken my heart a
little :(

I got all the pictures that you sent me!! Thank you so much! That was
exactly what I wanted! Feel free to send more if you want :) I love
looking at my pictures so much! Tell Kendi that I really like her hair
style... I don't know if she still has it that way because it was back
in November... but still tell her I like it! I love Bronson's
announcement! I show that to so many people! They all think he is so
cute... and huge! I guess they don't have big babies over here. But
anywho, thank you so much for that little package. The CD is awesome
:) I love those songs so much! Just tell me one thing... is one of
those songs from that Gladiator soundtrack? Elder Pister and I have
been debating it... and I would like to settle it and rub it in his
face that I was right. Thanks!

I read Kurts email about his lessons... Its crazy seeing how different
our missions are. He was happy because he was able to do a 12 lesson
week. Over here, if you had a 12 lesson week, that basically means that
you are an apostate missionary who does nothing. A few weeks ago I
taught my 500th lesson. There are some days where I wish I could
experience the missionary life that Kurt is living. I want to have the
experience of knocking doors and having them shut in my face. Crazy
thing to want, huh?

Okay, so I wrote down stuff throughout the week that I wanted to tell
you, so this email will be a little bit better than last weeks!

So, on Tuesday, we were walking down this dirt road and we passed these
two little four year old boys walking home from school... and as we
passed them one of them said, "Les blancs manger les noirs! (Whites eat blacks!)" haha, I laughed because it was cute... it was improper french, but it was so funny! Crazy African kids... That night we went over to a recent
converts house (Paulette and Laure) and Elder Pister and I made them
an American dinner! We had steak, potatoes, and green beans and it was
amazing! It was by far the best meat I have had over here in Africa.
We had a legit bbq! While we were eating this 80 year old preacher man
came over and started preaching, singing, and praying. Every time he
would pray he would raise his arms to the sky. At one point, he asked
Elder Pister and I why we don't raise our arms when we pray... because
Moses did. We didn't really say anything because he went right back to
praying. I got a lot of it on camera so you will enjoy those videos.
It was dark outside so you can barely see him but I promise you, you
will hear him. I also recorded a spiritual thought I did, so, you will
be able to see my french in action. In the middle of my thought,
Paulette (recent convert) just busts out singing this goofy gospel
song. She is such a funny old woman.

"We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated
correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God."
TRUE!! Read Hebrews 6:1

So, the other day Elder Pister and I were walking down the road and
this moto passed us with two passengers... a man... and a HUGE pig on
that mans lap. And what was even crazier was that the pig was still
alive! I saw him blink and his body parts twitch! The pig had to have
been at lease 100 lbs... it was so big!

We had a water heater problem in one of our bathrooms and so we had
this guy from one of the branches come over and fix it. The water
heater, that he was working with, was mounted on the wall. It was a 50
Liter heater (haha that rhymes). Well, he unscrewed the mounts and
attempted to take it off the wall and place it on the ground. I guess
he didn't realize that there was still 50 liters of water in it! So,
when he took it off the wall, he totally lost balance and fell hard
against the wall. I would call it a controlled fall. He busted an
electrical socket though. It gave us a good laugh.

I ate goat this week. It was good.

We had three investigators baptized this week. Emmanuel, Remy, and
Brice. It was an awesome baptismal service! I was able to baptize Remy
and Brice. It was such a neat moment. The testimony meeting afterwards
was awesome as well. I wish you could all experience a baptismal
service over here. They are so incredible. It was a packed house and
everyone was from our branch. Ekounou 1 is great! I am so blessed that
I am working in this branch. I was able to confirm Emmanuel a member
on Sunday and it was so cool. He asked me to do it in English! It was
funny because a few times I started saying french words and I had to
quickly correct myself.

We had zone conference this past week and it was super good. We
learned about the importance of making sure our baptismal candidates
are ready. At the end, all the elders that are leaving at the beginning
of May received their flight plans. That was weird. That will be me in
14 months! Next zone conference President Jameson will be down here, so
I am really looking forward to that.

One day, as we were waiting for Emmanuel to arrive at his place so we
could teach him, we watched some little kids play soccer. It got pretty
intense! At one point there was this punk kid who strait up shoved
this other tiny kid to the ground and kicked him. He was such a jerk!
A few minutes later that same kid, who was the punk, got bullet soccer
ball to the face!! So after that I felt a lot better :)

At the beginning of this week, we went and talked with Remy because he
had been in Douala the week before that. He began to tell us about his
study that he did in the Book of Mormon while in Douala and he went
on for 15 minutes explaining King Benjamin and Nehor. He almost went
verse for verse! It was incredible! And this was a study that he did
completely on his own. We had never talked about those things with
him. Long story short... Remy is incredible!

One day we were teaching Emmanuel and he asked us about the gift
of tongues. There are a bunch of false prophets here that claim to be
prophets because they speak in the gift of tongues. I asked Emmanuel if
he ever understood them and he said, "No, no one ever understands
them." Voila!! If he truly were a prophet or if he truly had the gift
of tongues you would be able to understand him. The reason we have the
gifts like that is to edify one another. If you can"t understand them,
how on earth are you being edified? I then did a nice rendition of my
own "gift of tongues" and asked Emmanuel if he understood me and he
looked at me like I was stupid and said no. I then said "Brother, I
didn't even understand myself!" That is a major problem we run into
out here... false prophets and people faking the gifts of the spirit.

Well, that was my week. Ouch! I just leaned my head back against this
head board and I was stabbed by a screw that was poking through! Oh
Africa... Well I am doing well! I love my life :) I love you too :) Au
revoir!

Je t'aime,
Elder Schmid