Hello Mom!

First off... AWESOME email!! Thanks for that! I love getting your long emails. I will try my best to answer all of your questions. The Thompsons are leaving on March 25th. They are now on their last transfer... so that means six more weeks. We have no news yet on who will replace them. Dad sent me a video of a senior couple opening their mission call... well, they will be an office couple over in Kinshasa. So, as for right now, it looks like all the missionaries here will be alone for a little bit while they continue to wait for the news of another senior couple coming. The senior couple in Douala will be helping out a bit but they will spend most of their time, I think, in Douala. There is a good chance I will get transferred at the end of this transfer. I will have been here for 5 transfers... 30 weeks! If I don't get transferred that means I will probably be here for another 4 transfers. Because at the end of the transfer after this one, there will be 10 missionaries going home (Elder Pister, Elder Lamb, and the missionaries in their group) and 9 missionaries will be coming in...so that means that I will be a trainer, and when you are a trainer you are generally together for 3 transfers because of this new program that we have over here. So yeah... we'll see what happens.

As far as the mice.... there is no longer a problem. We found these traps at this American store just down the street from us and they have worked miracles. They are sticky traps that smell like peanut butter. Every single time we would set them up at night there would be a mouse stuck the next morning. We have caught/killed over 12mice. We have had the traps out for the past 3 nights and they haven't gotten anything, so I think the problem is finished. Thank goodness! It totally reminded me of Mt. Graham... I don't like mice. They poop all over the place.

You guys are so lucky that you were able to go see MoTab sing! I remember when they announced that show... that was a while ago. I love listening to them. You can always feel the spirit. I can't even imagine what it would be like to listen to them live. I want to go to a session of general conference so bad.

You will have to record everyone singing so I can here them! I would love to hear Ashlyn and Darian. I can't believe that Grandma is 78! When you see a person that is 78 over here they look like they are walking on the edge of life... its incredible to see all that Grandma does. She is such an amazing example to me. She must have been really good to her parents :)

So lets see... what happened this week. Not much... it was just another week as a missionary. I was pretty sick yesterday... for the first time on my mission. My nose was running like none other yesterday. My throat was swelling up and I just had a fat head ache. I took some nyquil and hit the sack. That didn't really help though. I woke up a lot throughout the night and this morning my back hurt so bad. I ended up missing my personal study and just slept. I felt like crud this morning. My throat is still swollen but I have finally gotten my sniffles under control. My nose is raw though... I hate that feeling.

So, I forgot to write out a little list of what I wanted to email so this email might be scatter brained. I don't have that good of a memory. Thats why I take this journaling thing so seriously. Ummm, Oh here is a sad story for you... so back in October we baptized a guy named François. Ever since his baptism he has faced trial after trial. Right after his baptism, he was kicked out of his apartment because he wasn't able to pay the bills and when they kicked him out they locked his door and wouldn't even let him go and get his stuff. So, he found this super run-down place (shack) in Carrossel and has next to nothing because everything he does have is locked up at his old apartment. Then his dad finds him and basically disowns him because he has joined the "Mormon cult" and wants nothing to do with him. This is really hard for François because he was really close to his father. And just recently he found a new job and it was all going well until a few days ago, this woman accused him of stealing 216,000 cfa. Well, the next day at 9 in the morning the police when to his house and got him and threw him into jail. He was there for almost 24 hours. During his stay he had this guy come up and play good cop bad cop with him. "Okay, its just you and I... Did you take the money?" and at one point he said "Where is the money? I will let you go if you give me half of it." François kept on telling him that he didn't steal the money and that he was innocent. The cop then pulled out a machete and tried persuading him to confess with that. Things are so corrupt here in Africa. They finally let him go at midnight. Oh! while he was in jail he received a visit from his dad and he just came to tell him that all this was happening to him because he joined the "mormon church". He didn't even help his son... he just went to rub it in his face basically. It was so sad to hear that story. François has such a strong testimony.

Well, thats about all... I am sure there was something pretty exciting to tell you but I can't remember... oh, hey, I wrote a letter to the family and I put 12 gb card worth of photos and videos in there. I made sure to copy them over to spare memory cards I have just in case they got stolen during the voyage... so just be looking for those.

I love you all so much! I pray for you every day!

Je t'aime,
Elder Schmid