Mom :)

I just thought I would let you know... I love reading your emails! I
am always laughing and smiling throughout the entire thing. Thank you
so much for always being on the ball. So there is a lot of stuff that
I want to tell you about from this week so I am going to get right to it.

So, here is a little laugh for you all... Elder Pister and I were
walking through this little neighborhood and these two little kids
that were walking home from school passed us on the road. They were no older than 6 years old. When they passed us, one of the kids looked at
us with a disgusted face and said, "Les blancs sont méchants!" So, basically, we had two little kids tell us that the whites are wicked. I
couldn't help but laugh, and then I told the little kid that we weren't,
but he was obstinate and insisted that we were wicked. I love little
kids!

In my past few emails I have spoken a little about our ami Remy. He
is progressing so well! Well, he has completely abandoned alcohol and
cigarettes and now he is getting nasty headaches and stomach aches. I
feel bad but it is really helping him become strong in the faith. We
have finished teaching him almost everything! We only need to teach
him 2 more commandments and then he can get baptized. He will be
baptized on the 18th of February! Every time we give him a new
brochure or a chapter to read in the Book of Mormon he reads it that
night, and the next day, when we talk to him, he has the whole passage
underlined or highlighted and the amazing thing is that he totally
understands everything! It is so incredible! He truly is a golden
investigator. This past Sunday, he got up in church and bore his
testimony and it was so powerful. This mans faith and desire is so
strong.

Another amazing investigator that we have right now is Emmanuel. Now,
this man was with the Jehovah's witness people for 14 years... so he
has some pretty different backgrounds with certain doctrine. A big one
was the fall of Adam and Eve and we tackled that one this week and I
couldn't be more impressed with this mans progress. At first, he was
really upset with Adam and blamed him for everything. But now he
understands the necessity of the fall and how God knew that they were
going to fall. Why else did we all choose a Savior and Redeemer? Because God knew that there would be a need for one! That doctrine is so
simple and yet so many people see right past it! He also thought that
Adam and Eve could have children before the fall but we went into
Genesis 3:20 and explained that it wasn't until after the fall that
Adam named his wife Eve, and that it wasn't until after the fall that she
became the mother of all living. Emmanuel knows so much but he is
always missing the main key point... and Elder Pister and I have been
providing those all week. He just sits back in amazement because it all
makes sense now. Sometimes he will cut us off and stand up and shake
our hands. There was one time he left the room because he had to go
share that with his secretary. This man is awesome! He will also be
getting baptized on the 18th of February.

Jimmy (Rugby captain) is in a tough little situation. His mother-in-law sometimes stops by the house to stay for a few days and one day she came and she started talking to her daughter. She told her daughter that a prophet
came to her and told her that there were some serious problems with
Jimmy and his situation as father and that she needs to leave Jimmy.
What the heck?! First of all... this "prophet" has never met Jimmy in
his life. Second, the mother-in-law doesn't really like Jimmy too
much. And third, what the heck?! People here in Africa are pretty
crazy sometimes. They love their prophets and their sorcery. It's
interesting coming across people that think we do sorcery.

In companionship study, Elder Pister and I have been watching these D&C videos and there were two about John Rowe Moyle and one about John
Tanner. I highly suggest you watch those with the family. They have
the 'new' Joseph Smith actor in them so you will know them when you
see them. Watch them for Family Home Evening or something. Those two men are such extraordinary examples of a good Latter-day Saint.

The other day Elder Pister and I decided to do our language study at
the church... ha, I can't believe that I actually thought we were going
to do language study. We ended up playing on the piano and singing
together. You are going to get a lot of funny videos on the next
memory card I send home. That will be soon by the way. I have a 4gb
full and I only have like 100 pictures left on my 8gb.

So, you know a little bit about Rachelle. She has totally left her
boyfriend so that she can get baptized. Well, now she lives in the
village! We had to go visit her one evening and it took us over an
hour to get to her! We had to tell her that we can't teach her anymore
because she doesn't live in our sector... but that is alright... we have
taught her everything there is to know before baptism. She also
will be baptized on the 18th of February! On our way back home for
visiting with Rachelle, we got into a van... more liked packed into a
van... and started our drive back. I started talking to this guy about
how Lady Gaga is wack and then we got on the subject of the gospel.
Him and I were talking and at one point this random onlder lady butts in
and tells us that it doesn't matter how you are baptized. She says it
doesn't matter if we are baptized like Jesus or not. I asked her if
she has read the bible and she gave a pathetic yes. I just ignored her
and kept on talking to this guy. I ended up giving him a brochure on
the Plan du Salut and he was looking at the pictures of Jesus and he
asked me why the pictures all look different... why isn't it the same
man. I went on to explain that it is what the artist thinks about how
Christ looks... and that it wasn't really important to know why they look
different. Then that lady peeped up again and said, "yeah, just like
baptism, it isn't really important how you are baptized. I started
talking to her and explaining to her, using bible scriptures, why we
need to be baptized just like our Savior, but she was so stubborn she
didn't want to accept that this white kid was right. I ended our
conversation by saying, "ma soeur, je ponse que vouz ne comprenez pas
l'évangile de Jésus-Christ." (My sister, I reply that you do not understand the gospel of Jesus Christ). You run into some pretty funny people out here.

We met this man named Eli and he took us to his office. He is the
president of some humans rights organization. It was a pretty funny
rendezvous. Before we got there, he told everyone that they could only
ask 2 questions and he had to know what the questions were before they
asked them. So, throughout the rendezvous, his employees were asking,
"Please, Mr. President, can I speak?" and he would then give them
permission. At one point, some guy asked us if we were going to get
married after our missions... and not even thinking, really, Elder
Pister and I gave a firm yes in unison. Well, Mr. President didn't like
that... he yelled at the man and said he didn't have authority to ask
that question. The man sunk down in his chair and said, "Yes, Mr.
President. I'm sorry Mr. President." Funny meeting.

We have a ward missionary who works with us whose name is Daniel. He was with us when we were teaching Remy one time and we were talking
about faith and at one moment Remy asked for Daniels number and Daniel gave it to him and started telling us that he has never changed his
phone number. He said that God wants us to be faithful in ALL
things... so he doesn't change his phone number because he wants to be
completely faithful! I got a good laugh out of that one.

Last night Elder Pister and I ate caterpillars! Yeah, that's right, I
typed that! It actually didn't even taste that bad. The only bad thing
was just knowing what you were eating. They were HUGE like the ones in
Lion King, when Timone and Pumba are eating the grubs. Mmmmm :)

Well, I think that is about it for this week. I am alive and doing well
over here in Ekounou 1. I will be with Elder Pister for another
transfer, so I am pretty happy. I love my life! I love you! Until next
week!

Au revoir!
Elder Schmid