Hello Mom :)

Have I ever told you that I love your emails? I love that they are long. Thank you so much for being on the ball with those. So I know that you are all curious with how Douala is... and I only have three words... HOT AS HECK. Elder Graham and I got on the bus in Yaoundé and it was supposed to be a VIP bus... haha. VIP my left eyebrow. The back window, that we were sitting next to, was an orange plastic shield thing that was glued to the body of the bus. It was starting to fall off, so, whenever a big semi drove by us, going the opposite way, the window went out big time and then came back and smacked the bus. If your head was there it could of easily knocked you out. The AC was crud too... It was like a little baby was trying to blow air on you. I was sitting next to an uneducated woman the whole time. There was one woman who had a window open because it was so hot inside and it felt great because there was a nice breeze that would come in... but then the stupid woman that I sat next to chewed this other woman out and told her to close the window because it was letting all the cold air out. I said to myself, "What the heck woman?! What cold air is there to let out?!" Needless to say, it was a long 4 hours. So we finally got to Douala, and Elder Nuttall came and picked us up and took us to his apartment. They have a rockin apartment with AC. It felt way good. We chilled there and waited for all the other missionaries to come and we had an awesome enchilada dinner and then we sat down to watch the movie "Amazing Grace" but it didn't work so we ended up playing four rounds of What-if. I love that game so much. Afterwards they took me to my apartment, and once there, I unpacked. The whole entire time I was unpacking I had sweat dripping from my forehead, nose, chin, arms, and adams apple. I don't even know how to describe the heat to you. Its miserable if you don't have a fan on you... at all times. At the end of the day my shirts are damp like they just came out of the washer. It is disgusting. My little handkerchief is soaking wet at the end of everyday. The first few nights here all the missionaries in the apartment slept in the living room and we had 4 rotating fans going on... if you don't have them, you die. So aside from the heat, I love Douala! It is flat and every morning when I go out I feel like I am in California... and then about 30 minutes later the humidity sets in and I realize that I am in hell again. The roads are nice and well kept. The branch is AWESOME! I am really excited to work here and see what the Lord has in store for me. To go into one part of our sector we have to jay walk a strait up freeway and it is the scariest thing in the world. You run across the freeway to the middle sidewalk thing... which is only about 2 feet wide, and you sit there and wait until the next side is free, then you dart across. It is freaky when you are standing on the median because these huge semis drive by you and you feel like you are going to fall over. As scary as it is, it is pretty cool... Its just another thing I get to add to my awesome mission story. Today we were with the Bonaberi elders and we needed to go to this casino grocery store, so we decided to call a taxi... for 8 people. Well, taxi men here won't deny more money so we found a taxi pretty quick and we all stuffed ourselves in. There were three of us in the front seat and five in the back seat. So picture the Allreds little orange car with 9people inside of it! The taxi man said that that was the very first time he had taken 8 people before. It was a proud moment for me. My new companion is Elder Spens. He is from Plain City, Utah and he is so goofy and funny. We are going to have so much fun together. He and I were in the MTC for 3 weeks together. He is one transfer ahead of me. I am really looking forward to working with him. I am with Elder Nash again and the other elder is Elder Thompson. He is 6'3 and super chill. I love being around the guy. We have a great apartment over here in Bali. So yeah, Dad wanted to know where exactly our apartment is. Go onto google maps and zoom into the area called Bali. You will find a thing called Brassiers du Cameroun. That is where Cameroon gets all their beer and drinks. I am pretty sure I spelled that wrong but you will find it easily. We have a gps at the apartment so next Monday I will try to send you coordinates so that you can see my exact location.

As for your questions, I wasn't able to say bye to everyone I wanted to, but that was alright. That would have been impossible. I am kinda glad it is over with though because I was kinda stressing out about it. I made sure to say goodbye to my closest friends. I got some pretty sweet gifts too! I got a legit bobo (African wear), a Casio g-shock frogman watch (from Jimmy), a belt, sandals, and a custom made African shirt. I will have to take pictures with them on and send them to you. I think you would get a kick out of my shirt... its legit!

Speaking of legit, there is a kid here named Jacques. He has been an investigator for over 4 years. He is completely active and goes to every meeting there is and is even a branch missionary and comes out and serves with us. His father won't let him get baptized, but that doesn't stop him. He still comes and does everything. We have a baptismal date set for some time in April because he is now of age to make his own decision. He had a hard time saying Schmid, and since I kept on saying legit to him one night, he now calls me Elder Legit and I call him Frère Legit. I love that kid. He is such an inspiration. I am not yet with any native missionaries. Right when I left Yaoundé, 3 came so I barely missed them. Witchcraft definitely exists over here... it gets pretty annoying. I ran into it a lot over in Yaoundé. I am curious to see if it is any different over here in Douala. You can still use the same address to mail me things... and I will get them right when they arrive in Douala so that will be super nice. Whenever you send me packages, make sure you send them in those envelopes (Ready Post Bubble Mailer) that you have been sending because then they don't want to go through the hassle of cutting up all the tape and opening them up. That will always be your safest bet. As far as the memory cards go, I have 4 empty 8gb, so no worries yet on that.

I love you all so much and I can't wait to hear from you next week!

Love,
Elder Schmid