Hello Mom!

Another week has come and gone and I can’t believe that I am here again in this hole-in-the-wall cyber café. This week has been pretty eventful so I am just going to jump right in. So, remember last week in my email when I said that I wasn’t feeling too hot? Well, that was towards the beginning of my time there at the café… by the time I finished my skin was very hot (very uncomfortable to touch) and I felt super weak and tired. I knew that I was dehydrated because I hardly drank any water the day before and I walked out under the scorching sun for 3-4 hours. So, I told Elder Spens that I needed to go back to the apartment and rest because I didn’t want to get really sick. I got back to the apartment and crashed on my bed and was in my bed for 6 hours. I had a pounding headache… every time I would stand up or I would lay back down again it felt like my head was going to explode. It was horrible. I felt like I was going to throw up and eventually I did… every little thing that was inside of me. It was horrible. My bowels were going crazy too. I was feeling super hot throughout the day so we took my temperature and I was at 102.2. It was so uncomfortable! The Nuttalls came by that night to drop off some things and to bring me some malaria medicine because all the symptoms I had were the same symptoms of malaria. They left and I went and laid back down and about an hour after that I got up and had the 3 elders give me a blessing. Elder Spens was the one who gave the blessing. In the middle of the blessing I received the strongest urge to throw up and I knew that I was going to blow soon so I hoped and prayed that the blessing would be short… and thankfully Elder Spens listened to the promptings of the spirit and finished the blessing relatively quick and so I quickly got up and shook everyone's hands and quickly went to the bathroom. As I was walking everything went black and I couldn't see anything... I wasn't all there in the head either and I ran into a wall and busted open my lip and as I was falling down from that I nailed my knee and head on the bathroom door breaking it open and slamming it into the bathtub and I fell to the ground. It took me a while to get myself together so I was just laying there on the bathroom floor in the dark... I got up after about a minute and threw up into the sink and I looked in the mirror and saw blood running down my forehead... I busted open my forehead when I hit the door. So I went back to the elders and told them that I basically passed out and told them to call the Nuttalls and then I went back and laid down and they all took care of me. Elder Nash made this water mixed with sugar and salt and once I drank that I started feeling a lot better. All it was was a pretty extreme case of dehydration...well, for me it was extreme. Nothing like that has ever happened to me in my life. The last time I was "out" was when I collided with a giant in the outfield at Cooley park. I stayed in the next day and rested and studied a lot. At the end of Tuesday I was feeling back to normal and didn't have a headache or anything. Nothing was in my system though so I have been trying to eat a lot lately. So there you have it... my first 'sick' story from being out on the mission.

On Thursday, Elder Spens and I did a lot of door-to-door contacting and we had 10 lessons! Its crazy how accepting people are here. Yes, there are always the people that want nothing to do with us and they yell at us and say some pretty funny things, but there are also the people that have that genuine hunger and thirst for something new... they recognize that their spiritual life is lacking so when they see us or hear us they are more than willing to accept us and listen to our message. That brings me to my next subject: Paul and Serge. We me Paul and Serge when we went contacting on Thursday and it was simply an amazing rendez-vous. We walked up to Pauls door and presented ourselves and said that we have a message about Jesus Christ and asked if they had a few minutes so that we could share it. We ended up being there for about an hour talking about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and the Restoration. It was incredible! Paul and Serge were so excited to receive their own copies of the Book of Mormon...for free! We left them with a few verses in Moroni 10 and 2 Nephi 26 and fixed a return rendez-vous the next day. The next day we get there and Serge was at work so we met with Paul and we asked him what he read and what he learned. He went on to explain that he read all of 2 Nephi 26, Moroni 10, and he read the title page, introduction, and all the testimonies! He read so much and loved every part of it. We had an awesome lesson with him! Paul is in his 40's and has some kids, so in my head I was already thinking of how we are going to combat the law of chastity in the future and as I was thinking that he started to explain how him and his girlfriend live separately and we asked him why and he said, "Well, in the bible its says to not fornicate, so..." I was in complete shock! I could not believe what was coming out of the mouth of a Cameroonian man. I will testify to you that that will probably never happen again to me on my mission. I couldn't believe it! I wanted to jump up and give this guy a huge hug! I was so proud of him! Go to dictionary.com and look up golden investigator... they will have a picture of Frère Paul. So that was our lesson with him that day. That night we get a call from Serge telling us how sorry he was that he wasn't there and that he really wanted us to come by the next day and teach him... so we did! And we had another great rendez-vous with him and Paul. We are going through the first lesson right now and everything is going smoothly. They both came to church this last Sunday and they brought a few of the little kids with them. In our investigator class they were teaching the law of chastity and Serge was kinda surprised that we can't have sexual relations before marriage. Oh well... I'm glad he knows about it... ça arrive. So there you have it... my two newest investigators! I really hope that we can get two baptisms out of this because then I will have seen someone baptized from the effort of me knocking doors. That would be cool.

The other day Elder Spens and I were in the taxi coming home from this quartier called cité-sic and I was in the front seat and he had the whole back seat to himself. All the windows were down because it was blasted hot... like always. Elder Spens decides to call the other elders in our apartment to figure out dinner and as he was on the phone a random arm came in through the window and grabbed his scripture bag which was on his lap and tried to pull it out the window, but it was strapped around Elder Spens so it only went so far... while this is happening Elder Spens is just going, "Hey! What the?!" and I look back and see this guy in a blue shirt take off... I bet he felt like a retard. He is lucky he didn't get caught because here in Douala they have a thing called Public Justice... if you get caught stealing you will pay the bloody price. Many people are killed. A few weeks ago two guys on a moto stole the purse of Sister Nuttall and drove off while they weren't looking. A recent convert was talking to the elders and told them that there were a group of guys down by the river going through things that they stole from a 'white woman' in Bonanjo and it broke out into a fight and one of the men was killed (drowned) and the cops came and the murderers bribed the cops with all the money in the purse and were able to go away free. How wicked is that. I witnessed a little 'public justice' over by the prison in Yaoundé and that will be a moment in my life that I will never forget. It was heart wrenching. So yeah, Elder Spens was almost robbed but he had a strap on so the guy got away with nothing.

The last few days it has been super warm and super sunny and now I have a sweet tan. That also means that I have a legit farmers tan and ring around my neck. ça sera grave quand je rentre chez moi à la fin de ma mission. Vous allez rire jusqu'à! (Will be serious when I go home at the end of my mission. You will laugh)

This Friday we had Zone conference over at the Nuttalls and we had all the elders from Yaoundé with us as well. They took a bus down and stayed the night with us at our apartments and then we had our big conference the next day. It was awesome! I love it so much when President Jameson is in town. I love talking with that man. He always knows what advice to give me and I always walk away from a meeting with him with a greater desire to do good and a greater fire to be the best I can be... I guess those are kind of the same thing, but to me they are different. I am so lucky that he lives so close to me... it will be fun visiting with him and Sister Jameson after the mission. It is very intimidating speaking to him in french... because he was a french professor for so long. The first time I ever confirmed someone a member of the church he was right there behind me on the stand. Talk about pressure!! After the conference Elder and Sister Nuttall made this amazing chili! I haven't had something like that in so long! I miss the mexican food. I wasn't the biggest fan back home but right now that is the food that I miss the most.

In Africa there is this evil tradition called "la dot". Basically that means that if a man wanted to marry a certain woman the two families would get together and present the two wanting to get married and then the father of the bride would put a price basically on his daughter. The poor guy wanting to marry the girl would then have to satisfy the demands of the "beau-père" and once 'la dot' is paid they can get married. There are so many people that aren't married simply because the man cannot pay 'la dot'. There was a conference for all the stakes and districts of Africa and Elder Oaks spoke and pretty much said the 'la dot' comes from the Devil. In the recent Ensign, with the picture of Pres. Monson and his flag tie, there is an article with a skimmed down version of what Elder Oaks said about a year and a half ago. It is so bad. It is prolonging marriage... eternal marriage. So basically is prolonging the potential of our members to receive salvation. La dot vient du diable. (The dot comes from the devil)

I got your Easter package and I think that card you sent me is by far the best Easter card I have ever received! I laughed so hard when I read that! I love my family and I love the humor that is shared in our family. Thank you so much for that card! I can't wait to get that letter from Dallin. I miss that kid! I am so glad that he is doing well in basketball. I smiled so big when I read that he busted out my dance move in a basketball game. Atta kid!! I am really bummed that that letter I sent to you with my memory cards didn't make it to you. I wrote Dallin a really good letter. I promise you that you will all have a personal letter around the 10th day of May. I am writing a bunch of letters right now and I will send them home with Elder Thompson and when he gets home he will send them out... so that way you are basically guaranteed to get the letters. There will also be photos. All the photos that didn't get to you, and about 8 more gb. So you will have about 20 gb of photos and videos. I definitely suggest that Dad goes through them before anyone else does and makes sure that not all of them are seen. He will understand why when he is looking through. There are some pictures taken just to help me remember something crazy or funny that went down. The photos will explain themselves when the time comes.

Here is something funny... so here in the Bali apartment we live on the 3rd floor and sometimes when we have left overs we give them to our guards down stairs. But because we are so lazy we built this little lift/crane thing. We have a big bucket with two jump ropes tied together and a long pole and whenever we have stuff for them we whistle and they come out and we lower it down to them. There will be pictures of it when you get my photos in May.

Well, everything is going well here in Douala. Yes, the work is a little harder but amongst the struggles there are so many miracles and success stories. I love the mission so much. I miss you all so much and I can't wait to be together again in 14 1/2 months, but right now I am living THE life. Its incredible. This won't be the best two years of my life, but I quote what Elder Richardson said once in the October Conference, this is "the best two years FOR my life." I love you all and I pray for your health and safety! Au revoir!

Je t'aime,
Elder Schmid