Hello family!

I hate doing email at this stupid internet café… I have been sitting here for 25 minutes and it still hasn’t opened up to my inbox in myldsmail. We had a sweet place in Yaoundé that was pretty fast and I am really missing that right now. Mais, ça va… at least I am in a place where there is email. So I loved reading your last emails. It seems like you had a great week last week. I am proud of Dallin and Caelan! I wish I could have been there for their concerts. Mom! How could you have forgotten your camera! I am curious to see how Dallin handles MVT football. They will work him like a horse but he will learn a whole lot. I never wanted to put in the time to do football. I bet he is having a lot of fun with those braces… sucker!! It will all be worth it in the end though. I am so grateful that I had braces.

I will try to answer all your questions that you asked in the last email. I think the leadership skills are doing alright. I love being a trainer because there is a whole new responsibility. Elder Lamb basically paved my mission for me… I want to be just like him. Your trainer has, by far, the greatest impact on your mission, I feel, and so I am really feeling the responsibility on my shoulders to be a great example and I love it! I can see myself becoming someone better. I love having this responsibility. I know that I am not the best leader, but I am trying my hardest. There have been some issues in the district between two companions and it has been kind of challenging working with it and trying to help them out. I was thrown into this position without any training or anything and I have had to learn very fast what my responsibilities are. Elder Thibault is doing great. It is awesome seeing his French improve almost everyday. He has adjusted very well. A lot better than I did, I feel. I love working with this kid. Right now, at this moment, he is talking to some guy in the cyber café and giving him a Restoration brochure. I’m telling you, this kid is a stud! Douala is Douala. Hard. Missionary work progressed a little easier I feel over in Yaoundé. Here, we have had to work a whole lot more on contacting and finding people and sifting through all those people and finding those who really are interested and have that desire to change their lives and follow the example of their Savior, Jesus Christ, and be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God. I can't believe that Tyler is already back!! I miss that kid so much. Only 13 more months until him and I can go eat Steves Krazy Sub!! Living conditions here in Douala are pretty nice. Just like Yaoundé except we are never out of water. The power goes out about once a week for an hour or two but its no big deal because most of the time we aren't even in the apartment. It does suck, though, when you don't have a fan blowing on you. You sweat like crazy if you don't. We have a horrible ant problem. They are tearing up the kitchen. We don't know what to do!! We thought we killed their big nest and the next day there is a huge trail of ants coming up the wall from the apartment below us! It is ridiculous. There are no cockroaches... I have only seen 2 and they are only the small ones... like only an inch long.

So, this week was a pretty good one. Last night I had a super random headache that nailed me, and I couldn't take it, so I went and got into bed after taking some advil. I was just laying there when I heard this loud BOOM... BOOM BOOM BOOM!! I thought someone was getting shotup in the street so I looked out the window and right as I did the whole sky lit up and there was this huge firework! I guess May 20th is some kind of holiday for Cameroon and they were celebrating it. So we had a sweet firework show that was super close to the apartment. The rain came and it was raining hard but that didn't stop it. I got some sweet pictures and videos that you will see when I send this memory card home. One of our progressing investigators took a big step backwards. We were teaching her and she was doing great and then at one rendezvous I asked her if she would come to church this Sunday and she told me that she would be at her other church. I took that opportunity to explain to her that covenant of baptism that she had accepted to undertake on June 2nd. I explained to her that when we make that promise with the Lord we promise to follow all His commandments... including respecting the sabbath day... which includes going to church, and not just to any church, but to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I told her that when she would be baptized that this church would become her new church and that she will have promised with God that she will always go to that church. I explained to her 2 Nephi 31:14 and said that we are not going to baptize her if she is not willing to completely accept this promise. I think that is a big problem that we have had here in Douala... we have tons and tons of inactives here in Douala because they didn't fully understand the significance of the covenant they made. So Elder Thibault and I are really focusing our efforts now on inactives and helping them come back into the light that once illuminated their souls. This is how I see it... God is a just God. It is promised to all of His children that we will have the opportunity to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ and follows its precepts. We also have the agency to deny it. That choice WILL come to all. Well, there are many people here in Douala who have already made that choice and have now fallen away and there is no second chance... that theory is as fake as that sheriff guy that got caught recently. So we want to help those who have once tasted of the fruit and who know that the fruit is good. Because theoretically, they are the ones who have the greatest need of us, the missionaries. So yeah, Shella is no longer progressing, but I hope that that will change. We weren't able to see Serge at all this last week because he found work and his hours don't mesh well with ours. But no worries, we will figure something out. He is way excited about the gospel. He has been sharing his testimony a lot with his friends and they want to meet with us now so I am hoping that a whole lot of good will come out of this.

I want to share something that has really been helping me out a lot lately. Go to the Preach My Gospel and open up to the very last page in chapter 6 and evaluate yourselves with how you live a Christ-like life. I have been really trying to become Christ-like recently... improve my patience and love for others and that page has been working miracles. That whole chapter has, actually. I love studying Christ-like attributes. And I love what Alex said in her last email about gaining intelligence... it is as simple as asking!! It is so true and so simple but so many of us have a hard time understanding that. But along with asking comes effort on our part. DJ gave me The Infinite Atonement and I have been reading in that a lot just to improve and build my testimony of my Savior and of His atoning sacrifice and that study has blessed my life so much. Every time I find myself studying that topic I am so happy and my love for the gospel is so much bigger and my desire to do good and everything necessary to get back to my Heavenly Father is always on fire. Every time I feel like that, it is when I study... I am starting to understand what "feasting upon the words of Christ" really means. I love studying the gospel of Jesus Christ!!

Well, that's about all I have for this week. I love you all and I am so happy that everything is going well back at home. You are the best :)

Je t'aime,
Elder Schmid