Quoi de neuf ma mère (Whats new my mother)!!

I love you so much. I hope you know that. Thanks for the email this week! I loved it! About 75% of the storms here are accompanied by thunder and lightning and it is amazing. Thunder is my favorite thing about nature and there is a lot of it whenever there is a storm. And as for your last question in the first paragraph... yes I am pretty sure that will be me :) So you better get ready!! Congratulations to Bug!! I got goose bumps when I read that awesome news! He will do awesome over there. I am so proud of that kid. He will have so much fun down there. I am way proud of Dallin as well! Talk about getting things done! I wish I was like that with my scouting life. Oh well... I still got my eagle right after I turned 15 :) So he has a little under a year to beat me. I can't believe that Ashlyn will be giving a family home evening lesson tonight!! I miss that little angel.

So, this past week was pretty sweet! Like always, I love working with Elder Thibault. My quality as a missionary has grown so much since being district leader and trainer. I love how responsibility can shape you. I am far from perfect... but I am progressing and that is exactly what the Lord wants. Serge is doing alright. He disappeared for two weeks because he found work and he doesn't have a phone number, so it is next to impossible to contact him. He showed up to church yesterday and let me know of his life situation and what not. He knows our message is true and that he needs it... so now its just a matter of faith pushing him to action. I have faith in him though... so I know with time things will fall into place.

We have another ami de l'église named Paul. We found him the same time we found Serge. They were actually together. Paul disappeared because of work and he was way far away. Well, one day we were in his neck of the woods in a quartier called Ngangué, and we were raté'd (had a "no show" for an appointment) so we went to see if we could figure out anymore about Serge, and his mom told us that he wasn't there but that Paul was back and she wanted us to go talk with him... so we did! We had an amazing rendezvous, and after 50 minutes we had one more person committed to baptism. I love working with Paul so much because he is a man that if he knows something is true, he will follow that faith. So our work with him involves us building his faith so that it becomes that amazing anchor in his life. We went over the word of wisdom and helped him understand that it is a commandment from God... yes even though Jesus drank wine along with all the apostles. I hate that argument. He knows that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and that The Church of Jesus Christ was restored through him, so after explaining that to him and explaining to him that if Joseph Smith was a true prophet, that would mean that the word of wisdom really came from Jesus Christ. So now he knows that it truly is a commandment and he is in the process of applying it to his life. It is easy to stop just like that. I was lucky with Remy back in Yaoundé. Paul will take a little longer but I know he will overcome that temptation. He came to church with his little 5 year old daughter and loved it! So I am happy.

We have an investigator whose name is Jeanne d'Arc... how awesome is that... Joan of Arc! I had no clue how to spell her name and then one day I asked her and she wrote it for me and it all clicked in my head. Anywho, she has an interview tomorrow for baptism and will be baptized this Saturday! If her interview goes well of course. She is such a solid amie. She loves the Book of Mormon so much and has such a solid testimony of it. Perfect!!! That is exactly what we want all of our amis de l'église (friends of the church) to have. If you know that the Book of Mormon is true then you know that our whole entire message is true! It is as easy as that and I love focusing on that when I teach. I love studying that amazing book each and every day. My testimony has grown so much because of the doctrine and gospel found on those pages.

I am pretty excited for you having those new windows! That must be so nice now! I remember waking up often and sweating pretty bad because the sun was shining on me through that 30 year old window in my room. Dallin and Aiden better be rejoicing! Any other news on home fixes? I was looking at my pictures that you sent me and I noticed that we have a monster coffee table now in the TV room! How is the progress of the shed?

I am in the process of writing letters to all the kids in the family. I am writing Dallins right now and I was rereading it and I realized how weird I sounded. I read it and said to myself, "Yup, I am definitely a missionary right now." I hope he enjoys it and doesn't think I am a freak. I don't know when the next person is going back to the states but when they do go I am almost sure I will have letters for all the kids. Welp, I gotta go. I love you all so much and I hope you have an amazing week! Je vous aime avec tout mon cœur! (I love you with all my heart!)

Love,
Elder Schmid