C'est comment ma mère! (Don't try to google translate that... that is bad African french)
I can't believe it! This time last year, I was freaking out because I only had four more days until I had to report to the MTC! Time has flown by so fast! Today is the one year anniversary of Aidens baptism!! That was such an awesome experience. Don't worry, I won't be burning or destroying anything this Friday. My ties are way to precious to me. And I think the pattern goes like this: 6 months - tie, 12 months - shirt, 18 months - pants, 24 months - suit coat. But no one does that over here. We are just going to go to this place called Chez Nora's and eat some nice fatty africanized american food. It will probably be just another day... nothing to special. I love the people where I am serving... you have to or you cannot be an effective missionary. But I will leave it at that... like that saying goes, love the sinner, hate the sin. I am surrounded by sin. If you and Dad came over here to pick me up you would be blown away. There are amazing people here, but the people in general, here in Cameroon, can't get away from the beer and they love their women. We had one guy in a taxi ask us how we like the women here in Cameroon and we quickly told him that we are not here for the women, but to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. He went on to say that even if you are married and away from your wives you need to be 'relieved' at least once a month. At about that moment, I started to ignore him and he went on for about 5 minutes until he arrived at his destination telling us about how he left to go to the Congo, and he was with women during all the free time he had, and when he came back he got on his knees and begged for forgiveness from his wife and he said that when his wife forgave he knew that his god forgave him. He told us that you just need to ask for forgiveness after you do something and it will be alright. Mangez, bouvez, réjouissez-vous, car demain nous mourrons. Doctrine of the devil!!! I love Cameroon though. This country has played a huge part in my maturing as a missionary.

That is so tragic... all those kids seeing our neighbor in all his saggy glory. Je suis désolé!! How was the week with Dumb and Dumber?? That cracked me up. I love Dad, and his cheesy humor. I totally take after him. I am sure Ashlyn had an awesome week with that little dog. I'm sure Aiden had a great birthday! 9 years old! Wow... I remember getting my Nintendo SP and I thought that was the most amazing thing in the world and now that is so obsolete and ghetto. I miss Sunsplash so much... well not just sunsplash, but pools in general. It is so hot over here with all the humidity and it would be such an awesome treat to jump in a pool for a little bit... but NOPE! ça va... one more year! And that means I will get my tan back too!! Awww yeah :) You are going to laugh big time when you see me. Good thing I am coming back in the summer time.

So, here is what went down this week over here in Douala. We are teaching this ami de l'église (investigator) named Albertine and it has been an interesting week. Every time we saw her we were with a member and the member and her or her husband ended up bible bashing and it was so annoying. She has hit a total brick wall in her progression. It is so annoying when you meet people and teach people and you know that they are tasting of the fruit and then Satan gets to them and they lose their desire to continue and they just ask stupid dumb questions... all which could be answered if they had a testimony of the Book of Mormon, but they are too lazy to read the Book of Mormon. It is annoying because it feels like we have wasted 6 weeks... just to go no where. I would rather get denied at the very beginning with a door slammed in my face then to go for a while and see their testimony grow and then to see them deny it and quit. Its sad. Work here in Douala is so much different than in Yaoundé. It's not easier in Yaoundé but it seems like there are just more people there who are willing to accept our message and change their lives for the better.

On a happier note our ami Paul has come around and we have fixed a baptismal date with him for the 21st of July. It was cool how that came about. We met with him and Serge at the church one night and we talked about the necessity of having the desire to change, and then to act on that desire... because faith without works is dead. That has been Pauls problem. He has all the desire in the world... but when temptation comes, he falls. Well, I should say that he fell. That night we fixed a goal and if that goal was accomplished there is a promise. We promised him that if he would come to church every Sunday for the next month (so 4 Sundays), he would receive all the help and power from the Lord to overcome his temptation to drink alcohol. The Spirit was really strong throughout the rendezvous and he knew that that promise could and would become reality if he put his faith to the test. So, he told us that night that he will no longer miss church and that he will be there for every Sunday from then on out. I know that the Lord will accord him the power necessary to overcome this trial as he puts his faith to the test. I love this work!

As you have read in my past emails, there are waaayyyy to many inactives here in Douala. We got an updated member record sheet from September 2011 and there are over 300 members on that list... we have like a 65% inactivity rate here. So, with that nasty statistic we have really been focusing on our inactives. Elder Nuttall ordered GPS units for each companionship here in Douala, and with that we try to find every member and get their coordanates because addresses don't really exist here. We are trying to find all the members telephone numbers and what not so that we can get into contact with every single one and work with them to try and find out what happened. There are sooo many that we still need to find. It will be a hard, long work but it will be worth it. We have already found success and we had 4 or 5 inactives at church yesterday so I am happy! The worth of souls is great in the sight of God. We received a coordonnée from this amazing family in our branch and she is from the tribe of Douala. I swear that is one of the lost tribes of Israel. The strongest people in our branch all coindedentally come from the tribe of Douala. So anywho, we got a coordonnée and we met her and she took us to her house to meet her whole family, and as she was walking, she kept on telling us this, "Parmi les hommes je suis pauvre, mais selon l'évangile de Jésus-Christ je suis riche." When we got to her house we knew exactly what she was talking about. She was in one of the most rundown shacks I have been to since arriving here to Africa in September 2011. And yet, her family was so happy to have us there and they were so excited to learn about our message. They now have 4 Books of Mormon floating around that house with a lot of brochures and they are all reading! I am really excited to teach this family. I love teaching families! The Gospel is all about families and I know that this family will be one of the richest families in the eternities if they but accept our message.

There was this pretty sweet fight in this area called Cité-sic. There were these two kids who were about 10 years old. One was a boy and the other a girl. They were pushing each other around and yelling and getting into each others faces and then the boy made a very bad mistake... he took a swing at the girl. She went OFF on him and nailed him with punch after punch and body slammed him and tackled him and punched him some more. The boy was furious because he was just getting whooped on. People came and broke it up but he insisted on continuing, and with every approach he was humiliated even more. Eventually this boys mom came and guess what she did... she continued to beat him! She was slapping him and threw him against a wall... she was angry because he was fighting a girl. Poor kid... his ego took a huge hit that day. Beat up by two women.

I finished reading "Believing Christ" and it was such an incredible book. Thank you so much for sending that to me! I learned so much and I can't wait to go through it again to really dive into it and read all the references and what not. I had one of the most amazing studies of my mission on the 23rd and I only read four verses... Mosiah 15:8-11. It was neat just putting things together and understanding things and pondering in detail certain principles and doctrines found in those verses. I am trying to write about it all in my study journal and I have about a two and a half pages written so far. I think if I finish by next week I will email it to you. We'll see. Well, life is great over here! I hope you all know that I am loving my mission and I am growing so much. I hope these emails are not boring to read... I feel like I am so boring when I write. It is so hard to explain to you even a fraction of what goes down over here... not only am I on a mission but I am in a completely different world. I love my mission :)

Je t'aime, maman,
Elder Schmid