Dear Mom,

It sounds like you had a blast up at the cabin! I miss that place so much. I was thinking about you all being up there a lot this week... kinda jealous... but then again, I am in the middle of Africa preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and helping others come unto Christ. That's pretty sweet :) You are lucky that the water truck was right there to get the fire out! What a blessing! (Lightning struck a tree close to my sisters cabin.)  I am sad I missed a sweet lightning storm like that, but then again, I am not, because when there is a lightning storm here it is all around you and it is sooo loud and I love it so much. Especially when you are in the houses of the people here. Their houses are very similar to the cabin... with metal roofs and basic walls. So when you are in there, and lightning strikes, you really hear it. It sounds like you had amazing weather!! Can you send some of that my way?? That would be awesome. I wish I could of been there to experience that awesome testimony meeting with everyone! I am proud of Aiden! That kid is such a stud. That is so neat that he recognized the hand of the Lord in his life and how he was protected. What a neat thing to experience. I love the testimony of children. Aiden truly is a special kid. I totally know what you are talking about when you talk about the detail of his prayers and what he prays for. He sets an example for me! You got me to laugh out loud when you wrote about Ruffles getting picked up by the owl. What a story that could have been. How is that dumb dog doing? So, Dallin and I have both had flashing lights behind us now, huh? Sweet. I'm not alone :) I'm still waiting for Caelan to get some tickets. Has she gotten in any trouble yet on the road? I'm guessing the Van De Graaffs are doing pretty well if they were able to buy that new toy. It will be awesome having that cabin all fixed up. I look forward to going up there and helping out when I get back. Or, will it all be finished before I get back? I hope you all have fun at Kinder Spring this week! Next year when you plan Kinder Spring you better do it so I will be back because I want to go!

We have an investigator named Rosaline and she is incredible. I don't know if I wrote about her last week, but I am going to this week. We had some awesome rendezvous with her and we finished the Restoration and taught the law of chastity and we really went into the importance of the Book of Mormon, and she is eating up all of our lessons and loving it. She loves being with the young women in the branch and they all sat together in church yesterday during Sacrament meeting (We have two YW age girls that we are teaching and they have been sucked into the branch by all the other young women). She is even coming to the YW activities and helping them all plan for their future activities and even participating in the activities. The YW right now are working on some talk thing and each YW took a value, and Rosaline asked if she could do one... she didn't know if she was allowed to or not because she is not a member yet. How awesome is that? We have invited her to be baptized on the 21st of July and she accepted in a heart beat. We might have to push that back though because she might be going to Yaoundé to visit her dad for a few weeks but I am hoping and praying that she will stay here. We talked with her yesterday and she said that her dad is getting better so she might not go. So that's Rosaline, she's legit.

There is an inactive member named Marie Agnes and we kind of taught her right when I got here to Douala but we gave up because there was absolutely no desire. Well, the other day, she was on my mind a lot and we got a ratévous so we went and walked by her house and as we were walking by her house she was right there with her son... I knew that God wanted us to talk with her so we sat down and started talking about life and what not. I finally started talking about the things that really matter... the gospel. She has an autistic son who has the mind of a little child. A child who is qualified for and promised life eternal. We were both looking at her boy run around chasing the other kids around and I asked, "Marie Agnes, did you know that because of Warren's state he is promised eternal life in the Celestial Kingdom with our Heavenly Father?" She answered no and then I continued, "Warren, in the end, will be in the Celestial Kingdom. That is a promise that Heavenly Father has given him. Do you love Warren? Do you want to be with him forever?" She answered yes and then I continued, "Marie Agnes, he will be there, but will you be?" Boom!! I nailed her! The Spirit was sooo strong and you could tell that he was testifying to her like none other that she needs to change her life. I went onto explain that we are promised eternal life IF we follow the gospel of Jesus Christ and remain faithful to our covenants that we make with our Heaven Father. Her big question has been, "Why, why, why?! why do I have all these trials and problems? Does God not like me?" Throughout the rendezvous I explained to her what I thought. I said, "I believe God has blessed you with Warren because he wants you so badly to return to him. You are His daughter and he loves you more than you even love Warren. He gave you Warren to help you make it to Him in the end. He gave you Warren to give you the desire and fire to endure to the end." It was a pretty powerful rendezvous and the Spirit was testifying big time. It was an incredible moment. I am hoping and praying that things will finally start to move along for her and that we can help her come back.

We are teaching a lady named Rose, and this week we taught her the commandment about the Sabbath Day and how we need to respect it and keep it holy. Well, she wasn't at church this Sunday. Wanna know why? Because she was at the marché (market) ! When her daughters told me that at church I slapped my forehead with my palm and mumbled, "Come oooonnn Rose!" Teaching people is pretty funny sometimes. Yeah, it gets stressful but there is always a little humor.

We have an investigator named Etienne and he is awesome... half of the time. He is the king of ratévous and that gets so annoying. It bugs me because when someone won't follow through and show up for the rendezvous they won't even call you to let you know. Etienne is the worst at that. But, when we do have our rendezvous they are so incredible and he has such a great desire to get baptized. He was asking us this week what exactly he needs to learn to get baptized, what the requirements were, when he could get baptized. He knows with all his heart that our message is true, he just raté's us. Its a roller coaster with him. All is well though... things will come around.

We have another awesome investigator named Elizabeth and she was out in her village last week and she brought her Book of Mormon and was talking with here family and friends about the church. One of them said, "Oh! You can't follow them! The church of Mormon is a sect!!" Elizabeth quickly corrected her and said, "I don't go to the church of Mormon, I go to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And have you ever read the Book of Mormon because I am reading it right now and I am learning things that I have never known before and it is helping me out so much." When she was telling me this story, I couldn't stop thinking of that amazing talk by Elder Callister last October on the Book of Mormon and that little girl who bore testimony about the Book of Mormon to her friend. It is incredible how powerful the Book of Mormon is in the conversion process. I love that book so much. We are all so blessed to have it with us so that we can learn and increase our knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ. Elizabeth loves the book and it is her testimony of the Book of Mormon that is driving her to learn everything she can so that she can get baptized. And that is how it should be.

One day we had a ratévous and so we went to the carrefour Shell Newbell to go see if Marie Agnes would be at her house and as we were walking we walked by another inactive's house that I had never met before. Elder Thibault stopped and asked if we should go visit him. I thought that was a great idea so we did. We went up and knocked on the door and it was silent for a few seconds and then we heard, "C'est qui?" and so we told him that it was the missionaries. We heard some shuffling around and then he invited us in. We talked with him for about an hour about his life and his problem. He has a skin eating disease in his leg and it really limits his ability to get up and move around. Right before we got there, he was on his couch praying and crying asking the Lord to help him because he was in so much pain. A few moments later Elder Thibault and I were there at the door. When he was telling us this story, he was almost brought to tears... as he was telling it to us he realized that the Lord had answered his prayer. It was such a spiritual experience. I am hoping to get him back and active and to get his leg healed. I have no clue how we will do it because he has been battling with it for a very long time, but I know that God is a God of miracles.


Je vous aime,
Elder Schmid