Dear Mom,

 

So, right now I am currently chilling in Yaoundé! Elder Lavering had to come up here to work out some visa paperwork and get his carte de séjour (residence permit). The Gailey's picked us up at 7:00 in the morning, yesterday, and we drove in their truck up here to Yaoundé. It was such a beautiful ride. I have been in Africa for over a year, but sometimes it just seems surreal that I am on the African continent preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Such an awesome blessing. There would be stretches on the drive where you are in the jungle with huge trees all around you and you can't even see into the forest because there is so much vegetation. We were driving in the clouds and it poured big time. We had to dodge a huge tree that had fallen on the road and a flipped over semi truck. You get to really see what "au village" is when you drive to and from Yaoundé. You see so many red dirt huts. It was a gorgeous drive. I had a monster headache and it was bugging me so much. Then Sister Gailey rolled down her window to take a picture and once the warm fresh air hit my face my headache almost immediately went away. It was so bizarre. I guess I can't handle the a/c... I'm going to be messed up when I get back home.

 

Yesterday, I was able to go to my old area and say hi to some very close friends. I surprised Jimmy. He was so excited to see me. He came up to me and just picked me up and gave me this huge hug. That man is so strong. Your hand disappears when you shake his hand. He kept on hugging me. I miss him so much. This Saturday he will be baptizing his two oldest kids!! Soon he will have an eternal family :) I am so proud of him and for all the progress he has made. Before we left he asked me to say a prayer and it was pretty intimate. We have such an awesome bond. We then went and saw frère Odoumba and Aimé. Aimé was baptized last year on October 15th... It has almost been a year! I was able to talk on the phone with my first convert, Ernestine. She hit her year mark back on the 17th of this month. It's weird thinking that that much time has passed. It is weird being back here in Yaoundé. I am smelling certain smells and it is throwing me back to when I first got here. It is so trippy. Last night I had one of the most amazing sleeps on my mission. In the Bastos apartment, there is a wall of open windows and we had fresh cool air circulating through the apartment all night. Amazing. I love Yaoundé.

 

So back to Douala news. We had two baptisms on Saturday! We were able to baptize Catherine and Rosalie. We ran into a little chaos on Saturday morning. President Njampou called me at 6:30 in the morning and told me that there was no water at the church. We couldn't go to plan B because at the couples apartment the pool is all green because they don't clean it during rainy season for some reason, so we had to go to plan c. We were able to plan the baptism at Bonaberi. We tried calling Catherine and Rosalie, but they weren't answering their phones, so we put on our missionary attire and we went to their house. Rosalie was out playing with friends and Catherine was out at a funeral and wouldn't be back until 1:00 in the afternoon and she wasn't answering her phone. So it got a little stressful, but we were able to get a hold of them and tell them about the change of program. They were so happy to get baptized. We had Catherine's neighbor, André, with us and he loved the baptismal service so much. It was very small but very nice and the Spirit was definitely felt. They were confirmed exactly 3 months after we first met them. The work continues!

 

So I forgot to write about this little incident last week and I thought it was pretty funny so I am going to throw it into this weeks email. I was in the shower getting ready for the day and I got all soaped up and Abega calls and wants to talk to me. Elder Lavering was talking to him and told him that I was in the shower and everything but he insisted on talking to me so I turned off the water and got the phone and started talking to him... even though I had soap suds all over me. I talked to him for about a minute and then got back into the shower and right as I went to turn the water back on the power went out. When there is no power there is no water. So there I was with soap all over me and I could do nothing. So I decided that I was going to wait it out and just sat there for about 15 minutes, but no water. Finally Elder Lavering was like, "Hey I can give you my water bottle..." and I thought that that was the best thing going for me so I accepted, and he went and got it and handed it to me. It had been in the fridge over night and was next to frozen. I sat there for a moment and didn't know what to do... and then after a few minutes I decided to use it. It was the most painful shower I have ever experienced. It was a liter and a half of nearly frozen water. So right as I finish dumping the liter and half of nearly frozen water on me I get out and dry off and right as I finish drying off the power came back on and warm water started shooting out of the spout again... I yelled out, "Ahhh commmme oooon!!!" Elder Lavering thought it was the funniest thing ever. Yeah. Ha.

 

Our investigator has had a rough few weeks. He called me on Saturday night and promised me that he would be at church on Sunday so Elder Lavering and I were really looking forward to seeing him there. Well, on Sunday we come to the intersection where we have to get out of the taxi, and we get out and Elder Lavering says, "Hey look, Alex!" So I look over and there I see this uncoordinated young man with a goofy helmet and a bright orange vest driving a moto with a passenger on it, waving and looking at us and smiling like a little boy....and then he ran into a moving car. He was thrown from the moto along with the passenger but they were okay. They just had a few little cuts on their hands and legs. Alex looked so depressed... I felt so bad but it was so hard not to laugh. Everyone was totally fine... nothing big happened. The moto's windshield was broken and the right mirror was a little busted up. The bad thing is that the moto doesn't even belong to Alex. Some french guy that he used to work for has let him use it because Alex quit his job as a security guard because the people he was around were a very bad influence on him. So it will cost a lot to fix up the moto... well to us not that much but to Alex it will cost an arm and a leg. Poor kid. We will be seeing him on Wednesday so we'll see whats up.

 

Mom, I got your little package with the pictures and memory card and the notes. Thank you so much!! I love those pictures so much. I still can't get over how much Dallin is changing. It is going to be so weird when I get home. Well I have to go. I don't have much more time! I love you all so much and I hope that you have a great week!

 

Je vous aime,

Elder Schmid