Hello mother,

 

I think I know who I get my teasing skills from... you love to tease me in my emails :) It's okay, you are soooo lucky that... I won't finish that but you know what I would of said :) I LOVE CONGO!!! I am sweating like crazy, but I love it so much. Yes, it is more third world than Cameroon but the difference isn't that drastic. It is very hot when the sun is out and it seems like the humidity changes by the minute. We do a lot of walking and so we are in the sun a lot, and I am already getting more tan. I will have a gnarly farmers tan when I get back. I have adjusted fine to the AC. It is such a blessing. Last night we went to bed and we set the AC unit in our bedroom to 16 degrees celcius... awww yeah! Some nights when we get home, we will go strait to the room to turn on the AC and then we go to another room to close the day and when we come back into our room it is an ice box and I lay on the tiles and listen to Jon Schmidt. La vie est belle (life is beautiful). I talked to the Wheatley's a little about packages and they had one sent to them, but while it was at the post office, people went into it and tore it up, so when they picked up their stuff, it was in a big plastic sack. You can send mail. The address is:

 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Elder Christiaan Schmid

PO Box 1177

Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo

 

Letters take about 3-4 weeks to get here but I would love to get them :) Some missionaries have gotten packages. I don't know if they went through DHL or not. I'll try to get more info from the Wheatley's. Honestly, I would love it if you saved the money and took the family out to dinner or something. I don't want you to send something and pay an arm and a leg for it to just have it stolen. Just send letters. Letters are the best!

 

Marius loved the ring that he got. I'm sorry that was so expensive... It was almost half that price when I bought mine. He was stoked to have it though.

 

We just went and played basketball and I'm dunking again. It feels so good to jump like that. My shot is a little off but it'll come back.

 

We have amazing investigators over here. They are sincere and love to go to church. We have one investigator who is named Divin and he walks for a few hours just to get to church and then he walks back to his house. The other night after English class we left the church around 6:30 and it was already dark. You feel so bad because it would be sooo easy to give him bus money... like 200 cfa but it's against the rules. He loves to learn and is at the church multiple times throughout the week. He has a baptism set for this Saturday.

 

Our other baptismal candidate is Anna. She has been an investigator since I started my mission. Her parents divorced and both remarried and she lives with her grandmother. Her father is all down for her getting baptized but her mom is completely against it. We had a recommendation all filled out and her dad already signed it and the mom took it out of our hands and ripped it up. We have another recommendation filled out and the dad signed it, but this time the mom will not see it. We called President Jameson to know what we should do and he said that because of her situation (her not living with either of her parents, who are divorced) we are okay with the dad's signature and we can go ahead for the baptism. She just needs to talk to her mom to tell her about what she is going to do and that is it. She is very excited and so are we... it's about time!

 

The president of the branch here loves me and has already promised me a suit for when I go home. We are actually at his cyber café right now... but the internet sucks. It took me about 15 minutes to login to my email account. I didn't have time to read every email I got so I took pictures of them all and I'll read them tonight, so if people don't get a response to their email, it's because I didn't have any time.

 

When it rains here it becomes a huge muddy mess. Your shoes and pant bottoms are always dirty. There is trash everywhere too and it smells very bad. I would take our dump over on the rez over the smell here any day.

 

Elder Davis is awesome and I am grateful we are working together. He can ball me up any day when we're on the court. The kid is amazing. We get along well and we are starting to find that we are similar in a lot of ways. I look forward to the working with him for a while.

 

I have no clue what is happening in Gabon. THE ONLY THING WE ARE WAITING FOR is a French couple... that is all we need. Once they are there, President Jameson can start sending in the young missionaries. We might hear more when we have zone conference in the middle of November.

 

I'm doing well and I am loving my mission so much. I am so grateful that I am here and that I get to experience what I experience everyday. I lay in bed sometimes and it just hits me that I am in the Congo. It's surreal sometimes... and I love it! I love you so much and I hope that you have a great week!

 

Je t'aime maman,

Elder Schmid

Dear Mom,

 

I am finally here in Congo and it is great! We just got done playing basketball and I am super rusty. It was a nice court though. There is so much I could tell you but we only have an hour to email over here, so my emails probably won't be as long.

 

It was difficult saying goodbye to everyone over in Douala. I was really close to the branch and I loved them so much. I was able to see everyone I wanted to see before heading out so that was good. I got your package the day before I left, thank goodness. It had been in the post office for a month but they never gave the Gailey's a slip. I gave Marius his ring and he was so happy.

 

I got some comments this week about how I reacted with Alex when he showed up late again. Just know that it was done with love and he got the picture. It is next to impossible to explain our relationship but I don't want anyone thinking I was just blowing him off. Elder Lavering and I had been talking about how we needed to handle the situation and that is how we decided we would handle it... so he would get the picture. And he did. I was able to say goodbye to him and we actually had a really powerful rendez-vous and at the end he was in tears. He knows that our message is true and that he needs it, but he just needs to act on that testimony. He knows that he needs to change but he also knows that that will be difficult. But don't worry, it all ended well. I love that kid.

 

It was difficult saying goodbye to Elder Lavering. I love that kid so much. I was hoping that we would get a third transfer together but the Lord had a different idea. I am so grateful for the 12 weeks that I had to work with him. He is such a solid missionary and will do so many good things throughout his mission and after. He helped me improve with my missionary skills as well. I loved training him and I really hope that I will be able to see him again before I head home.

 

I love the Gailey's. I will miss them so much. I feel like the Gailey's and I got really close and I am so grateful for our relationship. I would of loved to have stayed in Douala just to work with the Gailey's for the rest of the mission. I am really excited, though, to work with the Wheatley's. They seem like such an awesome couple who work really hard.

 

The flight to Congo was annoying. There was hardly any space, and for a guy that's 6'3 it gets annoying really fast. Especially when you have a punk get in front of you and crank his seat backwards so he can relax...because the metal beams in the chair were in my knees. The flight attendant tried to wake him up but he was out cold. He was even shaken but he didn't wake up. Everyone around him were just laughing... AND he snored. Oh well...it was a short flight so it wasn't that bad. We stopped in Gabon to drop some people off and pick others up. It looked very beautiful over there, and it still looked like Africa. Once we landed in Congo we walked off of the plane and across the tarmac to the baggage claim and the darn thing was broken, so we sat there for 40 minutes waiting to get our bags. We finally got moving and got out of there, and we saw Elder Wheatley and Elder Davis, my companion. Sister Wheatley was out at the truck and she had cinnamon rolls!!! Welcome to Congo, here are some cinnamon rolls! I was in heaven.

 

So I am in Pointe Noire, but my sector is called MPaka. Yes, it is spelled like that. We are Northeast of the airport. Sometimes we get to walk across the runway. When we were landing, there were people all around the runway. It's awesome. It is less humid than Douala but you still get pretty sticky when you go out. Yaoundé has the best climate by far. It is flat and it is a city built on sand so when it rains it gets very muddy very fast.

 

Elder Davis is awesome and I am excited to work with him. He is in Elder Thibault's generation so he is in his 8th month, I think. He has been here in Congo his whole mission so far, but he is in his second area. The kid is a basketball master. He schooled us all today, but it was so much fun. We were playing on a wet court so we were sliding and falling all over the place. Don't worry, I had my ankle braces on. I look forward to working with him.

 

The apartment is huge and cold. We have AC and Elder Davis likes to put it on 16 degrees celsius (60.8 degrees fahrenheit)... I'm FREEZING!! It is nice, though, having the dry air. We have it so nice over in the States. We sleep on a bunk bed and I am stuck on top and I sleep on a box spring mattress... yay. Although I am so tired at night it doesn't even bother me. Unfortunately, I had to leave my pillow over in Douala because I didn't have enough room for it in my bags. We were only allowed to fly over with 30 kg of check in luggage... I definitely went over and I had to pay 21,000 cfa which is about $42. That is why I withdrew some money from the bank a few days ago. Sorry about that.

 

The fufu over here is soooo good! Way better than the fufu in Cameroon. I ate some last night with beans and I was lovin it. I will definitely make some when I get back. I will have some interesting dishes for you to eat when I get back :) Maybe some porcupine heads and eyeballs! It's not the best, it is definitely an acquired taste.

 

Well, that's about it for this week. Next week I will let you know a little more about our investigators. We have so many over here. OHHH I almost forgot... the church building over here is INCREDIBLE! It is the one built by the church, and the only church building actually built by the church in our mission outside of Kinshasa. It felt so weird walking into it because I actually felt like I was in a real church. However, the best part was the piano... I seriously almost cried as I went up to the piano and played "The Luckiest" for the first time on a real piano in about 14 months. I miss the piano so much. I want to get better when I get back. I don't know if I can send pictures or not. We'll find out as time moves on.

 

I love you all so much and I hope that you have a great week!

 

Je vous aime,

Elder Schmid

Hello!

 

It sounds like all is going well back home! I am very happy to hear that! I miss the piano so much. There is just a crappy broken keyboard here. I probably won't be very good when I get back, so I hope you don't get upset with me. I do miss it though, and I look forward to playing a real piano when I get back and improving that talent.

 

This week flew by so fast!! This had to have been one of the fastest weeks on the mission. Elder Lavering and I worked really hard this week and we were able to crank out 31 lessons! We have this 12 week program that we do because I am still training Elder Lavering and that program adds another hour to studies which means an hour less in the field teaching and all that. So, at the end of the week, when we did numbers, we were both super stoked to see all that we were able to accomplish! We are always teaching over here and I love it so much. We are finally getting to the point where I was in Yaoundé. All of the new investigators we have come from members so we don't have to contact anymore. That is how it should be because then those investigators will have friends in the church right away.

 

So I called Alex, our investigator, and told him that we would be meeting with him at 4:00 on a certain day and he promised that he would be there on time. Well, we were at the church until 4:30 and he had not yet come. I was pretty upset because he just doesn't get it... he doesn't care. So we left the church and as we were walking we saw him there on the side of the road with his moto. His clutch had broken so his moto was useless. I was upset and I showed him no sympathy. I went up to him and let him know that he was wasting our time and the Lords time and I told him that it is interesting that every time he decides to waste our time and not follow through with his commitments he gets into an accident or he gets into a big problem. I looked at him and said, "You can't play like that Alex." and then we walked away. I know that some of you are probably thinking "well he was late because his moto broke." and the answer to that is no. He was late because he always wants to work and take one more passenger.  So once he finally got close to the church his moto broke. He never learns his lesson and we will probably drop him this week. Can you tell he has gotten on my nerves this week?

 

Mmmmm...

My bed at the apartment is infested with termites. I have sprayed that bed with bug spray everyday but it just doesn't seem to be working. I kill tons of them but there seem to be thousands of them in my bed. It gets annoying when I am sitting there on my bed and then all of the sudden a few of them start crawling over my head and face. I would jump up and smack them (which probably looks ridiculous because I was basically slapping my face like a mad man) and then I looked at my bed and there would be a whole line of them coming from the wood. I would take my shirt off and whip it a few times then kill all of them that fell onto the floor. I miss home sometimes.

 

Children in our Primary

On Sunday, we had a primary program in Sacrament meeting and it was AWESOME!! The kids were up there reciting Articles of Faith and singing with all their strength. I love the Primaries here in Africa. There was one guy who has been a member for a very long time who would get up and take pictures and clap and everything. He was quickly reminded though of where he was. It made me laugh.

 

Beach at Limbe

Elder Lavering and myself at Limbe

Yesterday, we had the opportunity to go to Limbe and it was great! We went to the Botanical Gardens over there and it was as humid as heck and we were all sweating like crazy. I got some sweet pictures though. We then went and saw this wildlife center where they had tons of gorillas and monkeys. Gorillas are so big! One would climb to the top of a telephone pole thing and jump off the top and pound his chest really fast and really hard and it sounded like that cupping noise you can make when you clap hands with someone. It was so cool! When we got there our tour guide was finishing up a tour with a bunch of JW's... It's funny that we were the very next group for him to give a tour to.

 

We got transfer info on Saturday and I am sure you are all anxiously waiting to see where I have been transferred to or if I have even been transferred at all. I have been transferred and on Friday at 1:30 in the afternoon I will be flying off to CONGO!!! I am so stoked!! I have been waiting for this moment since March 4th, 2011!! I can't wait to actually be IN Congo. My new companion will be Elder Davis. He is a missionary that is from Elder Thibaults generation. I will actually be in the same apartment as Elder Thibault! I am pretty bummed though, to be leaving Elder Lavering. I love that kid. We have worked so hard and we have done so much over here. He is such a hard worker and has helped me out so much. I love training because I feel like I learn just as much, if not more, just by working with the trainee. So it will be difficult leaving, but I am looking forward to being in Congo. I will be going to the area where there is actually a church building! I'm going to Mpaka. So there is the big news! I will be flying out with Elder Spens and Elder Addington.

 

I want to finish with a neat experience that I had with one of our less active members. I am going to copy down what I wrote in my journal that night. It was an incredible experience.

October 10th, 2012

 

We were able to go and meet with frère Evina today and we had such an incredible experience together. Our goal in going there was to find out what his biggest trial was at the moment and to help him so that he could have the strength and desire to overcome it. So, as we were sitting there we asked him that question and we sat there for a little bit waiting for him to answer but in the end he said, "I don't know... I have so many trials. I have no clue which one is my hardest."

 

So, at this point I'm thinking, "Crud... what do we do now? We have nothing to work with." But I forgot the key component when teaching a lesson the Lord's way - the Spirit. For me personally, the Spirit works with me by placing thoughts in my head... thoughts that, at the time, seem to come from no where. Throughout my mission, I have learned to recognize special enlightenment like this.

 

As I was sitting there thinking about what we could do, a certain word "conveniently" popped into my head... and that word was 'faith.' So I acted and told Evina, "Okay we are going to read in Ether. Go to Ether 12." I was thinking of going and reading verse 6 because that is a powerful verse on faith and right before I told him to read verse 6 a certain number "conveniently" popped into my head... and that number was 27. So instead, I told him to read verse 27. As he read that verse, the Lord placed in my head almost word for word what I needed to explain to Evina. And so I did.

 

After Evina finished reading that verse I began to tell him what the Lord wanted me to tell him. I said, "Now, Evina I think that a problem, or trial, that you have is that you think you can only do the little things and that you can't do the big things. You want to do the big things but you feel like you would never be able to."

 

I then went on to incorporate verse 27 with what I was telling him and then I asked him to read that same verse again, which he did, but much more slowly... trying to find the significance. And he found it! He then looked up at me and said, "I understand... I understand now." He continued, "Who told you to tell that to me? That is EXACTLY what my problem is...my biggest trial! I suffer that in almost ever aspect of my life. When you asked me that question earlier, I knew what the answer was, but I didn't want to say..." He was silent for a few moments and then he softly said, "it's like you can see into my life."

 

Elder Lavering is awesome!  He is doing a service while we wait for Evina.

 

I love you all so much and I hope that you have a great week!

 

Love,

Elder Schmid

 

 

 Bonaberi with a recent convert named Gregoire

Gorgeous sunset

Marius and his family. He is a returned missionary and I am so
grateful that he is here in this branch. I don't know what this branch
would do without him.

Oscar and I. You should remember Oscar from a crazy story a month ago.

Our DMB Samuel and his family. His daughter has beautiful eyes.

The only way to our investigators house. Not as deep as Ngangue though...

Bonjour tout le monde (Hello everyone)!
 

It sounds like you all had a great week! You have awesome emails, Mom... I know that I have told you that but I am so grateful for your emails. You and Dad always get me laughing and I am always having to share things here and there with Elder Lavering. So that Titanium song is now big over in the States?? Save it for me so that I can get it the minute I get home! I love it! Is the subwoofer still in the truck? I miss that thing... it's my little baby. I miss good speakers.

 

My greatest memories I have of the family are just being WITH the family. To be honest... I can't really remember the specifics of what went down on our family vacations, but I will always remember that I loved spending time with my family. I took so much for granted before my mission, and now looking back, and after having been away from you all for over 15 months, I am starting to realize what was crucial... what was important. And that was the family. So I guess with the last year with Caelan, just be with her and have her be with you. It breaks my heart when I see families here in Cameroon because they are so isolated and separated. Yeah, maybe they are all together at by the end of the night but that's it... they are only physically together. What we have is so blessed... we are spiritually together. We are sealed by love and commitment. We are united. We are bound by the bounteous blessings of our loving Heavenly Father. I regret not understanding that earlier.

 

This week went by so fast and it was full of awesomeness. I am going to start off by talking about our ami de l'église Martin Joseph. He is solid. I don't know where to begin with him. We just got out of a rendez-vous with him and it was incredible. For almost half of the lesson he was teaching us and bearing testimony to us of the things he had studied and learned in the scriptures and brochures that we had given him. He has said many times, "I KNOW that I have found the one true church of Jesus Christ...THE ONE TRUE CHURCH... and I will NEVER turn back." He tells that to us every time we see him. Today we taught him about the law of chastity and the Atonement of Jesus Christ and it was so easy to teach him because he is already putting them into practice. He is so happy and he knows that the happiness that he has only comes from his desire to come into the fold of God. He is always inviting new friends to the rendez-vous and telling some of his other friends off and telling them to get lost because we are not here to give money (That is a huge problem we have here... we will have awesome investigators but as soon as they realize we won't be paying for their hospital bills and medicines and beers, they ditch us). I love Martin Joseph. He is a great man.

 

I was with a woman named Bernadette, and she has kind of been partially inactive so we have stopped by her place about once a week for the past 5 weeks. Last Tuesday, she asked me a pretty bizarre question. She took us into Genesis 6 where it talks about the giants and then she went on to explain that "the bible tells us that angels came from heaven and fornicated with very beautiful women and the offspring of these two parties were the giants." She then asked me to explain to her the geneology of the giants. Now, this woman has been a member for over 10 years... I had to bite my tongue and not laugh. The whole 'angels from heaven fornicating with women' doctrine comes from the JW's over here and for some reason people still hang onto JW doctrine over here. From what I understand, the reason why the JW's believe that is because of what we read in Peter when he says that Christ went and taught the spirits in prison. Well the JW's don't believe that there is a spirit world so in order to explain this scripture they say that Christ went and preached to the angels who fornicated with the women and were chased from heaven. Hmmm... interesting. Now that comes from a JW source here in my mission and I have found that many many people over here don't even understand the doctrines of their own church. I have had opportunities to teach Catholics what they "believe" in because they just didn't know... they just claimed to be catholic. Wow, I kind of went all over in this paragraph. Moving on.

 

You know Alex... our investigator? Well, he has now gotten into moto accident #3. I mean KNOWN moto accident #3. He just doesn't get the picture that he should never sit himself on something that has two wheels. Let alone any wheels.

 

We went and taught Catherine 4 times this week and for one rendez-vous we wanted to watch the little movie called "Finding Faith in Christ". We got over there and got everything set up and I just had to change the language from English to French but the remote didn't have any batteries and there were no buttons on the DVD player. So I said, "Sorry, it looks like we will have to do this another night." But they all insisted that we just watch it in English. I said okay but didn't think that it would be that edifying for them. Well, I think I was pretty wrong in assuming that. Throughout the whole movie Catherine was able to follow, and by what she saw she knew exactly what they were saying. She would be quoting the scriptures as Christ in the video would be saying them. It was pretty neat and at one point Catherine was in tears. The Spirit was there and it bore testimony that night... The language of the Spirit is never curtailed by the language of man.

 

This week we gave Catherine 3 Books of Mormon after we met with her and we got into the truck with Elder Gailey and right before he put the truck into first gear Catherine was there pounding on the window telling us to stop. She had already handed out her three books and was asking for more. She handed out 7 this week and she has been giving us awesome coordonnées. She loves missionary work!

 

Conference was AMAZING!!! I was only able to watch the first Saturday session and the Priesthood session. I got goosebumps when President Monson announced the new age requirement for Elders and Sisters. That is so awesome! When I got home I thought of Turley and Threet (two boys in our ward, just waiting to turn 19 so that they can go on their mission) and I wondered what they were thinking. I loved the press conference between the two sessions. "That is your third question, Peggy." Elder Holland is awesome. I loved it when Elder Nelson introduced himself... Hello, I am Russell M. Nelson and I am one of the twelve apostles. That would be a sweet sentence to associate your name with. I was really touched by President Christofferson's talk in Priesthood. Just be men! I learned so much from the 12 talks I was able to listen to. My appreciation for conference has grown so much since being out on the mission. I was glued to the screen during the four hours that we watched conference. I can't wait to get the conference Ensign to further study what was said. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful blessing.

 

I love my life over here and life is loving on me. The Lord has really blessed me and I am so grateful that I still have 9 months to experience living in a miracle 24/7. I am working my hardest and still overcoming weaknesses and shortcomings but I know that the Lord is helping me become a better Priesthood holder. One who does his duty. I love you!

 

Je t'aime maman :)

Elder Schmid

Dear Mom,

 

So Caelan is a genius!! Do you remember what I got when I took the ACT? Well, it definitely wasn't a 31. I am happy for her! She works her butt of so she deserves it. How on earth could Aiden and Ashlyn sleep through all that noise? That little story made me laugh. I'm glad you were able to get in. I'm sad to hear about Virginia Shimel... death is always hard to accept but that is one reason why I am so grateful for the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. And as for the Moore's I believe their daughter was in Stake Youth Committee with me. She was partnered with Tanner LeBaron. It's crazy that Caleb Frost is already home! It feels like it was just last week that him and I were golfing together right before his mission.

 

I don't think this email will be that long. This week was just another week in the mission. Of course miracles happened...but they are the same miracles that have been happening since day one. Yaoundé was a blast and it was awesome being there for a few days. I miss the weather there so much. The drive to and from Yaoundé was gorgeous. I emailed you some pictures from that drive. It was cool realizing that you were driving through the jungles of Africa. I still can't believe sometimes that I am here in Africa. I love my mission!

 

I am starting to read Jesus the Christ again and it is such an amazing book. I have learned so much by reading that book. When I get back from my mission I want to buy every book that was written by James E. Talmage.

 

We have an investigator named Martin Joesph and he is awesome. This week, when we went to teach him, the first 5 minutes of the rendez-vous was him bearing his testimony about how he knows that the Church is true and that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet. Basically, he went on to say the very things that every single missionary in the world dreams of having their investigators say. We invited him to be baptized on October 20th and he said that he would need to pray about it because he doesn't want to be baptized when he is not ready because he doesn't want to mock God. He was at church yesterday and he had brought two other friends. We had 9 investigators at church yesterday. Martin Joseph knows that he will be baptized...the only question is when.

 

We received some coordonnées from the Church headquarters and one of them was a pastor. I was excited to call him and he was excited that we followed through with his request of the Book of Mormon. We had him come to the church on Saturday and we met with him and had such an awesome rendez-vous. We found out that he lives way out at PK 14... which translates to "Waaaaayyyy the heck out there." He was very sincere and was so happy to get the Book of Mormon. I would love to continue with him but we just have to time to go all the way out there so it will all depend on him. He will need to come to the church at least twice a week and we would prefer that he comes at least three times a week so that we are teaching him more than once throughout the week. So we will see what happens.

 

Last night, I got a random phone call from a man named Paglan, and he basically told me, "Look, I have been looking for you guys for a very long time. I have looked all over the internet and talked with your people over in Utah trying to learn more about your church. It was hard because they didn't speak french and I don't speak English. I finally got a hold of someone who spoke french and they gave me your number. I want to meet with you as soon as possible. I want to be one of you. What can I do to meet with you and learn about your message." So we fixed a rendez-vous with him today at the church and it was incredible! He is also from PK 14 so that may cause some problems but today we were able to present the message of the Restoration and we gave him the Book of Mormon. When he held onto the book for the first time he couldn't stop thanking us and thanking the Lord. At the end of the lesson he asked us how he could become an Elder in the church and how he could become a missionary and teach like we do and what he needs to do to get baptized. He asked us if there was a test he needs to take or anything. We explained to him all that he needs to do to get baptized and told him that first we need to make sure that he can come to church every week even though he lives out at PK 14. He was stoked and so anxious to learn more about our message. I really hope that he really commits himself to this message and this Gospel because it will change his life.

 

Here is a funny story. So remember last week when I told you about Alex and how he got in a moto accident because he wasn't at church like he promised? Well this week we fixed another rendez-vous with him at the church and as we were walking to the church to meet with him I said to Elder Lavering, "Watch, he will probably be running late and eventually not come because he will get into an accident." Well after sitting at the church for 30 minutes I called Alex to see what was up and he told us that he was working and was coming a little late to our rendez-vous and that he had gotten into an accident with another moto and now his moto doesn't even work. He was at the shop when I called him. He better learn his lesson now... Do you think the Lord is trying to tell him to follow through with his commitments? Alex makes me laugh sometimes.

 

So that was my week! It's crazy to think that I hit my 15 month mark two days ago. The time is going by so fast. Before I know it I will be home with all of you eating Nasi Goreng, and Ruffles will be right next to me begging. I love you so much and I hope that you have a great week!

 

I love you Mom :)

 

Elder Schmid

 

 

A huge river we pass over twice from Douala to Yaounde

A typical home in a village in the jungle



Wanna ride?

A sunset I have come to love in Cameroon.  I really enjoy the formation of the clouds.

 

Do you think I can out run him?

What does Ruffles and Christiaan have in common?  They both like to hang their heads out the window.



Jimmy, Aime and Frere Odoumba...my friends from Yaounde!

Must be a rough school!



An awesome waterfall on our drive to Yaounde.