Dear Mom,

 

I'm happy you all had a great Thanksgiving! On Thursday, I totally forgot it was Thanksgiving until I was writing in my journal that night. It was just another day over here. We were at the Wheatley's last night to celebrate Thanksgiving because none of us wanted to mess with our teaching schedules on Thursday. We had an awesome little feast with great mashed potatoes, fruit cocktail, green beans and chicken! I ate so much and it felt sooo good. Afterwards we watched a random video that the Wheatley's have at their house about the Mormon Battalion and then we watched some Bible videos! I have only see a couple about Christ's birth and the angels announcing the news, so it was exciting to see some others. Those videos are so powerful! I loved the detail that they went into to create those inspirational videos. I love our church.

 

Yes, I was able to get those pictures that you sent me from Halloween. I loved them! Dallin looked legit! They all did! I love my family! Darian didn't look too happy in the pictures. Are Egyptian queens not happy? ;) I look forward to next Halloween and seeing what Tyler and I bust out!

 

Teaching and preaching blazed forward this week. We have had 5 strait weeks of 30+ lessons and we have been working really hard and it has been really rewarding. I love missionary work so much, but it means so much more when your love for it pushes you to work harder and better. We know that we can't do it all without the Lord... after all, it is His work. These past few weeks I feel like I have personally come to better understand the promise that the Lord gives us in D&C 89:20, "And (the obedient) shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint."

 

We have a new ami de l'église qui s'appelle (friend of the church who is called) Jean Joseph. It has been fun teaching him this week. Last week was the first time we met him. He is this 60 year old man who has a very large gut and was walking around shirtless, and he just comes up to us and says, "Soon I will be a member in your church!" I didn't know if we should take him seriously because that is something we here quite often, but we followed through with it and he now has a baptismal date for December 15th. The first time we sat down and had a lesson with him we went over why we are there (How To Begin Teaching, AMAZING section in Preach My Gospel) and we gave him le devoir (the duty) to read the Introduction dans le Livre de Mormon. Il l'avait fait et il a bien compris! (He had done it and he understood it well!)   He went on for a few minutes just telling us about everything he understood and liked. He went on to read the testimonies as well and loved those. He came to church on Sunday and he was participating and taking notes and loving every bit of it. Our elders quorum did an awesome job and welcoming him and making him feel at home and they gave him the conference Liahona from the conference in April and I bet that he will be done with that by the time we see him tomorrow. His son is a recent convert and is very excited that his dad will be joining him in the church. As Jean Joseph left Sacrament meeting yesterday he turned to me and said, "Il faut que mon fils aille en mission." Basically he said, "My son NEEDS to go on a mission." He is awesome. I can't wait for him to get baptized!

 

 

 

President Jameson came to town with Sister Jameson and did interviews and it was awesome! I love those people so much. Interviews with President Jameson are some of my favorite moments on the mission. I always look forward to them. He told us about Elder Hollands visit to the mission. Central African Republic is now dedicated and missionaries will be there soon. We are still waiting for a french couple to get found for Gabon. We are all so anxious, but honestly I would be totally fine with staying in Congo for the rest of my mission. I just want to work.

 

We are teaching another guy named Délaur and he will be getting baptized this Saturday. We met him my first Sunday out here in Congo and he lived way the heck out there so we didn't really want to go teach him but he kept on coming to church and wanting us to teach him. We found out that he works at this gas station that we are by a lot throughout the day. There is a little construction project that he is doing and he has a two hour break everyday so we take advantage of that and we teach him... a lot. And he loves every minute of it! He loves to learn and he is very smart. Most of our lessons are in this tiny little room sitting on big yellow plastic water containers right next to a monster generator. I love Africa. One week I am going to take a picture of where we sat for every single rendez-vous.

 

Delaur...this kid is awesome!
 

Well, that's about it for this week! Oh! I went and bought Le Petit Prince and Bilbo le Hobbit! We have permission from President Jameson to read Le Petit Prince for language study. The hobbit will have to wait until I get home. I love french!! I love you and I hope you have a great week!

 

Love,

ton fils bienaimé, (the best liked son)

le fils que tu aimes le plus, (the son that thou lovest the most)

le fils qui est le plus beau de tous les fils du monde, (just joking) (The son who is the most beautiful of all the sons of the world)

The son that you are lucky to have :)

Elder Christiaan Schmid

 

PS - tell Threet to enjoy looking at the gorgeous ocean and waves and surfers and snorkelers and all other amazing sea life stuff that he won't be able to participate in for two years. I see little kids playing in filthy water and I just want to get in and join them... That will be rough for him, being in paradise. Ca va aller. Mes condoléances :)  (That will go. My condolences)

Well, I just typed up a whole entire email and I went to copy it and I erased it and right before I could get it back my time went out... so it is gone. I'll see what I can do with the extra time that I have.

 

I honestly don't think the rules are that more strict over here. Email is a little shorter, but I will be changing that soon. We only have an hour here and I don't agree with that at all. President Jameson has told us that we can do what we feel is needed, but not to just sit and waste valuable time. So after that, we went to two hours in Cameroon and it was perfect. We don't write letters and send them home because the post offices and everything are so unreliable, so this is the only "mail" that goes out. We are allowed to write letters on pday but because we don't really write letters here, I feel it is perfectly fine and acceptable to spend a little more time on email because that is our only way of communication. That's how I feel about it.

 

As long as you don't shave your head over here you're fine. I'll be buzzing my head with a number two here pretty soon because it is getting pretty long. No, no one has lice. It is super easy to take care of and then you don't have a wet mop on your head when you get all sweaty, which is everyday.

Do you like it mom?

 

Way to go Dallin on that talk! I love Preach My Gospel so much. That book is golden and it is so crucial to study it as a missionary. That is how the Lord wants his work done and it is so obvious when you see missionaries who don't work according to the principles that are found in its pages.

 

Saturday night it rained super hard and everywhere was flooded. The roads that we would normally take to get to church were under water and there was crazy traffic, so we decided to walk all the way to church. When we were over by the airport, we found a truck that was stuck in a deep muddy water puddle and there were some guys around trying to get it out and it was obvious that they needed help. So we took off our shoes and socks and rolled up our pants and got in the water and helped them get it out. It took us about 15 minutes and my white shirt was filthy afterward but it felt good to help them out. They really appreciated it. We attracted a large crowd. That will be something that I'm sure they will never see again... four young white guys dressed in white shirt and tie getting in muddy water to get a truck unstuck. It was fun!
 

Look close and you can see Elder McGrath and Elder Schmid

And they are standing in the shallow part...

 

Elder Davis and I have been dropping a lot of old investigators and the Lord has been blessing us with new ones who are really interested. We were talking with one of our branch missionaries named Sidney and we asked him if he knew anybody that was interested in our message. He introduced us to his neighbor, Belly, and she invited us in and we were able to teach the Restoration and she loved it. Later in the week we stopped by to say hi and she invited us in because she wanted to introduce us to her husband. We taught him the Restoration and he loved it. He told us that he isn't in any church and he asked us what he needed to do so that he could get baptized in our church. I love that question :) What makes them an even better contact is that they have already gone through the ugly messy 'pay for you wife' stuff for the marriage so it will be easy to progress with them. I look forward to teaching them.

 

On a more personal note... throughout my mission I have really come to understand the importance of prayer. Before my mission my prayers were pathetic. I had my basically memorized prayer that I would say every night and every morning and it was never something that I looked forward to. My attitude toward prayer has completely changed and I am so grateful for that. I am so grateful that our Heavenly Father has blessed us with this wonderful conduit through which we can communicate with Him. Whenever my prayers are lackadaisical, my days just don't go as smoothly. It is interesting how that always works out. It's the same principle with scripture study. I love the opportunity I have now to get on my knees and pour out my soul to my Heavenly Father. I love what President Monson has said... "a man is never taller than when he is upon his knees." Some of my most spiritual experiences that I have had on my mission where when I was on my knees.

 

President Jameson is coming into town today and I am so excited. He will be doing interviews with us tomorrow. Being interviewed by President Jameson is one of my favorite things about the mission. I love President Jameson. He will have mail for me that went to Douala after I left so I am really looking forward to that too :) I love mail!

 

Well, I don't have any time left. I hope I was able to shoot out a good email. I did that in about 20 minutes. I love you so much and I hope that you have a great Thanksgiving. I think we will be getting together on Sunday to have a big dinner together. Honestly, holidays don't really feel like holidays when you are on a mission. It is just not the same when you are not with the family. I miss you guys but I know I am where I need to be. Have a great week!

 

I love you,

Elder Schmid

Hey Mom!

 

I'm glad you all had a great week! I'm jealous that you were able to hear from Elder Holland.  He came to our mission a few weeks ago but only the missionaries in Brazzaville and Kinshasa were able to meet with him. They flew all of the branch presidents from Yaoundé, Douala, and Pointe Noire over to Kinshasa so that they could get trained by him. You win some and you lose some in this mission. I heard that it was remarkable though.

 

I'm glad Bronson is doing alright. Parents from the States would have one heart attack after another after seeing how children are raised over here. I'm not even going to try to explain it... just believe it.

 

Obama is president again. I don't have much to say about that one. I like what you said though about it. I had the exact same feelings as I was pondering the circumstance that America is in. I am so grateful that we have a prophet who is chosen by God to lead His children today and I am even more grateful to have that testimony and assurance.

 

This week was a crazy one. We were only able to teach 5 out of 7 days, but we were able to get 30 lessons taught. Over the past 3 weeks we have been able to teach 90 lessons and I am pretty sure that we will have over 180 taught by the end of this transfer. We are always up and moving and staying busy and I love it so much.

 

When we went to the beach last week we were able to play football and it was so much fun. We were lucky that the beach was huge because there was an oil spill and wherever the water reached it was black. A few times the ball bounced into that area and it became all slippery and your hands got black. It was sad to actually see it in real life. But that didn't prevent us from having a good time. Sister Wheatley prepared an awesome dinner and we all ate together and enjoyed each others company. I got some sweet pictures too.

 

This week we had to drop a few investigators. It is always a bummer but right as we lose some we find some. There are always people to teach over here. The real tricky thing over here is choosing those who want it more. We could teach every hour of the day and not progress with anyone. Everyone here likes to hear about Jesus Christ but so many of them do nothing when they receive our message.They just tell us that it is good and that they love Jesus Christ and then they move on with their lives and don't even think twice about it. So, we have to really rely on the Spirit to recognize those who really want it and those who don't. It's a fun work.

We had the opportunity to finally watch General Conference over here in Congo and it was great. It was sure nice being in an air conditioned church on nice soft chairs. It was a little too comfortable for a lot of people. There were a lot of bobbing heads through out the sessions. People here loved Elder Holland's talk and Elder Bednar's. You know when they like it because you will start hearing a bunch of mmhmm's and amen's. I was able to understand everything in french too. This time last year I was completely lost. I was writing letters to everyone. But this time around I was able to follow along and learn. We got our own personal ensigns too and I have been studying those. We have the DVD's, and so I watched the Relief Society broadcast and it was great! I loved those talks. I love our Church.

 

We have an ami de l'église named Délaur. We met him at church when I first got here and he told us to come to his house after church and so we followed him. We didn't realize that it would take us over an hour to get there. Right away we thought, "Okay, we're never going to be able to teach this guy... he lives way too far out." We had a sweet lesson with him and told him that he needs to come to church and when he is there then we can plan what we want to do. He happily agreed. Well, he comes every Sunday and he loves it! He loved conference too! He has a baptismal date set for December 1st and he is so excited for it.

 

One night we were with one of our investigators and he started talking to us about "his problem." He likes to get around with women and has children with two different mothers. He is now realizing that he needs to change his life and was explaining to us all of his issues. He went over a lot of scenarios and what would happen if he did this or did that. In the end, he wanted us to tell him basically that it is okay to marry both of the women. But the commandments of God don't change for certain situations! He kept on going on and on and on and then he said, "Now here is the real problem..." I cut him off there and I said, "No, in your life there are a lot of problems and there is only one solution..." and then we went on to explain why we have the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we talked about the Atonement and all that. It turned into a good lesson. He definitely has a lot of things to work out though.

 

So, that is a little about my life over here in Congo. I love the work and I am so grateful that I am here. I can't believe that Thanksgiving is just around the corner! We aren't sure yet what we will be doing. President Jameson will be here next Tuesday and I can't wait to see him. We will have interviews. I love talking with President Jameson. I love you and I hope you have a great week!

 

Je t'aime maman,

Elder Schmid

Bonjour Maman!

 

I can't believe that it is already Monday again! The time goes faster and faster. I feel like I say that in every email but it's so true. This week was a great week and over the past two weeks Elder Davis and I have been able to teach 60 lessons and we had two baptisms on Saturday. We just got done playing basketball and the court was wet so there was a bunch of slipping and sliding and some falling and I'm proud to say that I didn't fall once! I just read Natascha's email and she told me about Lance Armstrong... dang, that sucks for him. I just heard that Steve Nash was traded to the Lakers... dang, that sucks for us.

 

The only difference between Congo and Cameroon, I feel, is the poverty. I feel like I'm in Africa everywhere I go. I wish I could send you my pictures but I'm too scared to connect my camera to the computers here. I'll see if the Wheatley's would let me shoot a couple home. I can't really tell you what city I like best because I love them all so much. I do like the fact that I feel like I'm in Africa over here in Congo... and I I think it's cool just to say that I'm in the Congo, but Cameroon is very close to my heart. I spent the last 14 months of my life there. The Wheatley's are awesome and I love being with them. They are fun to be around.

 

We have an investigator named Trésor and he is in a typical African situation. He needs to get married so that he can get baptized. He and his girlfriend, Cecilia, have a gorgeous little girl who is 11 months old and they have been together for a long time so we don't want to just split that up. If they split up, then Cecilia would have to go to Brazza to live with her family because Trésor doesn't have a job and can't pay for another apartment here. During the week, we taught them the importance of fasting and praying, and we decided to fast together yesterday. We went over to their house yesterday at 18h00 to break the fast, and as we were eating, Trésor let us in on a little miracle that was happening in his life. We gave him a number to a brother in the branch of MPaka who could help him find work, and so on Saturday he called that brother and was invited over to his house. After meeting together for a little bit, Trésor left with an opportunity to go work on an oil rig and would do 2 weeks on and 2 weeks back here in Pointe Noire and would make around 872,000 cfa for every two weeks on the rig, along with bonuses and what not. That is a TON of money for people around here and that would easily pay for that blasted wedding dot and for the marriage license. So the Lord blessed him with this awesome miracle before we even fasted! Trésor knows that our message is true and is willing to do whatever it takes to get baptized and more fully follow the will of our Heavenly Father. I love Trésor and his family and I hope and pray that I will be blessed with the opportunity to rest and see them get baptized.

 

Divin and Anna were baptized on Saturday and it was a nice baptism service. Divin was sitting next to me and as we were singing he was rocking in his chair and nodding his head back and forth and really getting into it. I'm going to miss that, so much, when I get back home and sing at church. It is just better here. I'll probably be the loud singer in the ward when I get back. I'm sorry but all three branches that I have worked in have put our ward to shame with the amount of enthusiasm and feeling and spirit as they sing. I love it so much. EVERYONE sings... even if you can't. I wish you all could experience a Sunday over here.

 

Today we are going to go to the beach and play football and eat hot dogs!! Awww yeah! It has been so long since I have played football. Our zone is awesome and we are together a lot. We just went to this restaurant called La Mie Dorée and we ate a monster burger and it was the best burger I have had on the mission. It didn't taste African at all. It was a nice big double burger too. All 8 of us got one and we ate those things up so fast. They also had french fries and they were the best fries I have gotten on the mission as well. It all cost 4,000 cfa. The only bummer was that the meal didn't include any drinks.

 

I can't believe that the elections are tomorrow!! I'm nervous about the outcome. I just hope and pray that the right choice is made. People throw a fit and get so excited and happy when they find out that Romney is a member. After years of preparation it all comes down to tomorrow. America will definitely be in my prayers.

 

Well, I don't know what else I could write. I don't have my planner with me and my memory is pretty bad. Next time I promise I will have a more detailed email. I love you so much and I'm glad you are doing well. Have a great week!

 

Je t'aime!

Elder Schmid