Dear Mom,

 

Today will be a little short because we don't have that much time. Oh well...I'm glad Caelan, Dallin, and Aiden are doing well in choir and orchestra. Remember when I did orchestra... yeah, that was bad. Remember Tanner Ellsworth? He played the cello and he was dang good. It sounds like you all had a blast with DeAnn over. So Aaron is already home?? Dang... I think I'm the last one out of all my friends.

 

This week was great. We have been dropping a lot of investigators because they were just not progressing. It was a little sad but they have their own free agency. We can't force our message on them. We have had faith though, that the Lord will help us find others who are wanting to change their lives RIGHT NOW. That is our trial over here but it is an awesome one. People progress... but not fast enough, so we have to move on. It's an awesome problem but stressful at the same time. Some people like to take their time and we just don't have time for that. This week, however, we have received some awesome coordonnées (referrals) and they seem promising.

 

Oh by the way, I got the letter that DeAnn sent. My first letter here in Congo! I loved it too! Thank you Kettenring's!!

 

We are still teaching a lot of lessons and helping people get closer and closer to the waters of baptism. Our golden ami right now is Jean Joseph. He loves to study and learn. He was at church a couple of weeks ago and the EQ President gave him the conference Liahona from May, and so I gave him Elder Hollands talk to read and he read it three times because he wanted to understand everything about it. He is married enough so he will be getting baptized here on the 29th.

 

Trésor is not having any luck with finding a new house, so on the 17th he and his family will be kicked out of the house that they have now and Cecilia and his daughter will go to Brazza to stay with her family and Trésor will stay here with his brother, Préferna, and try to find a place to stay. But because of this, Trésor will probably be able to get baptized because he will not be living with his fiancée. We need to nail the law of chastity with him though and really make sure that when he does find a house that she won't come back and live with him because that would be a big no no. Trésor knows that he can get baptized now and is stoked.

 

Chloe and I, this is Tresor's daughter who is one month older then Bronson

 

On a more sad note. Remember me talking about Divin? the person we just baptized a few weeks into my stay here in Congo? Well he has completely fallen of the face of the planet. We haven't seen him since the beginning of November. He found a job and it has taken over his life. It's sad... he knows that he needs to be at church but he just doesn't have enough faith to go. I called him yesterday to see what's up and he was just annoyed that we were calling him so much. We are worried about him. What makes things worse is that he didn't give us the correct information for his baptismal recommendation (spelling?) and we had to fill it out twice... and it still doesn't have all the right stuff so we need to fill out yet another one but we can't see him so his records will never get sent to Kinshasa. Its a mess and it is pretty depressing. He has completely changed. I was just sitting there on the couch yesterday with my head in my hands wondering what on earth has happened. It's sad...

 

The baptism of Anna and Divin

I need to know what you guys want to do for skype on Christmas. I can either do it Christmas Eve or Christmas day. I would prefer Christmas day. Just let me know about your schedule. I can't wait to see you all!

 

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

 

Je vous aime,

Elder Schmid

 

Elder Thibault tried to cut my hair

Can we get as high as Elder Schmid?

Luckily Elder Schmid doesn't need a jacket in Congo...



The Elders taking in a beautiful sunset!

The Pointe Noire chapel

A pousse-pousse, an African wheel barrow