Dear Mom,

I will definitely be going to MCC when I get back. So you can sign me up. What you explained in the first paragraph is exactly what I wantto do. As far as my release date, I have no clue when it is. In our mission we don't really know when it is until we have like 12 weeks left. If you want you can email President Jameson, but don't tell me what it is. That trip sounds awesome!! I got goosebumps thinking about it! I love that place so much. As far as other questions... We see the Wheatley's two to three times a week but I have never worked with them. They do work with other companionships, though, that need to go far out. I love the Wheatleys! They are an awesome couple and do so much good for the members here in Congo. Remember the Thompsons in Yaoundé?  I was able to call them yesterday to give them a number. They are in Angola right now basically doing what President and Sister Jameson did in Burundi. It was good to talk to them for a couple of minutes. We have power for two days and one day without power but last week we only had two days of power. We got jipped. Oh well... I'm in the Congo! Food spoils fast so we normally eat everything the day we make it. We eat a lot of cereal and rice. But don't worry Mom you should never worry about me :) The Lord takes care of His missionaries.

This week went by pretty fast and we taught a lot of lessons. Jean Joseph received the Aaronic priesthood on Sunday and was so excited about that. We taught him about the priesthood Wednesday and we were all over the Doctrine and Covenants and he was loving every minute of it. Jean Joseph LOVES to study and every time we show up chez lui (at his place), he has an open Book of Mormon or Liahona. We have gotten permission for President Jameson to teach his 11 year old grandson, Amour. Amour has been to church at least four times. He always comes with his grandpa and little brother. He loves it so much and the other day we asked him if he wanted to get baptized and he looked at us and said "yeah" like he was confused as to why we were asking him such a silly question. We will probably fix his baptism date for Feburary 16th. That will make three for that day that will be getting baptized.

Fugain is doing awesome. We have finished teaching him the first lesson and the word of wisdom and he continues to progress and grow everyday. At church you will see him with his little notepad and he will be taking notes and what not and flipping through the scriptures trying to follow along. I am so proud of him. Elder Davis and I have been so blessed to find amazing investigators... or have them find us.

This week we got a call from one of our amis named Jean and he likes to speak english with us. He said, "Hey, I am keeping you something!!" It wasn't the best english but we understood. This is the ami that always gives us tons of mangoes and pineapple and fruit whenever we go over there. So we just expected to get more fruit. Well, when we got there and finished the lesson he took us to his house and showed us a frying pan and said, "this is what it will look like when you finish cooking it." At this moment I was thinking, "great... fish. I don't want to fry up fish. We don't have time!" and then he pointed to a bucket and said, "Now don't put your finger in it's mouth... it will bite you and could hurt you very bad." I said out loud, "WHAT?! It's still alive?" He then showed us this bucket and inside were two giant salamanders. Heck... I have no clue how to cook those things! So he put them into a sack for us and we got into our taxi and went home and put them in a bucket with water and left them in the bathroom to surprise the other elders when they got home. We ended up giving them to some members that live right next to us because we have no clue how to cook those things. They loved it and were grateful to have it. We just told Jean that they were very good and left it at that. I took pictures of them. They were huge!

Our primary president over here is awesome. Her name is Natacha. She lives a long ways from the church and she walks every Sunday. It takes her about an hour and a half to get to church, AND she walks under the scorching sun but you will never see her without a smile. She is an awesome example to me of someone who is truly converted and loves the gospel. That huge sacrifice in our eyes is nothing to her... that is just her responsibility.. to go to church. She walks with two other kids who were baptized and are her neighbors. These kids are awesome. Their mom used to go to church with them but got into an accident on her way to church one day and has been scared to go back ever since.  But there is nothing stopping those kids from going. Sometimes they won't have enough money for transport, which is basically fifty cents for each kid, and so they will tell their mom to not buy food for them Saturday night and save the money so that they can have money to go to church the next day. How incredible is that? We went and met with their mom a couple of days ago and we are going to try to teach her and get her baptized. Those kids are some of my heroes.

This week was awesome and I am so grateful to be a missionary. I love my mission so much and I love the people that I am with. I love you all as well! Have a great week!

Je t'aime,
Elder Schmid

PS who gets to spank Taco 40 times??