Dear Mom,

 

It sounds like you had a crazy week! I'm glad everyone is doing well and enjoying life. It sounds like Caelan did wonderful in the MVT production. I wish I could have been there to hear her perform. I miss those times. I regret not taking full advantage of them before my mission. I enjoyed your little testimony of how our Heavenly Father always hears and answers our prayers. I have had the same thing this week... I realized that I needed His help in a certain area, so I quickly went to my knees and before I knew it I had the help I needed. I know that He loves us and will help us according to our faith and righteous desires.

 

This week proved to be one of the most challenging weeks on my mission. Well, the beginning of it to be more exact. The missionaries, whom we had replaced, set up a schedule so that a branch missionary would be working with us everyday to show us around and make sure that we didn't get lost. Well, all the branch missionaries bailed out except for one and we had him for two days, Tuesday and Wednesday. The rest of the week we were on our own trying to get to the right parts of the city, and then trying to find the little shack in the middle of the numerous labrynths that exist here in Yaoundé. One of these days I am going to record me walking from the road down to one of our investigators houses. You need to have a good memory. You could get lost so easily. We have had to do contacting to expand our teaching pool and that was successful. Our goal is to contact around our members houses. Actually, if we did it like I want it to be done we wouldn't do any contacting. Our members would give us referrals and that way when that certain investigator came to church he/she would already have a friend there so they didn't feel so isolated and secluded from everybody else. Elder Johnston and I have been trying to really drill that into our branch missionaries. We'll see what comes of it in the next few weeks. So yeah, this week was challenging. I think it was all mental though. There were a couple of days where I came home and was mentally exhausted and went to bed early. BUT now I feel like everything is just fine. I'm grateful to be here and I am so grateful that I get to finish my mission here. It is a beautiful sector.
 

Elder Johnston is doing great. His french is awesome and this week we got over the "getting to know you" awkwardness and things are normal. He is a great teacher and has great insight. We had the opportunity to teach a man who was recently released from prison, and he was an anglophone, so we taught in english and Elder Johnston as able to teach majority of that lesson and did an awesome job. It was on the Restoration and the Spirit was definitely there. This man we taught, his name is Manga Peter. He was injustly thrown in prison and was there for a while up until a few days ago when they gave him his papers of release and let him go. While he was there, a member of the Church passed by and started talking with him and taught him about our message and about the Restoration and actually gave Peter a Book of Mormon. Peter read the beginning of it and had a lot of questions. The member gave Peter our number, and so once Peter was free, he contacted us and we were able to meet at the church and answer his questions. I feel bad for the guy. He is big. Like as big as Dennis (I think he means tall). He lives way out on the edge of the city so I doubt anything will happen with him because the missionaries won't really be able to go out there, and it will be difficult for him to come to church at least once a week. A seed was planted... Elder Johnston and I watered... but in the Lord's due time the fulness of the blessings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will come to him.
 

Last Monday, we were invited to a Family Home Evening with an American family that lives over here in Bastos. The father is one of the big dogs at the United States embassy, so they have a pretty nice place over here. They are here with their four children who are child genius'. We ate an incredible carbenara pasta ... I have no clue how to spell that. The fun part was being able to talk to the parents and then have FHE with the whole family. We acted out some stories in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. The kids had a blast and it was fun letting the inner kid out. The lesson was followed by an amazing apple mango crisp. I was going nuts!! I was in heaven! I guess they really enjoyed having us over because they invited us again and we will be there next Monday evening. We'll have to make them cake or something. Oh my goodness... I almost forgot! They sent their driver to come pick us up at the church because we didn't know where they lived. So, we were just chilling there and then all of the sudden this huge white Nissan Armada pulled up and we were told to get in. I haven't been in a car that big (besides the bus from MTC to airport) since the morning of June 29th, 2011. I was put in the back between two car seats but I wasn't complaining! I would take that over being crammed between to african mommas who had just finished working in the field all day. I have had some shirts stained from my taxi acquaintances.
 

Me, with some of the mangos that were sitting on
my lap on the bus trip home from the university.

 

The other night Elder Johnston and I had just finished a rendez-vous with some young women from Pointe Noire Congo. They are here at the University. The university is basically "au village." (translation - in the village) It is so far out! We had to get into a crammed bus and we started our way home for the night. I was sitting there just looking at Africa pass by as we were in our rickety rocket tin can bus and I had one of those moments where I realized how incredible my mission is. It was one of those moments where I realized that I am in Africa. I love it when those moments come. I was crammed in my corner looking out a badly scratched plastic window, the man in front of me was stuggling to speak english to someone of the phone, the bus driver had some cruddy african music playing on the speakers (thankfully it wasn't super loud), the men behind us were eating grilled corn. The young girls all around us were, of course, talking about us and singing American music. We joined in when they sang "Apologize" and it was fun. I had wild mangos on my lap from a family that we met with earlier in the day. There was a child who wouldn't stop staring at us because they had probably never seen a white person before. There was an albino black woman sitting towards the front who was dressed like a woman who needs to be taught the law of chastity. There was another child crying because he thought we were ghosts. I just sat there and took it all in and realized that these moments are numbered and soon will be but a memory. I can't believe how fast time is going by. I am grateful for what Africa has taught me. I'm grateful for what the Lord has taught me. I'm in the process of fulfilling my priesthood responsibilities and the Lord is definitely blessing me accordingly. I know that I have been called of God. I love my life :) And I love you all! Have a great week!

 

Je vous aime,

Elder Schmid