Bringing the Gospel to Yaounde, Cameroon

Monday, May 20, 2013

Dear Mom,
 
     OK, questions, yes of course I am staying strong and enduring to the end. I hope that doesn't sound to surprising to you. Like I have said before, I promised myself that I would go hard and work hard until I'm done, and with 39 days left, I'm still living true to that promise. It has been easy for me because I made up my mind at the very beginning of my mission that I would stay strong until the end. Elder Johnston is progressing very well. It is incredible to see his progression over the past six weeks. He is an awesome missionary and will do great things for this mission over the next 21 months. No, he does not have any kind of blog. I guess he has grandparents that live in Mesa and it is possible that his parents will be visiting at the time I give my homecoming talk, so they might be there. My asthma has actually gotten worse... in my dreams I can't breathe and then I wake up and it's reality and I am struggling to breathe. It is kind of freaky and really annoying. I'm beating out my mattress tonight, but I don't think it is just the mattress. The other day as I was walking around throughout the day, I had to use my inhaler five or six different times. It's ridiculous. I'm just going to be patient and pray that it will go away when I make it back to the states. Yes, we are in rainy season and I don't have an umbrella, so when it does rain I get drenched. I don't mind it though. Having wet clothes kind of keeps me cool throughout the rest of the day. The people all around us think we are crazy white people, but we won't let a little rain stop us. There, I think I got all of your questions. Addy is engaged? That is exciting for the Thompson family! I wonder what Jordan's reaction was.

     This week flew by and now I am officially in my last transfer, or six weeks of the mission. I can't believe that. This last transfer went by so fast! It has been fun working with Elder Johnston, and training. The beginning of the last transfer was a huge mental struggle for me... not knowing anything about our sector, but the Lord was there and helped us both out and now we get around like we have been here for months. We have been working with a lot of inactive members and we had five at church yesterday! Along with eight investigators. So that made Elder Johnston and I very happy.

     Here is an interesting story. We have this investigator who was progressing but was having difficulties finding time to come to church because she is pretty committed to her current church. We decided to go to her house with this sister from our branch who is in the district Relief Society presidency, and see if she could work some awesome magic. I think for every word I said this sister we brought said 30. She could talk... and talk...... and talk............ and talk. But it was great having her there. We ended up getting fed some weird pistachio cake thing with porcupine meat in it (and at one moment I chomped down on a porcupine tooth that is about an inch long... ouch) and while we were eating the two women were going off in their native dialect. As we left, the sister said to us, "Wow, that woman has some problems!" She went on to explain to us that she is the third of four wives and has some major health issues. That was depressing news. She then went on to explain the health issues... this woman has supposedly been pregnant for 10 years. Yes, I understood her correctly as she was talking to me! 10 years! Is that even possible?! I guess she hasn't had a period for 10 years and now has major pains and what not. She said that the baby has never left her body. I didn't know what to think as I was listening to that. I wish I could have seen my face. So there is an interesting African story for you.

     We have been teaching this lady and her daughter for about a month now and they have been really progressing well! We gave them a Book of Mormon and had them read the introduction and all that goodness, and they did and even took notes. We then felt like it would be best for them if they simply continued their study in the Book of Mormon by starting with Nephi and we told them to read the first 3 chapters. We went back a few days later and the mother said that she had read the first nine chapters and Elder Johnston and I are going "Yeahhhh buddy!" and then the daughter looks at her like she failed and said, "That's it? I read up until 13!" So yeah they are awesome. We just have a little interesting dilemma, but here soon we will know exactly what to do. The whole polygamy thing might not even be true after talking to this woman's little brother, who is a recently returned missionary. This week we will make sure to get all the facts straight.

     We have one inactive member that we are working with who is named Ebenezer. He was baptized when I was first here in Yaoundé. He is awesome and loves to read the scriptures and what not, but it is just difficult for him to come to church because of his work schedule. We had one lesson where we talked about priorities and we helped him realize that even though he was saying that God is his number one priority he was not living his life as such. During this rendez-vous he was full of excuses and it was getting very annoying. I remember being a Deacon's Quorum president and having problems with kids not coming to church and I was talking to Dad and he said, "You call them and ask them plain and simply if they will be at church. Make it so they either say 'yes' or 'no'." I still live by that advice today so that's what my mindset is like when I extend commitments. I sat there for five minutes asking him simply, "Ebenezer, will you show God that you are faithful to your covenants by coming to church on Sunday and partaking of the sacrament so that you can once again have the companionship of the Holy Ghost?" It was very clear and easy to understand but he kept on saying things like, "Yeah, I will make every effort..." or "yeah, if God wills it..." or "I'll try to be there..." I HATE answers like that because deep down inside they are already thinking of not going. He ended up not committing and said simply, "I need to pray and fast to know what I need to do." Without even thinking or talking to Elder Johnston I said, "Good, we will fast with you too. When are you going to fast?" and he told us that he would do it on Saturday. So we joined him on the fast and went to visit him on Saturday to see what his answer was to the commitment that I tried to extend to him a few days earlier. Before we even asked him or mentioned it he said, "I will be at church on Sunday!" I was kind of caught off guard and said, "Have you even talked to your boss to see if you could get the day off?" He said simply to not worry about it. Well, Sunday came around and Ebenezer was there! It was a sweet little miracle.

Well, I gotta go. I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week! You guys are always in my prayers.

Je vous aime,
Elder Schmid

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

 
Dear Mom,
 
Gosh, Africa can be so frustrating sometimes. I had almost finished typing up a nice long email for you and then the internet went out and I lost it all. So I get to restart. Oh well... c'est la vie.
 
The Mother's Day skype call was incredible and it was awesome hearing everybodie’s voices. It didn't bother me at all that I couldn't see you guys. I guess I will be that much more surprised at how much everyone has changed when I get home. It was funny hearing Bronson grunt like Sasquatch throughout the call. He is such a goofy kid. I can'’t wait to see him for the first time.

Mother's Day dinner
 
This past week went by super fast. It was P-week for us. We were only in our sectors for two days because of this huge zone conference that was in Douala. It was totally worth it though. President Jameson did interviews, and that was the best part, I feel, about the conference. I love it when I get one on one time with President Jameson. He is an incredible man and I can'’t wait for you all to get to know him better after we return from Africa. It is such a huge blessing that he lives close to us. I have such a strong testimony that God ALWAYS knows what he is doing.

Bus ride to Douala


Eating on their way to Zone conference

Bus station in Douala

It was neat being able to go and spend a few hours in a sector that I was in for seven months. I was able to go see Matthieu who was an inactive who we were able to reactivate, through the help of the Holy Ghost, of course. He has become somewhat inactive again and it is interesting to see the consequences. If you remember, he has some crazy infection in his leg that has been eating at his leg for years. We gave him such a simple promise… that if he went to church then his leg would heal. That is what he did and his leg started to heal and was steadily progressing. And now that he doesn'’t go anymore his leg is worse off than where it was to begin with when we started meeting him back almost a year ago. Interesting, huh? It was neat being able to talk to him and help him remember his responsibilities and covenants. Hopefully, he will recommit himself. I was also able to go and see Catherine and Rosalie, two of my converts. When I got to their house I was surrounded by a bunch of kids and young women in a massive group hug. Catherine wasn'’t there but one of the little kids went up and got her. When she walked into the door and saw me she ran to me and grabbed me and hugged me and started jumping up and down. I don'’t know if she was praising God or taking his name in vain, but I do know that she was happy. She was tearing up. It was great being able to talk to her and once again share my testimony with her. They are solid converts who are doing things right. I am so grateful that I was able to be there during their conversion.
 
The actual zone conference was awesome. We watched a segment from that new training DVD that the Church made and it was about working with inactives. Elder Clayton and Elder Christensen went out with stake presidents and met with inactive families. We watched that video and then discussed how we could improve our work with the less actives here in Africa. We are blessed to be able to work with them a lot. We have had to drop a lot of investigators, so that leaves us with more time to work with inactives, and you know that I love working with inactives. President Jameson has a great gift of explaining the scriptures and we went over some passages in D&C and discussed, as a group, how we could put them into practice. It was a simple meeting but I like them like that. We got a lot done and the Spirit was definitely there.
 
Taking the missionaries back to the bus station to go home to Yaounde

The Elders of Cameroon
  
I was able to get mail and I got some awesome packages from Natascha with soap and Tide and all sorts of goodies. She'’s awesome. She has definitely spoiled me while I have been out here in Africa. I also got letters from the Kettenrings and Brother Packer, which I loved so much. So if they are reading this, thank you so much for writing me! It means so much to hear from loved ones back home.
 
I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week. Mom, once again happy Mother's Day! I love you and I am so grateful for everything that you have done for me. You are an angel!
 
Je t’aime maman,
Elder Schmid

A generational picture (from left: Elder Schmid's grandson, Elder Colindres who is being trained by next,
Elder Thibault, Elder Schmid, and another son, Elder Johnston)

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

 
Dear Mom,
 
Let me quickly answer your questions. Asthma is still a little problem but it hasn'’t been as bad. I got a new pillow but I have been to lazy to beat out my bed. Maybe I'’ll find time to do that this week.  As for writing every week,… I love it. I have found a love for writing. I have a love/hate relationship with my journal. I am so grateful that I have put so much time and effort into it, but, that’'s the thing,… it takes so much time! At the end of my mission I will have easily invested at least 700 hours into my journal. I am almost done with my fifth one. I am stretching it so that I can finish the last page on my last day. Time is definitely going faster and faster. Especially when I look at how many days I have left. I have made it a goal though, since the beginning of my mission, to stay focused. I think President Jameson has trusted me with this responsibility to train again because he knows that I won’t get trunky and make things difficult for someone who still has a lot of time. He has only completed 10.27% of his mission while I have completed 92.7%. One of the hardest moments of my mission was when my trainer and his generation all went home a year ago. We were all there at the couples apartment sharing in the excitement of what laid in store for them… and then they were gone… and I still was staring down 14 months. I don'’t want Elder Johnston to experience that when I leave because, for him, he will still have a little under 20 months. That’'s a random tangent for ya. So there you go,… I think I got your questions.
 
This week was a great one. Elder Johnston and I were blessed with a lot of opportunities to teach, so that makes me happy. I love to teach and share my testimony. This past week I have been really providing Elder Johnston with a lot of opportunities to teach. He may not like the method that I use. I will teach for a little bit and get us rolling and then I will stop and look at him and say nothing more. Sometimes I catch him off guard and just smile. Ahh! You gotta love being a new missionary. I had some awesome day dreams when I first got out here to Africa… because I had absolutely NO CLUE what was being said. Elder Johnston has been awesome.  It stretches him and makes him pay attention, or at least try to. His french is great. It was great when he got out here. It has only been a month but I have seen a lot of improvement. He is an awesome missionary and will do great things for the people in this mission. One of the things that I love most about him is his desire to really teach an individual,… not just a lesson. That is the key to Preach My Gospel,… teaching by the spirit. The title “Preach My Gospel” is from a scripture in D&C 50, but I feel like they left out the most important part! It continues, “by the Spirit.” When we do weekly planning we have had some neat opportunities in planning for certain individuals and Elder Johnston has led a lot of those planning ideas. I am grateful to be working with him. I feel like the trainer learns more than the trainee sometimes during those first 12 weeks.
 
Here is something funny. We teach a couple that is trying to get married so they can get baptized, but they are basically already members of the Church. They are there every Sunday and René, the guy, got up yesterday and bore his testimony in Sacrament meeting and it was an awesome testimony. Well his girl, Carine, LOVES to feed their child whose name is Prince. The normal American child would already be on bottles but here in Africa it seems like they keep them close to their bosom as long as possible. Well the other day little Prince was crying and René basically said, “well I tried making him shut up! Here you go!” and he handed him over to Carine. Carine, in her innocent, little loving voice started chanting, while bouncing crying Prince on her knee, “"Bébé Prince ne pleure plus! Maman est là, elle va te donner téter!" ” Her french wasn'’t perfect but her idea was most definitely established. I'’ll let you translate that on google. Every single time we are at their house she feeds Prince. Sometimes she is sitting right next to you on the tiny couch. There are generally five of us so things are already tight and squished. So things could get a little awkward. Especially when Prince is done and Carine just wants to sit there and talk to you and not worry about covering up until five minutes later. Don’'t worry, after one week in Africa I learned to make perfect eye contact with people. Oh Africa…!
 
I was able to go on splits with Elder Addington this week and it was so much fun. For those of you who don'’t remember, Elder Addington was my companion in the MTC. It is neat seeing how much he has changed. At the beginning of his mission he was very quiet and to himself. Now he is very outgoing and funny and it is so easy to strike up a conversation with him. He is super intelligent and is an incredible teacher. People love to learn from him. It is easy for him to… make things so simple to understand. The mission has done amazing things for him.
 
So, this next week will pretty much be a p-week. We have p-day today, we will work on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then on Thursday we will go to Douala for zone conference and we'll be there until Saturday, and then on Sunday we will be skyping our families! And then it will be p-day again! Craziness. I am so stoked to go down to Douala and see the Jamesons, the Gaileys, and the missionaries down there. Zone conference will be awesome. I have some packages and mail waiting for me down there, as well, that I am looking forward to getting :) President Jameson picked up my mail and stuff that arrived in Congo after I left and will be bringing it to Douala with him, so I will have it all in just a few days! I can'’t wait! I have definitely been spoiled my whole mission. I am so grateful for the letters and packages that have been sent my way. Some of the happiest moments on my mission have been reading letters written by people who love me. It means so much.
 
Well, that about sums things up for this week. I’m glad everyone is doing well over there! Remember Mom, the counsel that the Lord gave to Joseph Smith! Don’t run faster than you have strength. You'’re an angel and do so much for the family but don'’t push yourself to exhaustion and sickness. That is the genius of the family…, we all work together. I love you and I hope you have a great week! I can’'t wait to see and hear you on Sunday!!! Happy Mother's Day in advance! Like I said, you’re an angel!
 
Love,
Elder Schmid