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
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
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