Dear Mom,

 

I'm happy you all had a great Thanksgiving! On Thursday, I totally forgot it was Thanksgiving until I was writing in my journal that night. It was just another day over here. We were at the Wheatley's last night to celebrate Thanksgiving because none of us wanted to mess with our teaching schedules on Thursday. We had an awesome little feast with great mashed potatoes, fruit cocktail, green beans and chicken! I ate so much and it felt sooo good. Afterwards we watched a random video that the Wheatley's have at their house about the Mormon Battalion and then we watched some Bible videos! I have only see a couple about Christ's birth and the angels announcing the news, so it was exciting to see some others. Those videos are so powerful! I loved the detail that they went into to create those inspirational videos. I love our church.

 

Yes, I was able to get those pictures that you sent me from Halloween. I loved them! Dallin looked legit! They all did! I love my family! Darian didn't look too happy in the pictures. Are Egyptian queens not happy? ;) I look forward to next Halloween and seeing what Tyler and I bust out!

 

Teaching and preaching blazed forward this week. We have had 5 strait weeks of 30+ lessons and we have been working really hard and it has been really rewarding. I love missionary work so much, but it means so much more when your love for it pushes you to work harder and better. We know that we can't do it all without the Lord... after all, it is His work. These past few weeks I feel like I have personally come to better understand the promise that the Lord gives us in D&C 89:20, "And (the obedient) shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint."

 

We have a new ami de l'église qui s'appelle (friend of the church who is called) Jean Joseph. It has been fun teaching him this week. Last week was the first time we met him. He is this 60 year old man who has a very large gut and was walking around shirtless, and he just comes up to us and says, "Soon I will be a member in your church!" I didn't know if we should take him seriously because that is something we here quite often, but we followed through with it and he now has a baptismal date for December 15th. The first time we sat down and had a lesson with him we went over why we are there (How To Begin Teaching, AMAZING section in Preach My Gospel) and we gave him le devoir (the duty) to read the Introduction dans le Livre de Mormon. Il l'avait fait et il a bien compris! (He had done it and he understood it well!)   He went on for a few minutes just telling us about everything he understood and liked. He went on to read the testimonies as well and loved those. He came to church on Sunday and he was participating and taking notes and loving every bit of it. Our elders quorum did an awesome job and welcoming him and making him feel at home and they gave him the conference Liahona from the conference in April and I bet that he will be done with that by the time we see him tomorrow. His son is a recent convert and is very excited that his dad will be joining him in the church. As Jean Joseph left Sacrament meeting yesterday he turned to me and said, "Il faut que mon fils aille en mission." Basically he said, "My son NEEDS to go on a mission." He is awesome. I can't wait for him to get baptized!

 

 

 

President Jameson came to town with Sister Jameson and did interviews and it was awesome! I love those people so much. Interviews with President Jameson are some of my favorite moments on the mission. I always look forward to them. He told us about Elder Hollands visit to the mission. Central African Republic is now dedicated and missionaries will be there soon. We are still waiting for a french couple to get found for Gabon. We are all so anxious, but honestly I would be totally fine with staying in Congo for the rest of my mission. I just want to work.

 

We are teaching another guy named Délaur and he will be getting baptized this Saturday. We met him my first Sunday out here in Congo and he lived way the heck out there so we didn't really want to go teach him but he kept on coming to church and wanting us to teach him. We found out that he works at this gas station that we are by a lot throughout the day. There is a little construction project that he is doing and he has a two hour break everyday so we take advantage of that and we teach him... a lot. And he loves every minute of it! He loves to learn and he is very smart. Most of our lessons are in this tiny little room sitting on big yellow plastic water containers right next to a monster generator. I love Africa. One week I am going to take a picture of where we sat for every single rendez-vous.

 

Delaur...this kid is awesome!
 

Well, that's about it for this week! Oh! I went and bought Le Petit Prince and Bilbo le Hobbit! We have permission from President Jameson to read Le Petit Prince for language study. The hobbit will have to wait until I get home. I love french!! I love you and I hope you have a great week!

 

Love,

ton fils bienaimé, (the best liked son)

le fils que tu aimes le plus, (the son that thou lovest the most)

le fils qui est le plus beau de tous les fils du monde, (just joking) (The son who is the most beautiful of all the sons of the world)

The son that you are lucky to have :)

Elder Christiaan Schmid

 

PS - tell Threet to enjoy looking at the gorgeous ocean and waves and surfers and snorkelers and all other amazing sea life stuff that he won't be able to participate in for two years. I see little kids playing in filthy water and I just want to get in and join them... That will be rough for him, being in paradise. Ca va aller. Mes condoléances :)  (That will go. My condolences)