Dear Mom,

 

I'm going to try my best to quickly answer all those questions you threw in this email. As a zone leader I basically just have to be a good example and do numbers and organize zone conference sous la direction du Président de mission. District Leaders do more in our mission. There is only one zone in Pointe Noire. Each city is one zone with 8 missionaries. Elder Davis hit his 10 month mark on the 7th. I think he is pretty excited to be staying in Congo. We are working really well together and having fun. As far as construction... things take forever... imagine me saying that like squirts on Sandlot. The court should be done this next Monday but I doubt it. It is tiny... we might not play on it. The 3-point line is shorter than the free throw line on a normal court. Beaches are safe. Last time we were there there were some naughty teenagers being affectionate. I have no clue if there are sharks or not. It is beautiful though.

 

K, I think I got them all! This week was great! I love being here in Congo so much. I love to teach, and here in Congo we are super blessed because you are always teaching. Elder Davis and I have been focusing a lot more on inactives and so over 60% of our lessons were directed towards recent converts and inactives. I love working with them so much. It is a lot more difficult, I think, working with inactives, but it is so rewarding when you help them come back, well, through the help of the Spirit and God. Some of my closest friends on the missions are the inactives that I worked with.

 

On Thursday, we had district meeting and it started at 10:00 a.m.. Well, there were 5 people that we needed to see that we could only see before 12 and that is when district meeting was supposed to end so we planned them all before district meeting. So our plan was to leave the apartment at 6:30 and get teaching and be back by 9:45 so we wouldn't be late for the meeting. We were scrambling and going super fast but we were able to do it! Well we got raté'd by one person so we only had four lessons but it was still a fun little race.

 

Here is a cool experience that happened to us the other day. We got raté'd our first rendez-vous so we decided to continue to walk on this road that was being built and go to our other rendez-vous early. When you walk over here in Congo there are always people whistling at you and wanting you to come over. Some just want to mess around and aren't serious at all and others are drunk and just want to yell at us because they think we are the JW's. While walking down that road we got called over and when we presented ourselves we also told them that we aren't JW's and they said, "Oh okay, that's okay then. I like you guys." And that was it. We kept on walking and we got called over again but I just didn't want to turn around and talk to them. Thankfully both Elder Davis and I were propelled by the Spirit and we turned around to see this man in a yellow shirt waving at us telling us to come over and by the time we got there he had already set up chairs and everything for us and greeted us with a big smile and a nice hand shake. We sat down and he basically said, "Please, will you share with me your message." and so we did. As we were teaching he was totally focused and loving everything he was learning and hearing. There were times where he would just smile and you could tell he was feeling the Spirit. I asked him at one moment what he was feeling and he said, "I feel like you are messengers from God and that everything you are saying is true. I know that your message is true." We were able to give him a brochure and we got his number as well. He told us that he wouldn't be able to come to church because he had something he had to do at his church but he said that next Sunday he will be there. I honestly have no clue what will come of this. It could very well be that he will never progress and fade away like so many others but I won't care. That little meeting was incredible and we DEFINITELY planted a seed and THAT is what is important.

 

Transfers took place on Friday and Elder Thibault left to Yaoundé. I will miss that kid. It was fun being with him again. I was able to work with him a couple times and his french has improved so much and he is a great teacher. He will do good things over in Bastos. We now have Elder Christiensen working with Elder McGrath. He started his mission with Thibault and Davis. We are still in that "getting used to things" mode but that will fade away throughout the week.

 

We had a rendez-vous with a member one night and it was really dark because there was no power and his little 4 year old daughter was all over the place and she got a hold of the baby powder stuff and disappeared into her parents room and came out and she had the white powder all over her face and neck. It was so funny! Right when Juste saw her he wanted to laugh but had to be a little stern with her but he couldn't... so he did what every other father would do... he sent her to her mom. Once she left we all busted up laughing. I was able to get some pictures and I'll try to send them to you soon.

 

Things are going well over here. I love my mission so much. I love my life. I love you and I am so grateful for all that you have done for me. I'm a blessed kid :)

 

Je t'aime,

Elder Schmid