Week 30 Email: A week of trying and failing to turn on the brakes

From: Christian.garcia@missionary.org
Date: Monday, January 10, 2022
Subject: A week of trying and failing to turn on the brakes

This week went by quickly. That didn't stop me from trying to slow it down though...

On Tuesday we had an awesome District Council through Zoom... it wasn't great we were actually cutting out and then couldn't hear and let's just say that Zoom is the worst. And then to top off that when we went to sector there wasn't anything to do and all of the people that we had made arrangements with decided to dip or just not respond. So what did we do?? We turned to the old fashioned route and left the bikes with a member and then went and tried to find people. We were successful of finding Casper and he says to tell everyone hi. Tuesday just wasn't our day I guess. Not a big deal though, just keep the grind going. 

Wednesday went better. We went out to sector with a member in the morning and we actually found 2 new people to teach and even got to teach a lessons to one of them! I seriously love it when people are that open after you say that you have news about Christ. Kinda great. We had a busy afternoon too. We went to clear out to the main road to Lomé and taught a girl who said she wants to to baptised hy her brother when he gets home from his mission in February... I'm hoping that she keeps that commitment haha. Then we went about 30 minutes NE from there to only find out that the kid who had said he would be home was still in school taking a test... kinda lame but I guess school's important too ;) So we called our next rendez-vous and just switched the 2 around hoping that that would be free. For our second rendez-vous though we were teaching a family but more specifically the kids because the mom already had received the lesson and it was great. Teaching kids is always fun because you can use pictures and drawings in the dirt and I just love it. Then we circled back and got told to go Thursday morning instead so we went and tried to find more people to teach. To no avail but it's still good to try. 

Thursday was just crazy. We were so busy that I don't even know how to explain it other than imagine the tasmanian devil from looney tunes as a day and you'll understand how my day felt haha.

Friday was another great day though. We had our weekly planning session and realised that we somehow had found 4 new people without even trying so that was a blessing. We also had some really great lessons and got a question about baptism from a family!! I hope that I will still be in Kpalime for that but if not then I know that the Lord has other work for me to do and that's okay. We also got to work with Frère Tigi and he gave us some names of new amis that we should go and visit and it worked out really well that they knew someone in the church before. 

Saturday we had a baptism!! Frère Stanley showed up and even though the water in the branch had stopped working we somehow were able to fill up the font. If that's not a miracle then I don't know what is. We also got to sit down with the new missionary couple and have lunch with them and talk about how we, working together, can help Kpalime to grow in the church. It was a really good lunch and I feel like we came up with some pretty good ideas. We also went and visited some inactive members and they seemed happy that we had come to see them and they all promised that they would come to church on Sunday. Overall it was a really progressive day for me as a missionary. I fixed some goals that I am going to be working on to give these next 18 months my all. 

Sunday went a little like this... up down all around and right back to where we started. Let me explain that a little. So we had an AMAZING sacrament meeting. There were more people in the congregation than I have seen in Kplalimé before. It was sooo great and the senior couple was there and they both testified about how we are all brother and sisters of the same Heavenly Father and it was really powerful because there were only 3 of us white people but we are ALL related by one single infinite being. So that was the up. The down came for lunch time haha. Sœur Jeffcoat (Senior couples name) said she brought us lunch anf then when we opened it up she forgot the tortillas hahah. It wasn't really a down because everything else was there but she felt so bad. By the end of it though everyone was okay and we all ate pretty good. The all around came from our lessons. We had 3 scheduled and none answered their phones so we went and checked their houses but nobody was there every time we showed up so we had to leave and go to the next. We ended up travelling around Kpalimé. Then came the night. We were done with finding people and talking to members and so we came back to the appartement, right back where we started in the morning. It was all around a good day and I loved it.

This week's spiritual thought comes from the diligence part of PMG. This week my companion and I started out a d it was hard to find some people and then easier and then hard but by the end of the week we met some pretty big goals. We were diligent until the end of the day. We both came back back the appartement every night and were exhausted. We continued and continued and found many miracles this week. I invite everyone to be a little more diligent in this new year. We all have set goals and some of them seem impossible but diligence is one of the best ways to achieve something. Even if all hope seems lost. 

I love you all so much and I jope you have had a great week and that you have a great week!

Beaucoup d'amour,

Elder Garcia