Week 32 Email: I'm a dad?!?

From: Christian.garcia@missionary.org
Date: Monday, January 24, 2022
Subject: I'm a dad?!?

Bonjour mes chers amis! J'espère que vous avez passé une bonne semaine!!

To start off this week I woke up at 5:30 and then a hour later Elder Kouadio packed up my bags into the car and we headed allllll the way down to Lomé so that we could go to Anfamé. When we got to Anfamé we spent a solid 2 hours cleaning the apartment because... let's just say gross. And then when it came time to go out to sector nothing to do and no members to help us Elder Kouadio and I went out into the world. We ended up passing the time by visiting people that I remembered and just talking to people. Then we went to the Adakpamé church and followed the institute class there. I had never been to an institute class before so I was kinda expecting seminary where nobody wants to participate but it was actually 100% the opposite. Everyone had their hands up at the same time, all with really spiritual responses and it was really really cool for me to be apart if that for my first time. After we made the petit track back to Anfamé from Adakpamé and then stayed in for the rest of the night and got everything ready for the next day so that we had things to do.

Wednesday we kinda did a lot of walking in the morning. And by that I mean we tried and tried to talk to people buuuut Anfamé is still struggling to get amis. (Your prayers would be very welcome if you could include that) After a while we came back to the apartment and ate some food and then chilled and called some members and other missionaries and then headed out to sector of Adakpamé. We had 3 rendez-vous scheduled but there coordinates weren't accurate and there weren't any phone numbers so we couldn't find them :/ we definitely tried though haha. I bet it looked really funny to people going and actually knocking on doors to try and find the amis, never thought I would actually be doing that on my mission here. The 3rd rendez-vous was a success though!! We found a mom and her kid and shared with them a more in depth of the restoration so that they could fully understand it. By the end they were saying that they would be coming to church and they would pray and try to read the Book of Mormon. All of the bad experience disappeared with that one great lesson. Patience and trying brings rewards I guess. Especially when you are doing the right. 

Thursday was a weird day. So we had a training with the assistants for all of the new trainers so Elder Kouadio and I headed over there snd spent some time. We thought that we were going to get food but sadly... we didn't so that was pretty sad but its okay we found some rice and beans on the street. We didn't have any reliable amis that night either, after the training for the trainers so we called up some people and tried to get some amis to come in clutch. But when they didn't answer or anything I asked Elder Kouadio of the patriarch was still in Agoe so we headed over there and he got his patriarchal blessing. Super cool.

Friday, because we didn't have our new conpa yet we did our weekly planning by ourselves in the morning and then we both took a nap and overall chilled. As I was trying not to get stressed out because the taxi wasn't picking up, we got a call from the assistants and they said that our new companion had arrived... we were 100% expecting them that night not that afternoon so we hurried and got ready, tried the taxi again with no response, and then found a new taxi on the street and went to grab our new companions. My "son" is Elder Meline and he's from California!! He's so cool and tall. (Explanation: when an elder trains another elder they calm calm trainee the son and the trainer trainer dad because they are teaching and learning. Hence why I am a dad now and how I have a son) I have been used to Afrcian companions who aren't much taller than me or are super short but Elder Maline is easily 6'2 and I'm chilling at my 5'9 him having to look down at me haha. His French is great too. He can form sentences and has a really string desire to learn. I'm excited to work with him this transfer and get to know him more.

Saturday was another day for training so we called our taxi the night before and he said he would be at the apartment early so we thought we were good. I called him again in the morning and he said he would be there. We'll when it came time to leave he wasn't there! So we waited and waited and then ended up being late because he was late and I was stressing like crazy. Anyways, the new missionaries went and talked with the president and the trainers just chilled together and talked and set up goals of what we can do to help the new missionaries learn. I came up with the goal of speaking as much French as I can and not trying to use English. Since I have an Americna companion I am hoping I can keep up with that goal and Elder Meline seems down to do his best too. After the training and the day 1 interviews we said goodbye to Elder Kouadio and his companion Elder Johnson and then headed back to Anfame. Well we were hu guy and had no food so we went and got money and then bought food for the week. And rhen came back and made some pretty noice rice and a tomato sauce. And then headed out to sector to try and just find people. We walked for quite some time but we actually found 3 new people and that has probably been the most interesting contact ever. We actually found 4 but one guy was buzz drunk so we didn't set anything up with him but the others were asking random questions and it got to the point where we had to just say bye and keep going. Elder Meline said "that was an interesting first contact." And I frankly agree haha. 

Sunday was awesome as normal because CHURCH! Though I forgot how rushed it is when there are the 2 wards and having to split time again. We sadly only had 1 ami come to church but its okay because that just motivates me to try even harder this week. We had some rendez-vous set up for Sunday but none of them worked out so we went and walked around Anfame and I tried to remember how to go to some people's houses. It was actually really hard at first but as we were walking I remembered and then we were chilling. We tried one amis house yet again but she wasn't home so we fixed another day for this next week so I am hoping that she will be free to listen to the message we have to share. We visited some members that had been going to church hut then stopped because the missionaries stopped coming by so they were thinking that the church didn't care about them. We got very warm welcomes to say the least and lots of promises to come to church next week. 

Over everything that has happened this week one word to describe it all had been PATIENCE. I haven't ever had my patience tested like it was this week because I wanted things to just get going and to be how they were before without me having to try so much. But the Lord knew I needed to be humbled and showed me how to have patience and be diligent. Just like how Alma shared the wisdom to his son Shiblon in Alma ch. 38 v. 4-5. We need to put our trust in the Lord and in the difficult times in our lives He will be there to help us and guide us. This week ahs shown me that we can all rely on the Lord even in the small things (just like waiting for an new missionary to arrive) and He will be there with us to help us and to guide us. I invite everyone this week to put some of the little stresses and difficulties in the trust of the Lord and ask for His help. I know that He is willing to help you and He is waiting with those open arms to accept your prayer. 

Again sorry for the absolute BOOK of an email but thank you for reading if you have made it this far. I love you all very much and am so thankful for your examples.

Beaucoup d'amour,

Elder Garcia