Week 74 Email: The trio

From: Christian.garcia@missionary.org
Date: Monday, November 14, 2022
Subject: The trio

Bonjour tout le monde! Ou Bonsoir! I guess that really depends on when you read this haha. 

This past weekw as a blast! As you can see from the title I am working in a trio again. So my companions name is Elder Mbowa, he's from the Congo also, and he's pretty chill guy. He goes home right before me and so he talks to me all of the time about what I'm going to study and what I'm going to do when I get home. And when I tell him that I want to focus on the time on the mission he just laughs and puts his arm around me and says "Bro, we don't have much time left. I'm just keeping you on your toes." At least that's the english translation of it haha. Our other companion is Elder Mahan. He was in the apartment last transfer and we are working with hiim until the new missionary he is supposed to train shows up. We got news this past week that he should be coming either this week or the week after so, fingers crossed!! 

So on Tuesday we had to say goodbye to Elder Mulamingu and Elder Ibanda. It was pretty sad because all of us together had a really fun time in the apartment and we were hopng for at least one more transfer together, mais anye ooo. When we got to the stake center in Lome, after 2 hours in a car we were able to chill for a second thankfully and stretch and talk to the other missionaries before the bus from Benin came. We then helped Elder Mbowa get all of his stuff and packed up then we all (the 3 of us) got stashd in the car and we took the other 2 hours to get back up to Tabligbo. So working in the trio not only reminds me of working back in Anfame and Adakpame because now were are tehnically covering 2 sectors but I am also working in a trio like I did with Elder Meliine and Elder Teko (shoutout to my sons!!!). We spent the afternoon getting Elder Mbowa a little acclimated to Togo and Tbaligbo by going and visiting members. They are really nice and we set upu some mangez-vous!!! So that was nice because it has been such a long time since I have had those haha. 

Wednesday we spent the morning planning out how we were going to divide the time between the 2 sectors and this is what we came up with. We found out who the most progressing amis from each sector were and called them and got rendez-vous and the schedule filled up haha. It was great but that also made me a little curious to see if we were going to be able to find new people with everything feeling so packed. But it all worked out! In fact we found someone the same day right after lunch when we went to go and teach an ami! His name is Matthew Dodo (kind of like the dodo bird) and he really loved the message after he learned that we weren't Jehovas Witnesses. I didn't ever fully realise how much the people here don't like them unti this week haha. For the rest of the day we biked long and hard and met some pretty cool people. We focused a little more in Tabligbo 1 on Wednesday so there were lots of people that I got to meet!!

Thursday was a full day in sector with a lot of sun. I think we are starting to get into the dry season (it's earlier than last year) so now everything is just getting hotter and hotter. But everything was alright in the afterrnoon when we took the bikes out. The wind from riding a bicycle is such a blessing. We decided to go and visit a family that lives way out in ANOTHER village apart from Tabligbo. This family is serisouly the best they live maybe 30-45minutes away on a bike and at least half of them WALK to church every Sunday. Well when we got there they had gone out to go and get water so we waited until they got back and then when they finally did there was some rain that came by so we all went into one of the houses and watched a Book of Mormon video on Gospel Library. It was such a powerful message for me personally watching them because many don't know French but they kept saying "Yesu Christo" which means "Jesus Christ" becase we were watching one of the newer videos. The power of just seeing Christ, even an actor portraying Him, was making these people love Him even more. It really is by the small and simple things that great things come to pass. 

Friday we focused on visiting new converts and others in Tabligbo 2. Lots of the amis weren't free but they were next to members so we made sure to go and say hi to them when we went by. It was hot too haha. We visited this family on Friday evening too. The family of Fr Joseph. We learned from one of our young men that his son sctually had some sort of heart attack. The doctors said taht when they did a radiation (X-ray) they found that his hearts valves aren't pumping blood like they should. It was really sad to see this family concerned about thier son like they were. Then when we were leaving they asked me to say the prayer and I honestly thought that I was going to cry as I was sayng it. I couldn't imagine haivng something like that happening, so if you could keep Daniel in your prayers I know that it would be very beneficial. 

Saturday was a very fun day! We started off by going to some recent converts houses and then swinging by the church to talk to the cerk of the mission so he could help us with some things. The first thing he said was "Elder Garcia you need to stop living in Togo and come to Benin you've become Togolais." I really like Fr. Jim haha. The afternoon we had lots planned but because those that are in their (basically) senior year of high-school go to school some Saturdays to make sure they know the content for the tests, we got dropped a lot. I was pretty bummed out but little by little we made some calls and visited some people. We did our coordination meeting with the branch here and got lots of ideas thought out and hopefully we can all work together to make them come to pass. And then right after we headed out to the vilage again. This time for famiy home evening and there were 61 PEOPLE there!!! This family is AMAZING to say the least! 

Sunday was a special day for the branch because the senior couple, the Jeffcoat Dicks, worked with the young women to plan a "program" of sorts to present to the branch what they were learning and focused on their theme. It was good but what I really loved the most was the 2nd hour. We got to go into the first ever Elder Quorum and we talked about Our Heavenly Father. The theme was to get us all thinking about how we can feel His love for us through the Spirit and one of the members said "Through obeying His commandments we always have His Spirit with us, so we will always be able to feel His love if we keep His commandments." And then for the rest of the hour we talked about how we can keep the commandments of the Lord. The members here are so humble so they started sharing experiences about when they didn't and I learned a lot of conversion stories that really touched my heart. I am so happy to have been there, like Tabligbo is probably one of the best sectors in this mission.

This week I wanted to share a quick thought from a talk that I got sent this past week. It's a General Conference talk by Elder Holland from 2012. In his talk Elder Holland explains the story of what the remaining 11 apostles did after the death of Christ and how when they went fishing they caught nothing. But then when they were out a figure told them to throw the net again but on the right side, and John wrote that "It is the Lord." And then Peter jumped out of the boat and swam to Christ and there Christ asked him 3 times if he loved Him. Afterwards Christ sent His disciples again unto the world. Elder Holland explained that Christ might have said something along the lines of "I need someone to feed my sheep and save my lambs. I need someone to preach my gospel and defend my faith. I need someone who loves me, truly, truly loves me, and loves what our Father in Heaven has commissioned me to do. Ours is not a feeble message. It is not a fleeting task. It is not hapless; it is not hopeless; it is not to be consigned to the ash heap of history. It is the work of Almighty God, and it is to change the world." After reading that I realised that this mission isn't just for those that have a badge but it is for all people. And this work will change the world. I know that, and I love that I have the opportunity to know that and to be apart of this work at this time. I know that God loves us and that Christ is there for us in everything we do. He knows each of us individually. We are all here at this time for a reason, Christ wants us and needs us. I invite us all to follow the prophets council and Preach this Gospel of Peace. 

Thank y'all for reading this one. Sorry it's so long haha. If you made it good job!!! Keep sending emails, I serisouly love them! 

Until next week, 

~Elder Garcia