Christian in Africa

 

From: Mom To: Christian.garcia@missionary.org Date: Sunday, March 26, 2023 Subject: So long last week! Hey! How are you? How is your Sunday playing out? Did you have a good turnout at church today? What does the ward look like there in Cotonou? Do you have a full ward? With you being this close to the mission home, does President Proudfoot attend the ward you attend? This week here was good. Some days busier than others but it was good. I went down on Sunday to do church with Grandma. I thought she was nuts to want to go the next day after Cowboy passed away but she said "the first time has to happen at sometime so why not today?" I guess she had a good point. Church was good for her. She had a lot of neighbors around and they all hugged her. She has made a lot of great friends and you can tell they love her and Gary too. I was sure grateful for them and it makes me happy they are in Payson. I took B back to the dermatologist on Tuesday. Her face looked so great after her acc...

 

 

From: Christian.garcia@missionary.org Date: Monday, March 20, 2023 Subject: A week of transfers Bonjour tout le monde! Sorry for not writing anything last week haha. We had transfers and mine happened a day early because we were so far up in Dassa.  A few weeks ago Elder Kayembe and I were chillin out in sector and we got a call from President Proudfoot saying that they would be coming to our sector to stop and say hey and then continue on to Parakou. We were like "oh cool" haha. As we headed back from all the way in Timbuktu of Dassa to our apartment and got there just 2 minutes after they did. They were headed up with the other Elders to Parakou to open up the sector and since Dassa is about the halfway point they stopped there to take a quick break before continuing. And then we got the news that I would be leaving and President told me to get my bags ready starting the day (Saturday) so that I could be ready to leave Dassa on Monday morning. Elder Kayembe and...

Dassa + Parakou Making children laugh Famille Alphonsine Last Sunday Fr Zacharie et Sr Alphonsine I see you this time Thumbs up for good laughs My favorite leaders ever...Fr Kohou and Fr Gedeon This man is a legend Fr Happy Ft Le Fr Crepin  

From: Mom To: Christian.garcia@missionary.org Date: Saturday, March 11, 2023 Subject: Hello from Cabo Hey kiddo How are you? How are things this week? What is new and happening in Dassa? Have you heard anything on transfer news? How the amis? You had a baptism today I believe right? How did that go? Life here is good. We had a pretty quiet start to the week and then Tyler and I flew to Cabo Wednesday morning. B was going to St George with her friend Lily for the weekend so it worked out perfectly. The sunshine and warm is just what I needed. I started prepping my skin for warm with the tanning bed before when we were going to go to Hawaii but when that cancelled I just used the rest of my passes. Even the girl at the Starbucks made a comment about how tan I was.  Well, one day in Mexico and I was screwed! I got so fried that all day yesterday we just stayed in the shade where we could find it, I wore a tee shirt and not a tank, and we did what we could to avoid the ...

From: Christian.garcia@missionary.org Date: Monday, March 6, 2023 Subject: Hot Sun and Lovely Wind Bonjour tout le monde! This week was weird. The week before we were chillin enjoying some nice air and then this week it got hot... and when it got hot I started to die. And not a little bit either haha. We were sweating sooo much, my shirts looked like I just got poured on by rain every night. It was so worth it though!! But there was one night this last week and we got rain!!! But then the next day (Sunday too) was soooo hot. I got a little more red than brown Sunday to say the least.  So Monday last week we played soccer, hence no email haha. Sorry about that but it was fun. I don't remember taking any photos this time sooo sorry about that too. I'll try to be better.  Tuesday we had a nice district council where Elder Monson talked about charity and how each of us need to have charity. We then did an exchange with the zone leaders and I went with Elder N'guessa...

I wonder if Monday's will ever hold value when Elder Garcia returns home? I wonder if I will get up with happy anticipation or if they will become the standard 'mundane' start of the week like it is for so many others?  I don't care I guess right now because for now, I still get to look forward to a conversation with Elder Garcia either on an actual face to face call or messages in the Facebook Messenger. This week was good! Elder Garcia is happy and a couple of times during our call he was laughing at some of the antics of the other Elders in the apartment. I don't obviously understand what is being said when they talk to one another if it isn't in English but the laughter is easy to understand.  - Elder Garcia had exchanges this last week with the Zone Leaders. He really enjoys going on transfers and learning from the other Elders. There are so many ways to teach and so many ways to connect with people that being able to draw from the strengths of others has b...

Church with Crepin et David  

From: Mom To: Christian.garcia@missionary.org Date: Saturday, March 4, 2023 Subject: March :)  Hello there, How are you this week? How are things going in Dassa? How are your ami's progressing? Have you added any new ones during this week? How is your companion? If you took a minute to look back at this last week would you be able to pin point one or two things you have learned from him that you can apply not just now as a missionary but moving forward into life long term? I have come to a conclusion that mission companions hold more weight than I think any of us have ever really looked at them holding. Most are from different areas, even if it is just a different state. Things are different in each state/country/city/etc so it is an opportunity to embrace that difference and learn from it too. Maybe implement things you really like and remember the difference it made for you when it was introduced to you. I also firmly believe that the characteristics of each companion...