Christian in Africa

B with a quick thumbs up before she heads out the door to school today Elder Garcia Today started EARLY here at home. We had to turn our clocks back an hour yesterday for Daylight Savings which now means that Elder Garcia is 7 hours ahead of us here at home instead of just 6. I didn't think just one extra hour would make such a difference but it sure did! I was up at 4am which made it 11am for Elder Garcia. So crazy! Elder Garcia is loving his new companion and he is so happy in his new area. His new area covers 2 sectors, Anfame and Adakpame. It is quite far between the two so they have to take a taxi to go from one to the other. They have 2 baptisms planned for now on the 20th and have an invitation extended to another ami they are working with and are just waiting to hear from her if the date is something she feels good about.  Some things he has to say about his new companion, Elder Kikwati, are that he is wonderful and so great. He is loving this change and he is grateful for ...

From: Christian.garcia@missionary.org Reply to Mom's Email Date: Monday, November 8, 2021 I am doing freaking awesome! My week kinda flew by and it's sad because I think that is how this whole transfer is going to be. Elder Kikwati and I are getting along really great. And we were ninjas for about 3 minutes and then it got hot soooo we decided to not have hoodie on anymore haha. My new area is soooo hot compared to Kpalime but that's to be expected because there isn't much rain here.  The lessons I'm leading are going well. There is definitely improvement in the language and I can see that and I feel that too. Our amis are great in Adakpame and there are some that we are hoping for baptism the 4th of December and then on the 20 we have 2 lined up so far and we are hoping for a 3rd but we don't know her feelings quite yet.  Yeah... I don't think that you should be doing anything too difficult if something popped your hamstring like that haha. That...

Nous sommes ninjas  

To: Christian.garcia@missionary.org From: Mom Date: Saturday, November 6, 2021 Subject: Hey! How are you? How was your week? How are things going with your new companion? I assume through the photos on your drive and the smile that I see that things are going well but I want to know for real...how are you feeling with all of it? How are your lessons going with you leading? Is the language coming a little more fluently and are you feeling good about what it is you are learning? How are your ami's? Anything on the horizon as far as extensions of baptism or scheduled baptisms? Things here this week were weird. I think flying home on Monday threw me way off!!! I was a day b behind on pretty much everything. :/ I went to Pilates Tuesday morning and 43 minutes into my 50 minute class I was in a plank and the instructor wanted us to bend our knees like we would kneel while maintaining the plank. I was good for the first two but then as I folded in on my third one...holy crap ...

Christmas all packaged up and ready to go on a long flight to Africa! When the mission call came in for Elder Garcia to Africa, one of my biggest wonders was that of would I be able to send him anything from home or would he really have to go 2 years without a little love? I remember taking him down to the UPS store to see what the cost would be for a small box and about barfed when it came back at $700+ for a 10x10x10 box that weighed less than 10 pounds! I think Elder Garcia was just as shocked because we both looked at each other and agreed in that glance that that was simply too expensive to do. Plus you add in the uncertainty of being able to make sure that all of what you sent was received and in a timely manner without the missionary having to pay a customs 'get out of jail' excessive fee.  This crushed me. I always dreamed of having missionaries I could ship stuff here and there to and make sure that small things from home arrived to them as a reminder that we think of ...

When Mom's on a plane, phone calls still happen. ha ha ha I giggled pretty good when I was on the drive looking at photos from Elder Garcia today when I arrived home from Atlanta and saw this photo! I am so glad that even though due to travel I was unable to talk to him, Brooklyn stepped in and took the call for us this week. I am glad he got a call home and that these two were able to have some time together this morning. Thanks for the smile. I love you for forever, Mom

From: Christian.garcia@missionary.org Date: Monday, November 1, 2021 Subject: Transfered?!?! RIP Kpalime So yeah... turns out that I had the wrong feelings. I got transferred out of Kpalime last week and met my new companion too. His name is Elder Kikwati and he is from the other Congo (and no I do not know how to spell it haha). My new area is made up of 2 sectors called Anfame and Adakpame. They are both wards too so that's a weird change from Kpalime with just a little branch.  The weather in Lome is so hot too. Imagine being thrown straight from winter into the hottest day of the year. And then multiply that by 20 and you get close to what I felt when I first got here haha.  This week was a lot of street contacting. I met this guy name William and he is super interested and loves the American flag so that was fun to talk about for a second. I think that soon we can have him up for lesson 3 and maybe a baptism off of that. We also got 2 amis to commit to baptism...