Well, we finally flew out! we ended up flying from utah straight to Paris, and we ran from that flight straight onto the other flight to Benin! We were probably only in paris for about 20 minutes..on the flight to Benin we talked to soo many people! i gt 3 contacts beforei even got there! Once we got there, right as they opened the door, the windows immeadenly fogged up because it is sooo humid here! that night we just met the president and went to bd at the office.
The next day we had training for about an hour, and then they threw us in a taxi to meet our companions!my companions name is Elder Rajamalala! He is just a little guy from Madascgar! he is sooo nice, and everybody loves him! he has been out for about 13 months, and just got dont with being the Assistant to the Pres.! So, he is great, but he has a lot of problems with obedience.. sadly, basically this whole mission does! they all base theyre mission off of a scripture. D & C 10, 4. it basically just says work hard play hard.. SO we will work on that.. He works very very hard, but also breaks a lot of rules.. but love him a lot!!
So, Africa.. its impossible to describe. the only way i can explain it, is just think of the poorest, dirtest, place in the world.. also SO crouded!! everyone here rides Mottos and i mean EVERYONE!! kids, old people, they can fit soo many people on a motto. In the states, a motto can fit 1 person maybe 2! in Benin, on one motto, a family of 5, a couch, 2 dogs, 12 chickens, and a goat. no joke. yesterday i saw someone had a fridge on theyre motto!! so, im not even really worried about the malaria or sickness, im worried about getting killed by a motto! they dont even care about pedesterians.. they will drive 60 mph 6 inches away from yuo and not even bat an eye.. so we gotta be careful!!
Also, i dont think they speak french here!! its soooo different!! seriously, it doesnt sound like french, it sounds like just an african language... but im starting to understand a little but its goingto take a looonngg time.. Also one thing here is the smell.. i dont mean to be negative but its just so bad.. but its okay!! there are about 100 missionaries in this mission. Only a handful from the states. Most from the Congo, or ivory coast, or ghana or Nigera! For some reason the congos are just..... annoying.. they are sooo disruptive and never want to listen.. but its okay! im glad they came to serve and i hope that they can help us all feel the spirit inthis crazy country!!
yesterday we went to this huge marker in cotonou, and it was so funny cause i ended up buying raybands, a rolex watch, and nike shoes, for 8 dollars... it was so cool there!!
I just want to share a crazy, but spritual story to end. So, like i said my comp is a little dissobedient..so me and elder Jensen wanted to work but our comps just wanted to sleep.. so even though elder jensen and i had only been in the country for 1 day, and new zero french, we decided to go tracting! so we left, and it was funny because we were the only 2 white guys in this huge city. So we talked to a whole bunch of people! But about an hour in, we had a group of abuot 8 or 9 guys stop us.. and basically they just robbed us.. they took our watches, glasses, and all of our money.. as they did this they pulled our a panphlet out of my backpack! and asked what it was, i began to explain that we were missionaries of jesus christ, and i asked them some questions and long story short, i asked them to come to church with us and they ended up giving us all of our stuff back and just walking away!!! but they didnt come to church.. i just thought that was a cool story, and an example that the lord is helping me.
No comments:
Post a Comment