October 31, 2016 Happy Halloween!

First of all,  I'm glad they don't have Halloween in Africa. It would be crazy here! Anyway,  what a hard,  and amazing week it was.  One of the hardest things is the power and water situation.. I'd say the power is out at least 15/24 hours every day!  And if it's our during the night its impossible to sleep! Usually when it goes out,  we just go sit on the roof. We take flash lights and make hand puppets on the side of a wall it's kinda fun!
It's hard when we have no water too..  That means we have a huge pile of dishes in our sink,  it means it's super hot and we have no water!  It means no showers after walking all day..  It's so hard!  Never ever in my life have I had this problem,  and it's rough..  But it's okay!  These people have done this all there lives,  and they are happy!  So,  I'll be happy too!

We were in a lesson this week,  and they had about 9 dogs.  Well,  in the middle of our lesson, all of the dogs just started howling! Literally out of nowhere!  It was like on Zootopia, with "the howl". It was pretty funny!

So I don't know if it's just Benin,  but here if you say hi to an lady who's over the age of 40, you call them Mama!  So there are a lot of of Mama's that live the missionaries around here! it's funny because they are so nice to us,  but it seems like they are so mean to they're kids..  A lot of Mama's here cut their toenails so they are sharp.  And they kick the kids when they do something bad!  It's kind of weird,  but it gets the kids to do what they want..  Haha! 

So they don't really have a garbage system here..  So they just throw it out in the streets,  or in huge piles all around the city!  Once the piles get big,  they just put it in a big pile in the road and burn it!  Well on Tuesday,  it was late and we had just finished our last lesson.  Well we walked past this huge fire in the road!  And as we walked past,  the wind had blown it,  and it caught this house on fire!  So me and my comp,  and the people who owned the house, and 2 other guys,  just got buckets of dirt, and threw it on the fire!  (there was no water..)  We did this for about 15 minutes until the fire had been smothered! There wasn't any serious damage to the house!  But the roof might need to be replaced a little bit.  And maybe one of the walls of the house.  But over all everything was okay and no one was hurt!  The family was very grateful,  and they are now our new investigators!  Haha hidden blessings maybe? I think maybe your house getting caught on fire is worth your salvation right?? 

But the work is great!  Me and my companion are working really well together!  We made up a language one on Thursday!  It's basically just gibberish,  plus some French,  and English.  It makes no sense.  But it's kinda fun! 

The work is hard but great!  Last week I mentioned that we had 8 baptisms. Well,  sadly we couldn't baptise any of them because there was NO WATER!!  So we pray that we can make that happen this week! 

Friday was an interesting day. We had a full day of lessons scheduled,  and every single one of them fell through..  

So,  we went Tracting.  All day.  And we were pretty sad because all of our plans fell through..  As we walked,  I said a prayer in my head,  pleading that we could find someone to help! Well,  the lord Delivered!  By the end of that day,  we had found 2 families,  and 4 other people!  12 new investigators! We couldn't believe how much the lord had blessed us with!  I prayed for one person,  and he let us help 12. I think this just goes to show how much the lord cares about his children! And if you just pray,  with a sincere heart,  with real intent,  then the lord will answer your prayers!!  (Moroni 10: 4-5)

I love you all so much! 

Elder Harris

PICS 

this an awesome mask i found for haloween!

This is Moe Moe the monkey!

(Side note from sister Syd-- we're trying to figure out a better way for Gavin to share his pictures with us. I'll be posting the pictures as soon as we can get it worked out!)