Elder Ethan May's Missionary Adventure

Bonjour amis et familles! This was quite the eventful week, as I went on 3 different exchanges on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Exchanges are where missionaries switch companions for the day and sometimes work in another area. Only one of these was in another area, but all 3 were pretty fun.  MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK On Tuesday, I had an exchange with Elder Harward, who I lived with my first 6 weeks in Gabon. It was super fun to reminisce and do some great work in the Messassi area. We had an especially cool experience where we had a lesson fall through, so I decided to try and find this member's house. Remember the family we helped move about 3 months ago? It's that guy. Miraculously, I found his house again, and his family was completely overjoyed that we decided to pay a visit. This member's name is Thierry and he told us that he had prayed that he could meet with us this week because he wanted us to give blessings to his wife and daughter, which we were glad to d...

Bonjour amis et familles! This week turned out to be quite interesting. It began as my first week on the mission where I was in a 2-man apartment, and now that is no longer the case. What we did and how we did it before we became a trio was sometimes kind of difficult to maneuver and navigate. I'd never been in a 2-man apartment, let alone be the only American in an apartment. But, due to some crazy things going down elsewhere in the mission, I have my 9th companion on the mission in Elder Wheeler. I'm still with Elder Mutombo as well, but now I've got my 3rd American companion in Africa. He's from San Antonio and has been out for 3 weeks. So my dream to train an American actually, in a crazy turn of events, came true, which I'm pretty excited about.  MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK  Elder Mutombo and I had a cool experience where we gave a follow-up lesson to someone the Assistants found who lives in one of our two areas. As it turned out, he lives super far from an...

Bonjour amis et familles! With this being the 15th week that I've been in Yaoundé, I have now officially served in this area for longer than I've ever served anywhere (I was in Marksville for 14 1/2 weeks). And I have to say, the Eleveur Branch is not a bad place to be for 15 weeks. I'm really liking it.  MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK  We visited a fair number of members this week. With our calendar opening up as we aren't in the office each weekday, we've been able to schedule member visits at a much higher rate than before. And it's been quite rewarding. For example, we visited Frère Jean-Paul on Wednesday, had an awesome chat about member missionary work, and then he invited us over on Friday to come teach his brother and uncle! We had a great conversation with the 3 of them about faith, repentance, and a few other principles. It was well received and we'll return next week! We were also invited to a member's mom's birthday party Saturday. The me...

Bonjour amis et familles! Had a pretty good first week of this probably-short transfer. We did a good job at filling our days with activities and things to do, something I was worried about, as we couldn't schedule in 4 hours of office time every weekday. These activities that  we did end up doing were also pretty cool, and I will love to talk about them! MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK   There was a cool branch youth activity on Friday, that was wholly unorganized, but what ended up happening was fun and strengthened my relationship with certain  branch members a lot. It was supposed to be an opportunity for the youth to practice being missionaries, as we were asked to invite friends we were teaching. For the first hour, none of our friends showed up. So it turned into a question-and-answer session about the mission experience. It was fun. We had a friend, Zazie actually, show up after that hour, and we transitioned to what was previously scheduled. Zazie very much enjoye...

  Bonjour amis et familles! So before we delve into this last week, transfer news! I'm staying in my area, my new companion is Elder Mutombo, and I will not be in the office this transfer.  The actual transfer is today. It was because of flight plans and stuff that we had to delay the transfer a week. This last week was just with Elder Dion and it was not wasted!  Also there was a point this week where us and the Assistans were waiting out the rain at the Bastos branch, and Elder Ebibas decided to give us a 'cours de Lingala.' The subject line is how you say "What's up?" in Lingala.    MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK We had an awesome lesson with Zazie on Saturday. We asked how her Book of Mormon reading was going, and she had read the first 3 chapters of 1 Nephi! And she had questions! She was satisfied with all of our answers. We also talked about the Plan of Salvation. At the end, she asked where children who died went - which Kingdom of Glory they would inh...

  Bonjour amis et familles! I've officially spent 2 whole transfers here in Yaoundé! By the time of writing this, I have no idea what the next transfer is going to look like, as I have received no news about any changes. But according to the calendar, today is transfer day. We'll see what happens with that next week.  As far as what happened this week, let me give you the details: MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK    We didn't do a ton of active proselyting this week, as this was the week that all of our electricity bills for all of our appartements are due, which means, as financial secretary, I had to take multiple trips to the agence to go pay them all (^subject line shoutout^). But we carved out some time to have a few good lessons. On Tuesday, we were invited to dinner at the District President's home, who lives in our branch boundaries. We had a wonderful chat, and we were also able to set up a lesson with their friend across the street! So we went back over there...