Week 18 in Yaoundé: "How many Elders does it take to drain a font?"

 Bonjour amis et familles!


This has been a great week! We found some really cool people to start teaching, and, at the other end of the covenant path, we ended the week with a baptism! In my teaching area! That's technically the first time that's happened since March, a baptism in my current area, and it was super cool. Also I'm officially past a year so there's that too. Let's get into some details!

MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK

About a week ago, this guy named Clinton stopped us on the road and starting talking to us - in English. He told us he had read the Book of Mormon, had loved it, and had been looking for missionaries again, as he had lost his copy in an apartment flood. Fast-forward to Thursday and Elder Wheeler and I (with added testimony from Elder Mutombo) teach him in English one of the best Restoration lessons I've taught on the mission. At one point, he had a friend come in to his apartment, and Clinton said, "Hey Anthon, come here and listen! We're talking about the loss of Priesthood and the Great Apostasy!" He proceeded to give a very accurate rundown of these two truths.  This guy is super ready - all we've got to do is teach him.

We had a baptism on Saturday for Vanessa - someone in the Messassi branch who had been taught mostly by various other Elders, and all we needed was to schedule her baptismal interview and actual baptism. The previous 2 times I'd met her, I was on exchanges, so my companions didn't actually meet her until the day of the baptism. But it went really smoothly - the font was filled on time, we were able to acquire the right clothing, talks on baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost were prepared in advance (something that doesn't always happen). The ordinance itself was crazy spiritual as it always is. 
It was an awesome experience, and I hope to have more opportunities in this next year to attend many more baptismal services.

FUNNY QUOTE OF THE WEEK 

Haven't had one of these in a few weeks. This week's is just the subject line. After the ordinance, we wanted to immediately start draining the baptismal font. Easier said than done. Something like 5 different Elders were all huddled around the handle to release the water; no one could turn it. Eventually we got the guardian of the buiding to come help us. 

SCRIPTURE/SPIRITUAL THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

"Minutes and hours well spent are the building blocks of a fulfilling life."

- Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I'm going to have to wait for the transcriptions of all of the conference talks to come out to see if this is a direct quote - he might have used a slightly different word than 'fulfiling.' But this was from Elder Uchtdorf's talk from yesterday morning and I love it. He also said something along the lines of, "If you want to change your life, change this day." Both quotes highlight how it is through the small, everyday decisions we make that we can achieve something great, something fulfilling. If we see ourselves starting to go down a wrong path, it is the little things that will get us back on the path. We shouldn't expect our situation to change completely overnight. It is by changing our day-to-day decisions for the better that we can look back and see how far we've come. It is by spending minutes and hours making good spiritual decisions that we can have a fulfilling spiritual life. 

Also conference was great, I haven't watched all of it but what I watched I watched with a bunch of other Elders at one of the other apartments. It was both a spiritual and physical feast, as it coincided with one of the Elders' birthday. 

Pour clôturer pour cette semaine, je vous souhaite une très bonne semaine, et n'oubliez pas que je vous aime tous!

Elder May

PICTURES:

Awesome beaded tie I bought, cows, baptism pics, sunset, we had a delightful lunch with Muslims? and Elder Wheeler being a total mood. 











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