Elder Ethan May's Missionary Adventure

Bonjour amis et familles! Can't believe I'm writing another weekly. This week just flew by. But here we are. Let's get started: WHEN IN AFRICA Disclaimer: I don't know how unique this story is to living in Africa, but it did happen. I had bought a glass jar of salsa that I found at the supermarket for breakfast burritos. I found it hard to open. When I finally got it open, the contents exploded all over me. I looked like a vampire with the salsa that was on my face. Hence the subject line. Sadly, the effects were only temporary. Also I saw a leashed monkey this week.  MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK  We had an awesome lesson on Saturday with this lady named Mirabelle. She told us she believes that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, that Joseph Smith is a prophet, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only true church. Neither me nor my companion were ready for her to say these things, as it had only been the 3rd time teaching her and we hadn...

  Bonjour amis et familles! Had a super busy P-Day so I'm a little late with this edition but here it is! WHEN IN AFRICA I have perfected the art of killing giant cockroaches that find themselves chilling in the sink in the morning occasionally. Plug the drain with a water bottle, drown them, and use the lid to my off-brand Quaker oats jar to scoop them out. Did thus for about the 4th time this morning. Let it be known that I never see these guys any time or anywhere else. MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK  We had our first official lesson with the lady who came to church last week. As I might have mentioned, she knows no French, so I had to handle the majority of the teaching. At the end of my recounting of Joseph Smith's First Vision, I asked if she had questions. She said she didn't, and then said something interesting: "I don't doubt anything your saying." Not doubting isn't the same as freely believing, but it definitely was an encouraging response! We h...

Bonjour amis et familles! I have officially completed my 3rd transfer here in icky-sticky-ville and I'm going for a 4th. So is my companion. It'll be our 3rd transfer together (first time that's happened on my mission). So that's the really anticlimactic transfer news. Without further ado, MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK   A lot of fun moments this week. We especially had a really miraculous weekend. For example: On Saturday, we had the opportunity to teach a 12-year-old named Diane that had been brought to church by a member family. The family had told us to stop by on Saturday and try to have a lesson. And it was really good! This girl really loved our service and had told her mom that she wanted to come every week! She was super excited to start reading the Book of Mormon. Her mom, not so much. But we worked through her concerns and made some progress. Sadly, they didn't make it back to church yesterday (the family that brought her was out of town), but signs poin...

  Bonjour amis et familles! I would regard this week as a pretty successful week. We had some cool experiences in bringing others closer to their Savior, which I believe always constitutes said description. What were those experiences? Let me tell you! WHEN IN AFRICA  Subject line explanation time: As we were waiting for a friend to show up at one point, this lady, her friend, who we were waiting with, called over this lady with a bucket of kebabs of some sort. She buys one. Both me and Elder Balanganayi couldn't quite tell what kind of meat was on these kebabs. So we asked. It was 'escargot.' Snail. She asked us if we wanted to try it. Our response was, "Why not?" So we did. They weren't half bad. A little rubbery. The hot sauce they put on it was a delicious addition. I might even do it again. We'll see. MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK  In continuation of the above story, we were eventually able to connect with the lady we had planned on teaching. Her nam...

  Bonjour amis et familles! Another week is in the books. This week really felt like no more than 3 days but here we are at another Monday somehow. The weeks turn into months... WHEN IN AFRICA   Crazy random shirt of the week: a plain pink shirt with green Arial font lettering that just said, "I love disco." MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK  We had a fun first-contact and first lesson with this Anglophone named Raphael. He was sitting outside his boutique and we started talking to him. He said he was a pastor and he'd love to talk the 'Word of God' with us. So we set up a time to meet. Our lesson with him was cool. He talked about some of his more powerful spiritual experiences and how much he's devoted his life to God and has seen the blessings of that. We talked about the Restoration of the Gospel and invited him to read the Book of Mormon. He said something awesome near the end of the lesson about how when we came by that day, he heard a voice, saying, "...

  Bonjour amis et familles! This week was highlighted by interviews with President and Sister Miner and Zone Conference, and lowlighted by the news that I have developed athlete's foot. But I'm keeping a good attitude and it's been a good week regardless! MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK   So a little bit of contextual background here: there's this lady down the street from us that serves soft-serve ice cream from a machine. Over the past little bit, my comp and I have been frequenting her machine at least twice a week. By creating this friendship (and enjoying some decent soft-serve ice cream), we have now started talking about the Gospel with her, and we even had a little lesson on Saturday with her. She seemed interested and asked us some good questions. We now have an official appointment with her next week. SCRIPTURE/SPIRITUAL THOUGHT OF THE WEEK  Alma 24:27: "...thus we see that the Lord worketh in many ways to the salvation of his people." I love this so ...

  Bonjour amis et familles! C'est encore Elder May avec sa lettre hebdomadaire!  WHEN IN AFRICA I saw a guy walking his big old hairy pig like a dog, leash and all. Just thought y'all should know. MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK  This week was pretty slow, with not as many lessons as normal, for a few reasons. One was that both me and Elder Balanganayi got a little sick mid-week but we pulled through. But here are some cool things: We had a lesson with someone we'd decided to drop because we heard he'd moved and he didn't keep appointments very well anyway. He reached out to us last week so we set something up, and it happened! As it turns out, this guy, when asked about his Book of Mormon reading, said that he was 'still in Alma.' So that shows he's really been reading! We had a great lesson, kind of gauging what we need to focus on for the next time. I'm excited to restart with him.  On Saturday, we had a branch activity where we went and played soc...

 B onjour amis et familles! This was a pretty good week with a couple of cool miracles. Let's get into some details: MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK  We were at a point one day this week where we'd struck out with an appointment (the classic 'oh, he's not home' trick) and had a couple hours to kill before our next scheduled appointment. So we decided to go look for someone who said she was interested but didn't indicate where she lived or give a number. So we went to the neighborhood we found her in and started walking by faith. We never found her, but we did find some other people who were also interested. They said they had some time so we sat down and had an introductory lesson/discussion. There was this mom that went in-and-out of cooking and paying attention, and her daughter who started asking us great Gospel questions, such as, "How do I believe in God when my classmates tell me not to?" My companion  and I talked about faith and a couple of othe...

  Bonjour amis et familles! This was kind of an up-and-down week - some highs and some lows. But I'd be delighted to share some highlights, so let's do it! WHEN IN AFRICA So we went and did quite the cool thing today, almost as a whole zone. About a month ago, a Cold Stone opened up in Douala. You read that right. Cold Stone Creamery. In Douala. So we went as a kind of zone activity. And it was so cool. The employees treated us like royalty. They took a bunch of pictures of us and told us they were going to post them on their Facebook page. The ice cream was legit as all get out, and overall it was really a super fun experience. Pics below! MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK  Transfers happened this week, but for only the 3rd time on my mission, I'm staying in my area with my companion, Elder Balanganayi. So on Wednesday, while most of the mission was moving around, we had a super productive day where we had about 6 lessons. Some of these were with people we just found, some ar...