Week 8 in Douala: I meet the world's coolest General Authority (Jan 17, 2022)

 Bonjour amis et familles!


This week, we had the privilege of having Elder Joseph Sitati, the President of the Africa Central Area and the first ever African General Authority, visit our mission and join us for Zone Conference. My letter this week will therefore be sprinkled with highlights from his visit. 

WHEN IN AFRICA 

When I've been walking around town, I've often seen these reused soda or water bottles filled with a strange yellow liquid being sold just on the street. It's only been recently that I've realized what this liquid is: gasoline. It's for motorcycle taxis to use when they're too far from an actual gas station. The more I know. 

MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK 

We had a kind of miraculous thing happen this past Tuesday. As we were walking out of our neighborhood to go to a lesson that we hadn't even been able to confirm, this lady called out to us from the other side of the street, asking us to come over, as she had always wondered who we were after seeing us pass every day. We explained who we were, asked if she had time to hear a bit of our message. Miracle number 1: she said that she had time. That never happens. Miracle number 2: We sat down and taught her the entire Restoration lesson, right there. Miracle number 3: She was bilingual, but I could tell she was more comfortable with English. It just so happened that on a day where we hadn't planned on visiting any Anglophones, I had in my bag an English Book of Mormon. I gave it to her and she graciously took it. When  we were walking back at the end of the day, we saw her again, with the Book in hand and opened. 

We had another cool experience where we started talking about prayer and blessings from prayer, and our friend asked us if we could bless and pray for him to recover from a nagging headache. We said we could, and we could even give him a Priesthood blessing. After explaining what it was, he accepted, and we were able to do that for him. He thanked us afterward, and we thanked him for the opportunity.

FUNNY QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Did I respond to your question?"

When Elder Sitati gave his presentation in our Zone Conference, he did just a question-and-answer session with us. After talking for 30 minutes and giving us a lot of awesome spiritual and scriptural insight as a response to a question, he turned to the Elder that asked the question and asked this. The room erupted in laughter. 

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

"The only way Gospel blesses you is if you use it!"

This is a direct quote from Elder Sitati that I wrote down in my notes. I love his use of the word 'only' and the word 'use.' I as a missionary tell people every day how much the Gospel will bless them. But those blessings are predicated on actually putting the Gospel to use. If you got baptized 30 years ago and haven't gone to church or done anything since your confirmation, for example, your baptism was really for nought. It didn't do anything for you. More generally, if you don't pray daily, personally or as a family, or read your scriptures, or look for opportunities to serve, or whatever else the Gospel teaches us to be and to do, God will not give you blessings. God isn't up there taking role like a substitute teacher, with a clipboard and paper of everyone who's ever been baptized on it, checking off who he's blessed for the day. God is looking to bless His children as they show Him that they want those blessings. That is the only way it works. And how do we show God we want those blessings the Gospel can give us? We use it! 

Merci pour avoir lu cette lettre jusqu'ici. 
Je vous aime tous!

Elder May


PHOTOS:

Gabonese Five reunion (sorry Elder Petrie and Elder Vines), me and Elder Zoller reunion (finally out of Gabon), District Conference pics (like a Stake Conference)










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