Week 26 in Douala: The Rime of the Ancient Fruit Trees

Bonjour amis et familles!


This was a cool week. We were able to realize most of the goals we had set, including our goal for number of baptismal dates. More on that later. I'm still really liking living in such an urban area, and I'm starting to really find my way around. It's been fun.

MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK 

Okay, I normally don't include stories like these because they aren't the cool 'bringing others to Christ', 'super inspiring' ones. But we had the stupidest, most laughable bash this week, I've got to share it. We wanted to teach this guy about the Gospel of Christ. How he can apply the principles to his life. We started with faith. Before we could get to repentance, he stopped us and said, "I want to talk more about faith." He asked us if we thought Jesus had faith that the fig tree he cursed was going to have fruit. He asked why Jesus would even curse the tree in the first place, since it wasn't fig season. And he wouldn't accept any explanation from us. He kept talking about this specific issue for about 40 minutes. Eventually, I just told him in the nicest way I could that it didn't matter, and that he should have faith in the Savior regardless of the answer to his query. He didn't like that answer. It's whatever.

On a more inspiring note, we were able to nail down a baptismal date for next week for these 3 kids of an inactive member. They are 14, 12, and 9 years old. They have come independent of their dad to church every Sunday for the past 2 months. Now they're getting baptized. They love the church and its teachings and I hope they'll be an example for their dad and relight his flame of faith.

SCRIPTURE/SPIRITUAL THOUGHT OF THE WEEK 

Matthew 21:21-22:

"Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.
And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."

This comes from the story of the fig tree that was pointlessly debated. I'm sharing it because it really is a powerful principle. Jesus used the example of the cursed fig tree to teach the Apostles about faith - if we have faith, doubting nothing, anything is possible to us. Literally anything. I especially love the phrase 'doubt not.' Doubt is used repeatedly in the scriptures as the antithesis of true faith (James 1:6, D&C 6:36). We cannot doubt for a second that God is capable of answering our prayers. If we let this doubt fester in us, we will find ourselves doubting if we should even pray at all. In the words of a modern Apostle, we must 'doubt our doubts before we doubt our faith.' We need to trust in the Lord and wait to see his arm revealed in our life.

Je vous aime tous,

Elder May

PICTURES:
Me and Elder Kearley, cool city view from soccer bleachers, funny writing on a house saying 'Woe unto the buyer', broken doorframe (long story), Elder Moma walking in the sector







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