Elder Ethan May's Missionary Adventure

Bonjour amis et familles! Another transfer is in the books. As has become custom for my mission, I did not get transferred. I'm still serving in the Village Branch and I'm now with Elder Libero. Together, we have a combined 42 months on the mission. Hence the subject line: they have put two 'old crows' together.  MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK  We're in the process of finding an almost entirely new batch of people to teach. So we've been doing a lot of contacting. We've been talking to so many people in the neighborhoods around the branch building, and it's reinforced my testimony that anyone can accept the Gospel. Key word there being 'can.' Out of the 8 lessons we were able to plan from our efforts, 2 of them happened. I'd like to highlight one of them: So Elder Libero is from CAR, or Central African Republic. There are several refugees from that country who have come to Cameroon. And Elder Libero can often pick out on the street people lik...

  Bonjour amis et familles! A little Bob Dylan on your Monday morning-ish with the subject line, which very accurately describes my week.  It rained every day except Sunday. Got stuck in many rainstorms and might have officially taken out one of my pairs of shoes. It had problems before but they've been hilariously exacerbated by the recent downpouring. MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK   With all the rain, it was a little difficult to schedule lessons this week. Can't do much if the dirt road gets flooded out. We don't have many progressing people at the moment anyway. But here's a few cool things that happened: After our last district council of the transfer, we ate and a restaurant downtown. I got a plantain and fries dish with meat. And a really good smoothie that was just called 'natural juice' on the menu so I was pleasantly surprised. But the missionary moment was this: A man sitting in the corner of the restaurant ended up contributing 8,000 francs to our b...

  Bonjour amis et familles! Yet another week in icky-and-stickyville. It's less sticky now as we are officially in the rainy season here in Douala. It still is hot but the rain is quite the relief.  MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK   We had a couple of new person lessons on Friday; both were super cool. The first one was with a lady named Thérèse that we'd contacted earlier in the week. Before we started the lesson, she felt she needed to share how as she was approaching us and started talking with us, she'd felt happy - like we had some kind of 'special Spirit'.  I told her that I believed her, because our message is special, unique, and makes people happy. I told her she had felt the Spirit - the Holy Spirit. It was a really cool moment. She then asked, "Well, what's this unique message?" She was pretty excited to get a Book of Mormon. I heard a 'waouh' or two (that's how people here spell 'wow'). The second lesson was with another ...

Bonjour amis et familles! WHEN IN AFRICA If you're in Cameroon, and you want someone to give you a fist bump, this^ is what you can say. Fun fact.  Also for another when in Africa story, my watch snapped and my awesome tan line on my wrist is slowly fading. I'm devastated.  MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK  Elder Ntumba, my district leader for this transfer, came and did baptismal interviews for those 3 kids on Tuesday before coming and working with me on exchanges on Wednesday. We had a hole in our schedule so Elder Ntumba asked if we could visit them again, because, as he said, "Les enfants là sont trop formidable!"  So we did. We had a great day together and I was impressed and inspired by his dedication to the work. He also couldn't stop saying 'Tchombé' to everyone he met.  We've found a very promising new person whom we hope to progress with named Alain. We've been teaching him for a couple weeks now and it's been exciting. Anyone who stays...

Bonjour amis et familles ! This week was filled with many joyous (hence the subject line) moments that made me reflect on how amazing my time here in Cameroon really has been. Let's get into it: MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK  First, we had Zone Conference on Tuesday. Compared to other ZC's in the past, this one was quite the refresher. Nobody tried to convince President Miner that they were exempt from following a certain rule (yes, sadly, this happens). Everybody just let all the presenters edify everyone and it was awesome. I wrote down some fire notes to take me through the last 3.5 months of my mission. I got fun pictures with me and Elder Harward, one of the 3 remaining Gabonese 7. And a large contingent of the zone met up at Cold Stone afterward so that was fun too. On Friday, we met a member who lives out in Yassa. I automatically fell in love with Yassa. It's a 30-minute drive east of our apartment, which means 45 minutes out of downtown, and then to get to the mem...

Bonjour amis et familles! It's been quite the successful week! Elder Makashi and I have been out every day bringing multiple people closer to Christ in all the little ways we can. We met all of our goals we set this week and then some. How did we do that, you may ask? MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK First, we found 4 new people this week after setting a goal for 3. Some we contacted on the street, some were other people who joined our lessons we had planned. One already has a date for baptism! (More on that later). It feels very good to see these fruits of our finding efforts, and to have the opportunity to start helping these new people on their covenant journey.  Second, we had 4 friends at sacrament, after setting a goal for 3. 3 were those kids of the member we taught, 1 was an old friend who's attended 24 times but can't get over the hurdle of being baptized. Any time anyone chooses to come feel the Spirit of the Lord in coming to church, it's a step in the right di...