Ndi!

Dearest World,

This week in the wizarding world of Elder Haggard… I don’t know where to start off this past week exactly, so I hope that my first few lines of rambling get you thoroughly enthralled in whatever may follow… Trust me, it isn’t because there hasn’t been much that has gone on here in paradise, it is because I completed my first agenda here! So, congratulations to all of you reading this, it is day one in nouveau agenda quotidienne du missionnaire! 
So there is this member which we call Soeur Natalie, and we call her that because it is her name. Funny that! So last Monday was her birthday and also Soiree Familiale, which was going to be a party for her to celebrate such a wonderful time that we have to celebrate life! Frère Alex would have none of that happiness and joy being spread amongst his group! One hour long discourse on the Law of Chastity.

 For those of you who read this that aren’t familiar with the terminology of the Law of Chastity, it is a law given by the Lord whereby we must maintain the sacredness of sexual relations. We maintain this by abstaining from these relations before marriage. Those things include pornography, masturbation, petting, and hopefully you get the picture. If you have questions you can always take a look at some of the talks that I have linked on the side of my blog. Nobody gets into a festive mood when they talk about chastity like that, and that is not the purpose of Family Home Evening (Soiree Familiale). Needless to say it wasn’t her best birthday party…

Tuesday is always the low point in the week, mostly because Monday has ended. Nobody likes when P-day ends, a missionary right after P-day is not a happy missionary. The bright side of that is we were able to fix a baptismal date for four amis!!! That is quite amazing! So when one reflects back on how good old Elder Haggard was before the mission, use that same word. ;) (That is AMAZING bytheway.) Just keep in mind how excited I am for that story because there is more news on the matter.

Wednesday, we have institute like always. Mind you that the life of a missionary is rather repetitious so it is hard to be enthusiastic about the same things each week. The funny thing is that there were only two members that showed up, and also Frere Alex. However our four baptisms decided to come to Institute by invitation of Frere Alex himself. The thing that he forgot to mention however is that Institute itself is typically for those 18+ and members, so what did he have planned without telling the missionaries that leave before the end of Institute because it goes later than we stay out? He plans on us giving them a lesson! We give them lessons when we fix the rendez-vous, not him!

That man bugs me, and I don’t want it to sound like I hate my mission, I just don’t like him. He is the only thing that I legitimately cannot stand! Anyways, that ended Wednesday… later than usual.

I don’t have a lot to say day by day, so I’m sorry if I built up a hope that you would hear about everyday. I have nothing to say about Thursday… :/

Friday! Weekly Planning! Nothing better! Except of course when we get an urgent call from an investigator DEMANDING to see you, for what we supposed to be asking for money. So upset my comp and I grab our stuff and go to see what has gotten her so worked up. You never like hearing investigators yelling and crying and wanting to see you urgently, and especially not when we don’t leave the apartment all morning! In missionary terms it is like waking up before the alarm goes off and you can’t get back to bed if we leave the apartment prematurely. C’est vrai, c’est vrai! *I firmly plant my foot and make a stubborn little girl face*

Well, we begrudgingly march towards this house trying to think of how to best handle the situation of not giving her money. Honestly, there is no good way to say we can’t give you money. I will never work in a bank! I imagine their lives aren’t much fun on days like that. We didn’t want to mess anything up with the baptismal date that we had fixed. She is the mother of the four baptisms that we have fixed, I think I forgot to mention that, and no this isn’t what I was going to add on to the story from earlier.

We arrived! She was perfectly calm… it was very unsettling. She is yelling at her children in their native dialect but eerily smiling at us. It starts with her daughter bringing an envelope, but she yells something and the daughter takes it back to the house. A few minutes pass, and again the same envelope, but there is something written on the front of it this time and it is folded so I couldn’t read it. The smile got bigger...

Turns out, turns out! She wasn’t asking for money, she wanted to give us money… Not us directly but dime, tithing! She told this story that I didn’t understand the two times it was explained to me, and I don’t know if it was due to my French or because it was a bizarre story. So my comp told the story to Elder Hawkins, and good news, he didn’t understand it either!  Somehow she managed to find some money, develop a testimony of tithing, and want to pay it on behalf of her children. So that is cool!

Sunday was a funny little day… It started of great! Moment to rant about how much I love sacrament! I LOVE IT!!! It may be because my whole heart and soul is filled with peace and love, or it could be because it feels exactly how it does back home. It’s okay to think about home as a missionary I have decided. I look at my beautiful little hamlet of Provo and think of how strong and awesome the church is there and it becomes my motivation to build that here. Yeah, I realize that this place is a LOOOOONNNNGGGG ways off, but one day, one day. 

Well church went on the way it should, but perfection is meant for the eternities and not for life here on the earth. Can you guess what happened….? I’m sure you can figure out who was involved. You know, anti-church growth villain numero uno, Frere Alex! Impromtu after church meeting with all the members with urgent announcements! Yes, that is right little girl that could run the church better than him, he did hold a meeting about how the members need to work harder to make the group a branch. Now, if I left it like that would there be any reason to complain? 

Reality, he held a meeting telling the members to visit the inactive members every other day… Which could work if he did it in a more inspiring way, kind of like how this one guy named Jesus told people to do it. I think the church has a funny name for that, it is Home Teaching, and it is once a month. Still not at my complaint yet, but here it is. He said that the group cannot become a branch until he gets married…………………………………………………………………………………………… ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?! He has already tried to oblige one of the girls to marry him from the group, I don’t know what to do about him. When he isn’t mentioned in a rendez-vous with a member it is a good day, that is how I judged my lessons. I need to try and stop complaining about him, but then I feel like I would have nothing to say… 

To make our day better we had a pancake party at our apartment. MMMMMmmmmmMMMmmmm!!!! Pancakes with syrup, honey, and Hershey’s syrup are delicious!! My companion demanded them when he found out that I had instant pancake batter courtesy of CitiMart. The American goods here are really the expensive stuff, but for some odd reason I don’t like eating spaghetti every day, but let me just tell you that I make a killer spaghetti now. :D

Monday rolls around, and coincidentally that is today. ;) So we are getting ready for the day, which means cleaning the apartment and lounging about in the living room. Then suddenly to our chagrin, we hear the ringing of our cell phone. There are two reasons our phones go off as a missionary, first, an appointment/investigator is calling with bad news like to cancel our appointment, or two, there are going to be inspections of the apartment. It being P-day we would assume it would be the inspections, guess again! (This is the news that I told you to eagerly await.)

Remember that one lady that received this cool, literally ineffable, story about tithing? Well she called us this fine morning to tell us that her husband, not a friend to the church, said that he felt it would be best if we were to postpone the baptism of les enfants… How long you may ask? Well, that is what normal people ask. He said September would be a good time to start…. talking about it again…. Gah! Why are people so difficult?!? Don’t they know that bad news is meant to be delivered face to face and not on a limited-to-30-seconds phone call!?!?

I hope that explains why my letter isn’t as humorous today. I truly have been having a good time here in Africa, so don’t let this reflect otherwise. People are usually great! I have faith that they are out there. ;) No, I know that they are out there. I know many a great and wonderful people all over the world! I am grateful for all of them (you my avid readers) and all that they do to make the world a more joyous place. A man once said, “hello!” I think I knew how he was feeling.

Keep living the dream! Where ever you may be, live the dream! I don’t know what that means, but hopefully it leaves a profound and prolific message with you. And for my dear friends that have made me watch Psych, “You’re prophetic!”