Dear people of the United Followers of Elder Haggard,
In brief, I hope to be more spiritual today. I want to
share with each of you the great blessings that I am receiving each day here on
my mission, and so with that I will begin by telling you about a few of our
members and investigators.
I’d like to first talk about Peniel, perhaps I have mentioned
him before; he is a charming and loving and amazing little fella. He is a
recent convert to the church, having joined at the end of March. He is
essentially the boss of Kodjoviakopé. He is twenty years old, like yours truly,
and he has friends all over the place, in fact my only baptism in this area is
because Peniel referred him to the missionaries. He helps us out with
everything and he loves going out with the missionaries and participating in
the lessons that we give to our investigators. He is what you would call “super
black” and I don’t find that racist when other people here say that he is “tros
noir” (too black). He is awesome!
He brought over one of his friends this week, who happens to be
a tailor, and I was able to place an order for a pine suit. It isn’t really a
suit but that is what they call the matching set of clothes. I will get those
later tonight and so I am stoked for that!
Onto another member, he is named Lawson, or Frere Lawson for
short. ;) He is a BOSS! He has been a member for just over a year and he knows
the gospel extremely well. Each time we go to visit him he has questions and he
understands our teachings and can restate it clearly to show that he actually
does. He is a divorced man, he looks old but I am not really sure.
He is the older gentleman in one of the pictures that I have sent.
The only family in our group here is Marcelin, Inés, and Morgan.
Morgan is the cute little girl with the sunglasses in one of the pictures. They
are a cute family, though they never sit with one another in church… They are
really close at home watching movies and singing les cantiques together. That
is the doing of Soeur Inés, she wanted to learn the cantiques better and so
they are all learning together. It is fun, and funny. The Togolais are not
famous for having the most beautiful voices, but that doesn’t detract from the
spirit that is present as they put their hearts into singing. Morgan still
doesn’t know how to speak or read French being so young, she remains purely
Ewe.
I will now talk about two investigators, the first one is
Melanie. She is the mother of two children, and she is married to a Swiss man.
Her children are white, well white-ish. I don’t know the proper way of saying
that. They are called Coreen and Charlie, a boy and a girl. Both are really
young, Coreen is still being breastfed… don’t ask how I know that.
The problem is that I feel as though she smokes, not that I have
seen her actually indulging in such a reckless habit, but a fresh cigarette
smell and her husband having been at work for hours points to one thing…. Santa
Clause vacations in Togo and smokes in random people’s houses and blames the
woman that has recently given birth! How rude!
She is a young woman, I would say around 24, and she lives in a
really nice (Africa nice) house with a working washing machine! I am jealous,
though I shouldn’t be. All she wants is for God to be in her life and that she
can spend forever with her family… PERFECT!!! :D I don’t know what more we can
ask for when our whole message is about how families are meant to be Eternal
and that through the gospel that can happen. Our first lesson I was smiling the
whole time.
The next investigator I can call mine solely for my companion
cannot teach him because he doesn’t speak French. His name is Precious and he
is Nigerian. He, oh boy, he is awesome! He came to church on the first
invitation, he has started reading the Book of Mormon and has lots of questions
and he understands the necessity for a living prophet. He is going to be
meeting with us each Wednesday and Saturday, and hopefully coming to church
each Sunday with us. He lives right next door to Edem.
I say next door but in reality the people live in what are
called “parsols” or quelque chose comme ça. I will liken it unto a gated
community. You see, you have to pass through the same gate to get to their
houses, but all the houses are connected and are the same building and about the
same size of a regular house/yard back in the states. So, crammed into this
little area are about 10 families each of them having about four kids. It is a
party!
So, now onto the events of the week! Frere Alex has been
released! He is no longer the boss of Kodjoviakopé. He has been replaced with
Marcelin as the group leader and Frere Lawson as his assistant! It is the
turning of a new page and lo and behold a chapter comes with it.
 |
| Frere Alex |
We are throwing a little party for Frere Alex on Wednesday and
so that is where I hope to get my picture with him taken. Yes, that is my one
hope, to take a picture with Frere Alex. Apparently prayers were answered.
Haha, that reminds me of what Soeur Sonia said after she heard him be released
by President Ah-me-gan-gee (phonetics), he is the President of the Lomé Togo
District of the Mission Benin Cotonou. So listen to Frere Marcelin’s actual
title… “Group Leader of the Group of Kodjoviakopé of the Branch of Souza-netimé
of the District of Lomé Togo of the Benin Cotonou Mission.” It is a mouthful.
:)
A little quote that I will like to leave you all with, “Un grand
indicateur de la conversion personnelle est le désir de faite connaître
l’évangile aux autres . » Howard W. Hunter.
I love you all! Thanks for your many prayers, and I hope you all
have a wonderful week!
--
Elder Robert Eugene Haggard II
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