We celebrated with cake (which had the flavor of sugar, but still, cake)

February 20 2017

Let's see... we invited Fr Frederic to baptism and he accepted, so we will have to work on assistance with him, which could be difficult because of his leg. Sr Lydie was not baptized this week but we put her for the 4th of March and we hope she will be ready by then. The English classes are going slowly, we had six people at the first one and five of them were children, but we hope to have more this week! We had some good lessons with new amis, one being Fr Roger, and hope to progress with them. There are schedule changes for us: wake up at 5:30, excersize and prepare for the day till 7:00 still but personal and companionship study are 30 minutes, then we get a meal and then we go into the sector at 9:00 am and return at 6:00 pm. SO that's different. 

I had a great birthday. We celebrated with cake (which had the flavor of sugar, but still, cake) and we also celebrated the "sommet" (summit, or one year mark) of Elder Bouthot two days after with ice cream. So it was good.

President Monga is coming on Wednesday for a zone conference (I think, still not entirely sure). Tell everyone thanks for the birthday wishes! I'm glad that you keep on learning and growing andI love hearing about what you learned! This week I learned that prayer is really powerful. I had some difficulties this week but by prayer (and loving companions) I received lots of support. So remember that God is always there, even in the most difficult of times, like with Job.

Nous ne craignons pas l'homme!

Je vous aime tous!

Elder Russell

And now for some silly missionary lingo: Pondu

February 13 2017

So, Sr Camille got baptized and confirmed this week! We are also going to start teaching English so that we can find more people to teach. Street contacting isn't very effective. But we continue to press foward! We hope that the English classes will attract a lot of people. We also have another investigator who will be baptized soon, Sr Lydie. She has been coming to Church for a while but her schedule limited the times we could teach her, but she said she could now do some lessons during the week. So that should be good. Fr Frederic got out of the hospital (he had a motorcycle accident and broke his leg) and he has to go back because some parts of the bone didn't stay correctly placed. But he is doing well. I'll be glad to start teaching him again. Other than that we had an uneventful week, though we did set some mouse traps because we've been having a mouse problem recently. Caught one so far.

Forgot to take pictures AGAIN. Yeah, really need to get better at that. We were told that we would have a new apartment in about three weeks so we also need to get rid of stuff, like old sofas. Though now we will be further away from our sector, so going to spend some transport money going into the sector. 

Thanks for the birthday wishes! And Happy Birthday to Stacey! My goodness how did I forget that in my last letter. I would also like to say thanks to everyone for their support, spiritual, mental, physical, no matter how. And I'd like to say how grateful I am for my loving family. And my Heavenly Father and lots of other things that go along with that (but above all for Jesus Christ and the atonement). I'll be sure to take and send photos this week.

One thing I learned this week is that we need to be patient. Sometimes very patient. and we need to be charitable, those kind of go along.

Je vous aime tous!

Nous ne craignons pas l'homme!

Elder Russell

And now for some silly missionary lingo: Pondu (Pah-dew, the pah is nasal) leftovers of a meal (technical French term is "Les restes")

Frying fish isn't easy

February 6 2017

This week was a pretty good week. We were able to get lots of things done and find some new amis. We bought some new mattresses for some of the other missionaries (with mission funds of course). Sr Camille will be getting baptized this week, that will be cool. Another amie, Sr Lydie, will be baptized next week. It is interesting because they are amies who started with missionaries long before us, so they both know the principles of the Gospel pretty well, just took a while for their conversion. Some things I learned this week are 1: Frying fish isn't easy 2: Working in a restaurant would be hard (my companion showed me a bit what that would be like) and 3: It is really sad when someone is a good person but they don't understand/except the Gospel (already knew that but still sad). We visited Fr Essomba again and... he just sort of disputed on every word that came from our mouths, even little things that didn't have anything to do with the Gospel. So yeah... still praying for him. Oh, we had transfers too. There were two transfers in the entire mission. So everybody except for some Sisters in Brazzaville are staying in the same place. Ummm... Fr Christian wants to serve a mission, so he said he'll start preparing for that (and yes, it is a book on autonomy) so, yay!

Other than that not too much has happened, we visited an ami who has a good heart, Fr Achille, but we haven't finished the restoration yet. I took a picture of Elder Pindi (Elder Kincaid's companion), but I really need to get better at taking more pictures. Should've taken a picture of Mount Fébé, that is where Cameroun was dedicated for missionary work.

So yeah, nous ne craignons pas l'homme! (That formation means, "We don't fear man!")

Je vous aime tous!

Elder Russell

Elder Pindi says hi

21 years.....wierd

January 30 2017

So the schedule changes in the mission program are changes to... the schedule we were already using. The schedule in our mission was already earlier than the schedule in most other missions and now everyone will be using our schedule (except of course the special cases). There are changes to the key indicators though (well, that we send to the Church, all of the key indicators are still there): The Church now only receives baptisms and confirmations (one key indicator), investigators with a baptismal date, investigators who attended sacrament meeting, and new investigators. As for our amis; Sr Camille is progressing very well, she will be baptized the eleventh. Sr Emillienne is traveling a bit so we will see her again this week. Fr Essomba... seems to have gotten a bit offended when he realized that we don't believe that everyone can have the Holy Ghost without the proper authority and ordinances, and that we believe that "the Bible is the word of God as far as it is translated correctly" We haven't been able to get hold of him again. Fr Christian and Sr Joli are little by little getting more and more integrated. Fr Christian received the Aaronic priesthood Sunday and is getting a calling with the young men's program (I think). They also found Fr Christian a book on autonomy, something that he really wanted because he has some worries about his work. We found a good number of new amis yesterday through some members and following up on people we had contacted. We (taught) the restoration with three of them (all together) But with the others we just did how to begin teaching. I also forgot my journal so I don't have all the details, but one family lost their daughter almost a year ago near the Church at Etam Mbafia, so we will probably teach the plan of salvation with them.

And I know, it is almost my birthday! 21 years... weird. And almost a year on the mission too. Time flies. I like what you said about Joseph Smith, it is very true. And a lot of time it just takes faith that we are on the right path, and confirming feelings from the Spirit really help.

Je vous aime tous! Tellement!

Nous ne craignons personne!

Elder Russell

And I forgot my camera, sorry.

I took a selfie...and a picture of a picture

January 23 2017

Okay, I wrote in my journal a lot more this week, so that should help with details. We taught Sr Camille (she is about 22 years old) several times this week and the lessons went well. She is already changing her lifestyle and attitude so that they are more in tune with the Gospel. She has a great desire to be baptized. We also found a new amie named Sr Emilienne, who is an older amie, but the cool thing was that she did the additional study in the back of the Plan of Salvation booklet. I had not yet seen that. We also had some difficult lessons with people who are not progressing, though one of those difficult amis came to Church and I think that helped him open up his heart (Fr Essomba). On Friday we helped Elder Odimba, Elder Best, Elder Dou and Elder Kabongo move into their new apartement (which means there are only four of us in the apartement now). My companion and I gave talks about missionary work, mine was specifically that missionary work is everyone's responsability and that we are blessed by it. People came to us afterwards and said they had contacts, I think we just need a reminder from time to time. Concerning things that I learned: I learned that the Lord gives us trials also to help us repent so that we can be pardonned. Which makes sense, sometimes we are too prideful and sometimes we don't realize that we need to repent. (here is one reference: D&C 95:1)

It is good that things are going well, I hope Stacey had fun at "Best of the Northwest" and is having fun with the Stake musical. Thank you for the photos! I took a selfie in front of a small map of Yaoundé, and a picture of a picture of one of the monuments in Yaoundé.

Je vous aime tous!

Nous ne craignons personne!

Elder Russell

We played football today, which was pretty fun. Still not good at it but I actually participate now.

January 16 2017

We had a district conference this week and President Monga was there. I learned lots of things and I forgot to bring my notes and my journal to the cybercafé, though I did start writing in it again this week. There was lots of talk about the importance of missionary work and sustaining the leaders of the Church. Basically, without those two things the work goes forward very slowly. There was also a talk about the importance of supporting (spiritually and temporally) the family. We have one new amie (technically an old amie), Sr Camille (Pronounced Camy), who wants to be baptised, so we will go through the lessons and make sure she is ready. A non confessionalist pastor, Fr Essomba, started taking real interest in what we were saying after a few lessons where it seemed like he just wanted to dispute, so we will see how that goes. We played football today, which was pretty fun. Still not good at it but I actually participate now. Fr Christian and Sr Joli are starting to open up to the other members, little by little. They still have some trouble with integration. I did two splits, one with Elder Odimba in my sector and one with Elder Gilbert (one of the zone leaders) in his sector (Éleveur). It was pretty cool to see the different ways of teaching. Other than that the week was pretty normal and we will see how the next week goes.

I'm doing well, though I have do some reparations to my mosquito net (but I take my doxy, so I haven't gotten sick) And Elder Bouthot is doing well also, though we are both a bit tired (because we walk alot to find new amis... and then don't find many) but ça va. We are looking at ways we can work with members more, I know we will have to talk to the Branch President and other leaders to have that work well. I love hearing about home and I hope things continue to go well! I also took some picture this week, though not many of me. I'll work on that.

Je vous aime tous!

Nous ne craignons personne!

Elder Russell

Elder Kincaid with a pineapple soda

Elder Kabongo

Elder Kenabualu (ken-abwa-loo)

Je vous aime tous!

January 9 2017

This week was a somewhat unsuccessful week and yesterday we took a long, hard look at who was really progressing (or could) and who wasn't (or couldn't) We will be spending a lot more time contacting and trying to visit members also these next weeks. On the bright side, first time I fasted for a full 24 hours here! I always had so much trouble with water, but with lots of prayer and a supportive companion I did it. Sunday was interesting because, frankly, the Branch President (Jean Galbert) gave a chastizement, though it was good. I hope people will take to heart. An ami who has been having a hard time with his family and his foot came to church this week (Fr Kevin, but I only taught him once) so that was cool. Yeah. Found someone who doesn't believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and who would want to arrest him (and Mohommad) if they were on the earth. Very interesting experiences. Other than that, pretty uneventful, forgot to take pictures again. But I had some good spiritual development and I learned a lot. I really like reading the Liahona, there are some good stories in there.

Sorry I don't have a lot more to say, I'll try to get better at writing in my journal and taking it with me to the cyber cafe.

Je vous aime tous! (Mom, Dad, Stacey, Rachael, Aaron and all the rest of the family too! And of course lots of others!)

Nous ne craignons personne!

Elder Russell