Elder Palmer (back row, 6th from left) is serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kinshasa mission for
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.


Eric returned home on August 27th, 2011!!!!!

He was transferred to Yaounde, Cameroon on August 13th, 2010.


Links listed on the left are from the senior couples and Mission President!

Comments in italics are clarifications from Mom.




Friday, June 25, 2010

Eric's email of June 24th, 2010

So the package got there fine actually and they didn't have to pay that much. (Package from YM sent to Cameroon) I emailed Elder Lee in Douala and he says it was fine. Hopefully they just won't eat all my candy. But I don't know my mailing address right now, I'll write down to look it up an I'll tell you that next week. And just make sure that on all stuff anyone sends, they must write "Eglise de Jésus-Christ des Saints des Derniers Jours" after they put my name.

So the Congo and everyone in Africa I think likes the World Cup a lot, and people here pretty much just like any team from Africa, even though there aren't many doing very well. I think Ghana looks like the only African country to move on. But funny thing about la Coupe du Monde, last weekend we had a zone conference, and we were informed of something interesting: Pres Headlee said that we are allowed to watch some matches of the World Cup. I'm not lying, and I was surprised when he said that, too. So yeah, we actually watched Cameroon play Denmark last Saturday when Pres took us to dinner, and yesterday we watched that USA versus Algeria game. (Which the USA won!!!) Go USA! He told us to watch it with our amis de l'eglise or members. I guess Pres Headlee trusts us at least a little bit.

(Do you know exactly when the new senior couple will arrive?)
From what I've heard, the senior couple will get here in the first half of July sometime, and the new batch of 10 North American missionaries will come around July 7th. Also they found a new missionary apartement here, and President is going to add one more equipe missionaire to make 6 total, and 2 of them will move into that new apartement next transfer. And this transfer only has one week left actually. That went by fast.

Alright, this computer is a little bit messed up, sometimes it freezes for a sec, and it flips around what I typed. Like if I try to type "eric", it will put "cire". So sorry for any typos.

So first, yes we are teaching still that lady who asked all those questions about Oliver Cowdery and stuff. And she is progressing great. Now we are teaching the whole family, the only person we are waiting for to come to church is the dad. He was gonna come last week, but then he got called somewhere for work. But that is often our best families we are teaching.

(So about how much did the new cell phone cost?)
So the old fake phone I think cost 16000 FCFA, and the new real one we have cost 25000 FCFA. Parsons and I each ended up paying 2500 FCFA because the zone leader was only allowed to spend 20000, but that's ok, its better than any cell phone I had before. But here everyone uses "credit" to pay their phone calls and such. And that is just how much FCFA your phone has. You can choose to pay by the minute, and then its 99 francs a minute. Or you can pay by the second, I dont know how much that is. And our phone is MTN, thats our company, and we have "MTNZone", and depending on the time or something, its cheaper. If your phone says "MTNZONE 40%" like it does right now, its 40% cheaper, I don't know why.

Actually ,the most part of people in Congo and Cameroon have a cell phone. That's only the people in the cities, I don't know how many villagers have a phone, but almost every adult has a phone, and a good number of teenagers do too.

alright, this keyboard is driving me crazy, sorry for the errors. (I have been doing a lot of editing on this one.)

In French, a person from Congo is "Congolais(e)", and a person from Cameroon is "Camerounais(e)". Its like that with a big chunk of African countries.

(On any given Sunday, how many people are typically at Sacrament Meeting and what percent are members and what percent are amis de l’eglise?)
On Sunday the chapel is pretty much filled, sometimes there are even 3 people squished on 2 seats. I would say 120 to 140, I don' know how accurate that is. I would say 15% percent, maybe more even are amis.*

One interesting thing I learned from the (zone) conference is the first ever missionary from Central African Republic is on his mission in Kinshasa, I believe. In his country, there should be full time missionaries there sometime soon. Also in July the Lubumbashi mission will exist. And this transfer there will be 27 new missionaries. And I did learn some stuff about transfers, that Elder Ritchie (zone leader) told me president told him during his last interview. But, I'll just tell you that stuff next week, when it is officially announced.

The baptism preparation is going well, we are looking at having 6 people. And as always, Frère Matinga is the man. He had his interview with Pres Headlee on Sunday, which he said was amazing. I've decided that after he is baptized, we will just have rendezvous where he teaches us. Also Frère Fabrice looks to be a go. There was some concern, because he had a World of Wisdom issue, smoking up to 10 times a day, but now he has replaced cigarettes with little green candies when he gets an urge to smoke. The first 5 days he smoked twice he said, and since then he ain't smoked nothin'. And all his interviews went well. Elder Parsons and I felt good about it, so why with hold blessings. And being baptized and confirmed will only help him to continue to have the strength to resist these temptations. And these two, Frère Matinga and Frère Fabrice, have also become friends at church. 2 spiritual giants.

Donc, je crois que c'est tout. Aussi, comme étude de langue, j'ai commencé au debut de "Ultimate French Review", et au fur et à mésure je ferrai chaque lécon. Bien que je doive ameliorer toujours, maintenant je peut me debrouiller en français, mais je veut bien parler français. Je n'aime pas le subjunctif.

Je vous aime,
- Eric

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