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.




Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Eric's email of March 24th, 2011

Bonjour.  It’s very bright today.  And hot.  It seems to be like that after a big storm, which we had last night.  And last night I fell asleep with my contacts in because I was too tired to wait for someone else to get out of the bathroom.  And this cyber café is showing Recess (an old Disney cartoon) in french.
                             Anyways, Saturday we had a baptismal service, and Rigobert, Melkior, and Queentine got baptized.  I’ll send a picture.  We also got a good turnout to the baptism, probably the best turnout I’ve seen since I’ve been here.  We even got the presidents of the Young Men and The Young Women, and the entire Longla family plus 3 other friends of theirs.  And another amie de l’Eglise showed up, la Soeur Nina.  So I was glad so many people showed up to show their support.  The only complaint we got was why they couldn’t take pictures of the baptism taking place.  Oh, and also Blaise gave a talk on baptism at the service, so that was great too.
                             Then Sunday after church, the Longlas invited the missionaries over again to celebrate the baptism.  Celebrating is something very important to them.  But this time there were a lot more people, and they had more of their friends, a couple sisters from the ward were there, including the Young Women's President, so that's good that they are getting integrated into the branch.  And this time Elder Tingey and I also provided some refreshement, we made pizza.  It received a much better reaction than what Elder Tingey told me happenned in Pointe-Noire.  Yesterday Sister Victorine, the mother, asked for the recipe for pizza.
                             We had another good lesson with the Ndiemboh family, but now its down to mostly just the father and one of the daughters that comes to each rendezvous.  But the dad is understanding the Book of Mormon amazingly well.  Last time we saw him, he had almost finished the first book of Nephi.  And he asked us some questions, and recited to us everything he had read.  He explained all that happened with Lehi and family voyaging in the desert, and he even told us the names of the places that Lehi named, like Bountiful and such.  And he does that without the book or any notes.  I definitely don't have the names of all those places memorized.  And he even told us the exact verse where he figured out why Lehi and family was eating in the desert without having to cook their meat, and everyone was healthy and everything.  Then I was looking at the book, and he wasn't, but he cited the reference for the verse where it says the Lord made their meat sweet or something so that they wouldn't have to cook it, something like 1 Nephi 17:12.  I think.
                             La Soeur Nina is also progressing very well.  She has now been to church the past 3 Sundays and attended the baptismal service.  And she lives at Messassi, which is not close to the church.  But just like her mother, Soeur Salomé, who is already a member, she comes each week without fail.  So that is a good sign.  Soeur Nina has already testified to us that the Church is true and that the Book of Mormon is true.  Yesterday we invited her to be baptized the 16th of April.  She thought for a minute, and said next rendezvous she will tell us her answer.
                             And yesterday after seeing Nina, we went and saw her mother, Soeur Salomé.  Soeur Nina is living in her mother's old house, and her mother told us she moved to Nkol-Ondom.  That is where Frère Etienne lives, out in the bush, I sent a picture of his house a week or 2 ago.  So at Messassi we take a car for 150 francs per person.  But to get to where Salomé lives now, we took the car to the end of its route, which is about twice as far as where brother Etienne lives, then we had to walk for 15 more minutes.  She actually lives in the quarter after Nkol-Ondom, which is called Lendom.  It was far.  I don't know if you tried to find a map of Yaoundé on the internet if you could find these places, but I would suggest trying it.  For reference, the missionaries and the church are in Bastos, and all these other places are on the far north boundary of Yaoundé.  I’m not even sure if Lendom is considered to be part of Yaoundé.  But despite the distance, it was beautiful and peaceful out there.  I’d want to live out there, if I could have a car.
                             And the end of yesterday we had a very interesting lesson with the Longla family (Blaise’s family).  At first it started off very boring.  Elder Tingey and I planned on talking about service in the Church, one of the 5th lesson principles.  I could tell that the family, especially Rigobert was very bored with it.   It wasn't that interesting to me, either.  But then Rigobert told us we had a question about the Aaronic Priesthood.  So then we talked about some really interesting things, and read in the Doctrine and Covenants that they got last weekend.  And we even ended up talking about the angels Gabriel and Michael, and who they were when they lived on earth.  Thank goodness for modern revelation and the Bible dictionary.  The reading assignments we left them were the books of Moses and Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price.  Its cool to discuss those kind of things, because the Word of Wisdom and the apostasy can get boring after so many times.
                             On Monday we had a soirée familiale (family night) with Soeur Agnèsse and her 2 children.  She has been a member for nearly 10 years I think, and she is originally from Rwanda.  After the lesson, we taught them the table hockey game that you play with 3 coins.  I don't really know how to explain, but the activity we wanted to do fell through.  So I remembered that game that we played in middle school a lot, and they loved it.
                             So that's about it.  A new missionary arrived yesterday, he is working in Ekounou, the other side of town, and is being trained by Elder Kabwika.  His name is Elder Waite, he is from Arizona.  I haven't met him yet, but we should see him today.  From what we’ve been told, we won't have any more new missionaries until July.
                             And enjoy conference for me, luckies.
Je vous aime,
-          Elder Eric Palmer
p.s.  this week Elder Nsimba also taught me the phrase « né d’un chien ! »  I wonder if Dad knows that one...
To Mom:
I did not see any of the parade for Women's Day. (See the Thompson's blog for pictures of the parade.)

And Dad told me about Scott getting into Virginia Tech, but Scott didnt tell me.  It's time to chatier (chastise) him, thats 2 or 3 weeks with no email.  I'll chatier him too.

Je t'aime,
- Elder Eric Palmer
Still to Mom who "caught" him online....

Elder Tingey was in charge of making the pizza, but I helped.

This is being dumb, its not letting me send a picture.  I'll try in a different email.

Je t'aime,
- Elder Eric Palmer

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