Eric's p-day was today, Friday May 20th instead of yesterday:
Well, we found out today, that if I grew out my beard, it would be
red. I thought that was interesting.
Anyways, things less interesting than that, is that today is la Fete
Nationale au Cameroun, or we can say that it’s Independence Day. But
this one is special, because it is to celebrate the 50th Anniversary
of the Reunification of Cameroon, but some Anglophones told me that
the Francophones mixed up the date. Nonetheless, the Reunification is
celebrated today. And that is why we changed pday to today, because
many people were not going to be free.
We also had zone conference on Wednesday. The lesson that President
Headlee asked me to prepare was on the Area Book and Reporting Tools,
and the Weekly Planning Session. And actually it was called a
“workshop”, instead of a lesson. At first I was afraid that it was
going to be super boring, but I don’t think it was that bad. The one
thing I do need to work on in zone conference’s, is projecting the
amount of time for each element, because I keep underestimating the
time needed by a lot. Elder Thompson taught a lesson about How to
Begin Teaching, and explained to us “entrer sans frapper”, (enter without knocking) which is something we should not do. We watched to clips
in “the District 2” DVD to help. I swear the sister missionaries are
always the good examples in those clips, and the elders are the ones that
"need improvement”. And we also found out the transfer should happen
sometime around June 3rd. I also delegated the fun part of zone
conference to Elder Tingey, and he had us play Jeopardy. The
categories were: Area Book & Weekly Planning, The First Presidency,
Book of Mormon, and French Verbs. It was good. My team…won.
Yesterday Elder Tingey and I also got called to fix someone’s
daughter. We were at Messassi having a lesson with Soeur Marie-Sylvie
(who is still progressing wonderfully) and a couple other people. So
as we were getting near the end of the lesson, some lady walked in and
greeted us all. I assumed she was a friend of someone that lived
there. But then, she just started talking to us about how she has
some problems with one of her daughters, etc. She said she had seen
us a few times, and thought since we are young like her daughter, we
could knock some sense in to her, if that is the right translation.
So, we presented our self a little and offered the help we can give.
Then, she excused herself for coming into a house of people she didn’t
even know, except she said she had recognized Marie-Sylvie from a
hospital one time. So she must have really wanted to talk to us if
she just entered the house of someone she didn’t know. So she left,
and after we finished our rendezvous with Marie-Sylvie & co., we
walked to where she lived, she saw us and showed us her house. Oh,
and her name is Chantalle, and we found 2 of her daughters and 2 other
youngens. So, we had an ok lesson, got to know them. Except at one
point it started raining, and made it hard to hear. One of her
daughters asked me, “Vous buvez l’alcool?” (Do you drink alcohol?).I thought she had said,“Tu partais à l’école?” (You have left school?).
And I answered yes. Thankfully, Elder Tingey understood and was
surprised by my answer, and quickly corrected me. We’ll see them again
on Monday.
Brother Patrice (friend of newly reactive member Brother Gildas) is
also progressing wonderfully, as in as wonderfully as Sister
Marie-Sylvie. Last Friday, we sang a hymn and opened with a prayer.
And Patrice, anticipating that we were going to ask, “Avez-vous des
questions?”, (Do you have any questions?) said right after the prayer that he had no questions, but had a testimony to share. That caught
our attention. He said that 2 nights before, he was praying before
going to bed, and during his prayer he asked about the Church and what
we teach. Then he said,that he felt something he never had felt before,
it was a good feeling, and the thoughts “Thomas S. Monson est un vrai
prophète” (Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet) and “L’Eglise est vraie”
(The church is true) kept running through his head, and that he even
started crying a bit. The next morning he woke up Gildas early and
told him what happened, and the next day he told us his experience. I
felt like I was in Preach My Gospel in the story under “Listening”,
especially because there were some people’s children making a bunch of
noise.
Its raining hard right now. I hope the connection doesn’t go out.
Oh, and we are also getting ready for a baptism tomorrow. We have 2
candidates. One is Soeur Nina, the daughter of Soeur Salome. I felt
really good in her lessons this week and actually believed her when
she said she wanted to be baptized. And the other is Ignace, the son
of Christine. And Christine and both her sons are planning on getting
confirmed this Sunday. She said last Sunday they all got ready, and
around 11:30, it started raining really hard, and that she didn’t have
an umbrella and she didn’t want to go out in the rain with Martin, her
3 month old baby. She expressed a real want to be confirmed, and
feels kind of sad about how she hasn’t been confirmed and doing all
she wants to in Church. Again, I’m really grateful how the Relief
Society has supported her. This week if it starts raining hard before
church again, we are just going to go get her.
Well, that’s about it. Everyone enjoy their last month or less of
their respective school.
Je vous aime,
- Elder Eric Palmer
To Dad:
For the burger restaurant, I would be willing to work there. I don't
know why not. I'm not saying to sign me up right now for 40 hours a
week. But I don't think that would be awkward. Sounds like it could
be a good idea.
I think I could do that running program, probably do the long runs on
pday, just have to find someone to do them with me. Finding someone
will probably be the biggest challenge. (1/2 marathon training)
Ok, lots of people here hove lots of weird preconceived notions about
Americans, and other people. Weird one from just today, is that a guy
stopped us and asked about the water filtering system that he heard
existed in Asia, Europe, and the USA, something to do with osmosis
water. I told him I have no idea, but gave him a Restoration
brochure. Other notions include: money, being fat, can't speak
anything but English, only eat food that is in cans and such. Not
everyone thinks all that, but different people have different notions.
Je t'aime,
- Elder Eric Palmer
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