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| Jacob, Elder Palmer and Andrea at the Charlottesville, VA airport (Sorry it is blurry, I must have been excited or something!) |
Well, this is my last “missionary” entry. I’m at home right now, its not that weird, except Andrea and Jacob are huge, and there are a lot of screens to look at, like this computer and my cell phone and TVs and stuff. And these jeans I’m wearing feel kind of weird.
So, my last week in the mission field was great. On Monday, we went to Marche Central to shop and tried to get everything done for the whole week like packing and cleaning so that we wouldn’t have to worry about that later. I think we did a pretty good job.
Tuesday seemed like a pretty normal day. Just taught rendezvous and fixed appointments with those people to say goodbye and show them the new missionaries. Oh, and we also had a perfect day, meaning no rattezvous, or in other terms, no appointments falling through. We did have a mangezvous at the end of the day, with food prepared by Soeur Charlotte and Soeur Gwet, and it was really good, except for the meat. It had huge bones, but it was Frere Patrick’s falt because he is the one that chose it.
Wednesday was good, started out with a rendezvous with Mireille, Paulin’s wife. She had been sick recently, so we gave her a blessing. Then we saw Andre, a coordonnee from the Tobe family. That was a good lesson, because we had 2 members there, and they both shared a sweet testimony about the family, and one had just been back from the temple to be sealed to hers.
Then there was a young single adults activity, and one of the reasons it was held was to dire aurevoir a Elder Palmer. There was a games section and a talent show after. The games included a sack race, arm wrestling, eating contest (that Elder Tingey won), and such things. Then the talent show basically consisted of lipsyncing to songs, and some dancing. The real singing I heard was done by Frere Simplice, who is being very well intergrated and integrating himself. He, I can say, rapped this song about the last jugement. The chorus was basically “les catholiques attendent ce jour, les presbetyriens attendent ce jour, les muselmans attendent ce jour” etc, with everyone saying “attendant ce jour” together. He was the best I would say, because he was the only one that sang for real. And Elder Tingey and I sang the romantic peanut butter & jelly song, and I played guitar.
Then, the rest of the week basically consisted of saying aurevoir to people. Wednesday evening, Elder Wagman and I went to see the Longla family, and Frere Jacques. Then Thursday, after a get together breakfast in Ekounou for the last zone gathering, Elder Wagman and Elder Prince worked together, and I worked with Elder Tingey. And also Frere Junior of Bastos 2 worked with us. Thursday we saw the people of Bastos 1 in Messassi and Emana, and the last one was Soeur Therese in Citee Verte. We had an interesting visit to (a different) Frere Simplice, of the Bastos 1 branch presidency. There was a somewhat heated discussion in mostly dialect happening, while us 3 at yams and sweet potatoes with a mushroom sauce. Very interesting, and extremely filling. Junior said he could understand the conversation, but he didn’t tell us anything.
Then Friday, it was Elder Hansen and Elder Tingey and I, kind of a lot. After our morning rung, we left early, because we had to go au village to see Soeur Salome. Then we went to say goodbye to people in Bastos 2, and also show Elder Hansen his new sector. Oh, and another interesting fact: so officially everytime I left a sector on my mission, my companion also got transferred and they sent in 2 new ones. I was never on the other end of that, but I imagine it wouldn’t be easy. But Friday included our normal route, with short sweet visits. Frere Olivier, the recent convert, spent most of the day with us. He is awesome, and the only difficult thing though is he speaks really fast. The 2nd to last one was with la famille du Frere Maurice. They gave us Eru. I ate a lot. Too much actually, which would later prove some discomfort during travels. Then at the end, we had to go see Brother Ndiemboh, the very last visit. And I cut it close, I had basically enough time to go home and shower and finish pakcing and then go.
And the plane flights were not fun. But that’s not that important, or interesting. But, thanks to some tricky maneuvering of Dad, I flew home to Charlottesville last night, because Richmond was shut down due to a hurricane. (Hurricane Irene-closed down the Richmond airport one hour after Eric left Yaounde. We were on hold with the airlines for 11 hours and 45 minutes before we could change his flight from Philadelphia into Charlottesville. He beat us there and was the only person in the airport, so our welcome home signs were anti-climatic.)
So, that’s that. I got released today by President Mullins. I don’t feel that out of place, but it is kind of confusing thinking and talking about school and just other life things that I have to do this week. Jacob just called me to food. So, l’Eglise est vraie.
Je vous aime tous,
- (Unfortunately the former) Elder Palmer
