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.




Saturday, January 29, 2011

Eric's email of January 27th, 2011

Well, we are waiting for the internet connection to get fixed,
so I’m just writing on Microsoft Word now.  Hopefully well get
connection sometime today.

First things first, Blaise got baptized on Saturday !  And most
of his family came to see it.  And on Sunday he got confirmed
and even was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood.  And on Sunday
night he invited all the missionaries to his house, so we had a
lesson with all 6 Bastos missionaries and then we ate.  His
family prepared a tomatoe sauce that we ate on spaghetti and
rice, and there were also plantains and pate d’arachide, which
is basically peanut butter, but this one had a little bit of
pima in it, and we ate it with the plantains.  It was actually
good.

Blaise and most of his family at his baptism

We also got Blaise in a tie, but it was a pink tie (that Elder
Tingey gave him for his birthday in December) with a brown
shirt.

Last Friday we also found some community service to do.  Earlier
in the week, Elder Tingey and I were walking and had no
appointment, and these guys working construction called us over
and told us to help, so we helped them a little, but then came
back Friday all 6 of us.  I think we might have been too many.
We helped carry bricks down to the base, we filled up buckets
with mortar and carrie dhtem around, helped place some bricks on
walls.  Nothing fancy.

We also did exchanges on Tuesday, and I worked with Elder Lamb
in my sector.  Tuesday is pretty much our only completely
proselyting day this week, so we had to get a lot done.  We got
8 lessons, 5 of them where after baptism.  And we finished the
day with Blaise’s family, and talked about baptism.  And so the
whole family has committed to prepare for baptism, but the only
problem right now is the dad’s work.  We are going to have to
get creative, but they are planning on getting baptized as a
family in February.

Yesterday Elder Tingey and I set another date for the 5th of
February.  I think I told you about it last week, Elder Acorda
and I started visiting an inactive member named Odette, and she
has been at church the past 3 Sundays now.  But she has a 10
year old daughter named Marina, and last week she asked us to
donner les cours du bapteme a sa fille.  (would we teach her 
daughter about baptism.) And we asked Marina if
she wants to be baptized the 5th or the 19th of February, and
she chose the 5th.  So we are seeing her pretty much every day,
but she has been to primary for years with her older sister,
Abbi, so she’ll be ready.

We have also continued with another really good investigator, la
Soeur Melanie, who was a coordonnée from one of the branch
 presidency members.  At first, she was open to talking with us,
and coming to church every once and a while, but also staying
catholic.  But now, she is more willing to fully look into the
church.  But right now she is not having an easy time.  She has
had some health problems for almost 2 years, she recently had a
15 month old child pass away, just got news that she needs to
find a new house by February because they are going to knock
hers down, and her husband is on crutches because he got hit by
a taxi about 7 months ago.  So yeah, elle a besain de
l’Evangile.  (She really needs the Gospel.)  The thing that is
stopping her from progressing right now, is she says she isn't
interested in the Book of Mormon.  That each time she picks
it up, she gets tired, and wants to turn on the TV or something.
She herself has even said that its "un esprit satanique" that is
keeping her from reading.  But I feel like once she gets over
this and actually sees what's in the Book of Mormon,
she’ll have a breakthrough, if  I may say so.  But, shes got
a lot on her plate right now.

Tonight the Thompsons also invited us for diner, so I’m assuming
we will get transfer info then.  I’ve already been here 4
transfers, and the assistants to President told Elder Tukuafu
that "beaucoup entre nous seront mutés"  (Many of us will be 
transferred.)  Scaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrryyyyyy!

I bet you will be surprised when I tell you this, but I weight
185 lbs.  You can choose to publish that or not.  (I chose to publish.)
But Elder Tingey and Elder Lamb and I talked about starting to run, but
then we whimped out.  We decided we would rather do all our
studies than go running 3 times a week, and I would probably be
super tired during the day.  So I still have the goal to do 100
pushups a day, I do it almost each day.

Well hopefully the internet comes back at some point so I can
send this.  I hope everyone is back into the groove of school by
 now.  So...yeah.

        Je vous aime,
-       Elder Eric Palmer

p.s.  This might be the only email that will get through today, so sorry
if I don't respond to your personal emails.
--
Hey Mom,
(Good choice in answering Mom's questions when you have limited time!)

(How do you think it would be different if we had letters instead of email?)
I think the main problem with letters here would be how inconsistent
receiving and sending would be.

This building stuff wasn't that hard, we didn't hear gloves of anything.

I have baptism pictures, but there's no way they will get sent this
week due to the connection, sorry, I'll send them next week.

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