Well hi,
This place is wonderful. Elder W and I have definitely been keeping ourselves busy. Once again, p-day was jam-packed with stuff. We planned on taking up yesterday's lunch hour to E-mail, but ended up working through it. So now we're taking up today's lunch hour. Anyway, it's always nice to hear from you guys, and knowing kind of what you're up to these days.
These past few weeks have been pretty eventful. I was finally bitten by a dog - luckily it only ended up tearing my pants at the knee , but even so, it was alarming because the dogs here run away the second you turn around. It's been fun to just walk around in this area and stop every five to ten minutes just to talk to somebody we know or be stopped by somebody asking " what are you white guys doing here anyway?" Everybody's really nice and pleasant here. Some missionaries have this theory that the farther away from the inner city ( IE: 67ha my last area aka: "the slums") you get, the nicer the people get. It might be true, however, some of my favorite people live in 67ha, so I don't really know. Anyway, I like how I'm becoming apart of this new area. I like how I can walk down the street on the opposite side of the world, and recognize allot of the people I pass, and more often than not stop and talk to them. " Hey how ya doin' Kiky!, it's nice to see you, how are the wife and kids? hows that job search going?....." It's a little bit weird to think about sometimes.
I had an experience this last week that sticks out to me as one of the small defining moments in life, if I can put that way. I was on splits with one of the ward missionaries and none of our set appointments went through. I decided to visit a less active member, Randry, as a back up plan. Randry has been an inactive member for a couple of years now, and is very poor. He lives in a one-room mud brick house with a grass roof. He makes a little less than 25$ a month, but it cost a dollar a day to feed nothing but rice to his wife and two kids. He told us all of this the week before last. We told him to talk to the bishop to which he reluctantly agreed - I suspect that he either thought that because he was inactive, the church would not help him, or maybe that it was too good to be true that the bishop would do something for him.
Anyway, all of this had happened the week before with Elder W, but that night while I was on splits it was a weird experience to be the only white guy in sight, and the youngest and the worst at the language in the room. That night, I found out that Randry had actually gone to see the bishop earlier that day, but the bishop wasn't there. Furthermore, his predicament had worsened still, as the French guy he was working for suddenly left the country without paying any of his workers, "laying them off" at the same time. I don't know quite how to describe my feelings of inadequacy as Randry, his wife and kids, and Haja, my temporary companion, looked at me expectantly waiting for my response that hopefully would bring some sort of comfort , and peace of mind. I was thinking , "I'm 20 years old. I still feel like a kid. I've never been married, I don't have any kids. Furthermore, I'm a white guy from America, I've only just begun to speak your language, and understand your culture, I don't know anything really. what are all of you looking at me for?" I was silent for a little bit. All of their faces were dimly lit by the single candle in this small room, everything else in the room was dark and black. Randry's two year old kid, Abdala, played with my watch as I thought of something to say. Then it came to me. I told him to not be discouraged, and that everything would work out, ( I don't know if I believed what I was saying.) I shared a few scriptures with him that seemed to back up what I was saying. Then I said, " I know you felt very let down when you went to see the bishop as your last resort, and he wasn't there, but you still need to talk to him, now more than ever. And I'm going to call him up later and set up an appointment for you..... in fact, I'll do it right now." I then picked up my cell phone and right then and there called the bishop, whom I had never really spoken to, and set up a special appointment for early the next morning. Then I gave Randry some instructions of things that he needed to do if he wanted this to work.
Now, looking back, I didn't do anything really spectacular at all. It was so simple. It was the difference between giving him a spiritual-thought a scripture and saying, "well, good luck with that, I'll be praying for you. Good night!" and actually doing something about it. It was the difference between calling the bishop later, or calling him right at the moment just to show Randry that I was seriously trying to help him, and showing him what he needed to do. I don't know if I could have done even that small thing and the beginning of the mission, and I don't think I was suddenly capable of doing it at that precise moment in time either. Rather, I feel like that night was just a small illustration of how much this mission is changing me, little by little.
That Sunday, Randry came to church for the first time in I don't know how long. Then, later that evening, he introduced us to one of his friends to teach. We also found some job opportunities that he could look into.
Anyway, I still feel like a kid trying to behave like an adult. I'm still kicking myself from time to time for all of the stupid things I can't seem to stop doing, and all of the good things I can't seem to start. However, this transfer is going to be good. We're getting a lot of work done. I'm looking forward to the future. I love you all and I'm out of time.
Talk to ya next week. Veloma!
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