Elder Goddard: Week 1 in Benin!

Monday, August 26, 2019 9:56 AM MST

Bonjour tout le monde ! (Hello everyone!)

Well, I'm finally here! It feels to good to get out of the MTC and actually be in my mission country. It's so much better here! I'm glad to be out of the MTC haha. I'v got a lot to talk about, but I'm

typing this on a French keyboard, so we'll how this goes.

Touching down in Benin was great. Flying over Cotonou the city looked huge! But the airport was open and very pretty, lots of green trees and everything, I was really excited! Saying goodbye to the Cote d'Ivoire elders was sad, because we all became way good friends, but we'll see each other again someday.

After getting to the airport, we met President Goury in the parking lot. I like him, he's got a big smile. We went back to the mission home, and then we went to a restaurant. He told us our assignments and companions there. I have Elder Drogowski, an American from Ohio. He's pretty cool. He pranked me and had another elder wear his tag, and when I got out of the car he said, okay elder Goddard, grab your crap and let's get out of here. I totally believed it, and I was really scared. I was very glad to hear it was a joke!

The first night, me and another elder stayed the night with the office elders. It was our first taste of what our mission would really be like. I went to the bathroom that night and needed toilet paper, but there wasn't any in there, so I asked for some. The office elders just laughed. Long story short I used the shower head to wipe. That's when I knew that I'd really arrived in Africa!

I got assigned to Adidogome, which is on the Eastern part of Togo, real close to Ghana. I'm in an house with 2 other elders, Elder Taylor from California, and Elder Kombo from France. They're both cool, I like Elder Kombo a lot, and he actually left the MTC 3 weeks before I came, and we're going to finish the mission at the same time, so it will be fun to have him around!

Being in the mission field means I actually have to speak French now, and it's going alright. I can speak good enough, but I can't really understand anything that anyone is saying, so it's hard at times. All my roommates speak English though, and don't really like to speak French around the house, so I'm not always lost, but I am a lot of the time out in the sector. But I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting, and everyone said it was good! So I was grateful for that.

We had 2 baptisms on Saturday! I had no part in getting them there, but it was still my favorite part of the week. I can't wait until I can have a part of getting someone to that point myself! I taught only a few lessons this week, but the one's yesterday went really well, and I was happy. One yesterday we were teaching about the temple, and I actually understood his concerns and was able to answer a few of them! I was excited about that, but after that lesson I went back to not understanding anything, my gift of tongues ran out haha, but I was glad to be blessed with it when I was!

I hope the first week of school went well for everyone, and that everything's going well at home. Thank you to everyone for your prayers and support I love you all!

Elder Goddard