Elder Goddard: Week 11

Monday, September 23, 2019 4:48 AM MST

Bonjour tout le monde, comment ca va? (Hello everyone, how are you?)

Week was good,

It's rained 4 times this week, which means the streets were flooded and muddy all week! Just like home. The first time it happened when were in the middle of a lesson and it just started pouring. After our lesson we needed to be somewhere else, but we waited a little in the house of our ami to see if it would die down, and it did a little bit so we left. But there was a huge river in the middle of the road and no way to go around it. And we had to cross it. So we did what any good missionary would do and took our shoes and socks off and walked straight through it. Haha everyone was laughing at us yovos, and we were laughing at ourselves too. It'll be a good memory.

But what won't be such a good memory is what happened yesterday. I'm a pretty bad cook so I usually just sit back and let everyone else cook for me. But yesterday I felt bad for always doing that so I tried to cook something up for everyone. I had some oil and was trying to cook up some fries, and basically the pot lit on fire and I started a grease fire. Haha I dealt with it well and put it out, but it was pretty embarrassing. I didn't catch anything else on fire, and we still had fries so all is well. But I don't think I'm gonna try cooking again anytime soon. I think I'll just stick to other kinds of service.

This week has been really good in terms of work. At district meeting this week we talked about how God sometimes plans our day differently from how we did, so we need to be open to changes in our schedule. And that really held true this week. We had a jam packed schedule almost every day, but I don't think a single day went anywhere close to what we planned. We had so many appointments fall through, which was frustrating, but we knew God had different plans for us, so we continued to work hard. And God blessed us because of that. We've found some new amis that really are progressing and have a desire to know and live the gospel, but we wouldn't have found them if our day would have gone how we planned it. And we've also had God just putting people right in our lap. We had one lady called us to her from the street, we had one guy just knock on our door one morning, and we had one guy just show up to church unannounced without having taken any lessons before. This has been frustrating at times, but we know God has a hand in our life and he's looking out for us and helping us. I've got a big testimony of that.

We're going to have a baptism this Saturday for Frere Koffi, and we decided that I'm going to be the one doing the baptism! I'm nervous about it, but also really excited. I've got to do it in French, and he's a big guy so I hope I can do it alright. But this is what the mission is all about! So I'm excited for it, and for his desire to follow Christ and live the commandments. He's so willing and we love it! I'm excited to let you all know how it goes next week.

Thank you all for your love, support, emails, and prayers like always. I'm praying about you guys at home all the time. Hope all is well and you have a good week. Love you guys.

Elder Goddard