week one in benin.... And the power cuts out so much. 33 hours.
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33 hours of no power. im not even kidding when i say this, but power here is run mostly on back up generators. its crazy. my first day in akpakpa they cut the power twice.... lets just say, the power cuts out at least 3 to 4 times a day. each for about 2 or three hours. the other day it cut out 6 times... benin...
Besides frequent power outages where do i begin! Elder kola (or elder koka-kola as we call him) are doing some great work here. we are both ready to work hard and transform this secteur around!! when i said last week that this secteur is a Muslim area. i wasnt kidding. everyone here is muslim and when you think they arent, they are... a lot of the members here are converted from islam which is interesting... but, there still are a lot of christians here though. its split probably 50 50. the cool thing about africa though is that people are so open about religion. voodoo, Muslim, christian, everyone is still interested in what ever you have to offer them.
Benin though is much more difficult work wise than Togo. Togo is small, and Lome is just a giant village. Cotonou however.... I now understand why people say that beninois people are "wicked". I have never knocked on so many doors on my mission. we are tracting so much. and un like lome, where people are interested, people here just flat out say "i honestly dont care". so, thats exciting.
with that being said, we have found a lot of good investigators this week. and we were able to fix four baptism dates.
One of this is for a young girl named ruth. Her parents come to church, but the dowry is blocking them from baptism. so, we decided to fix a baptism date with her. her parents needed some convincing because they said that ruth is a mean disobedient girl, but in the end they agreed that it was for the best.
The dowry here is so much simpler than in togo however. marriage is so complicated over there. i honestly cant explain it.
in benin however, you go to town hall, and pay 50 bucks, and you are married! so much easier! the thing is ruths dad is unemployed and 25000 cfa is a lot of money for people have. money that people dont have. but, he said by april he will have enough money to get married.
so, church was interesting. a member got up and started yelling at a lady during testimony meeting. I guess the members here dont get a long with each other, and the branch president (who is togolese!!!) cant handle the situation. Its complicated and a story for another time.
i love you all,
Elder Magre,
by the way, Elder Kola is teaching me a ton of lingala. its super easy! nalo baka lingala!!!
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