One year!!!!

a year in review

 

 

 

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well. its official. last friday I hit my one year mark! its crazy. I honestly cant believe that ive already done one year on my mission. I dont know where the time has gone. It seems like yesterday I was arriving in Ghana, and watching people fight for luggage at a baggage claim.

A lot has happenend. and my point of view has changed. arriving here, I thought I was going to be teaching in african villages, and baptizing in rivers... while taking pictures of me and lions. but sadly no. I thought I was going to be serving in benin!! but, to my surprise, Im serving In togo. not even in the same country I was called too. (I could still serve in Benin though... but from what ive seen of benin, I like togo better).

But this past year I have grown to love the people here in west Africa as well the culture. I am so thankful for all of the people I have met, and for all of the friendships I have made that will last through the eternities.

I have also learned so much about rastafarianism. interesting...

so, my week itself went well.

It was really interesting because we didnt really have a car to do our... job...

so, we were working in our area!!!! it was great, we took some time to go and see some of our investigators.

So, on the 19th of september we should have three or more baptisms. we are planning and praying for five, but we never know!!!

Two of the guys we are teaching are named David and Eric. we taught them the restoration and invited them for baptism. They loved it so much, and they felt the spirit so strong that they excepted. our next rendez vous we taught them, and they invited one of their friends as well!!!

the next is amouzou. we have been working with him for a while. He is having some trouble coming to church since he lives really far, has no money, and has a serious handicap on his left leg.... but he came on sunday. so, we were really happy to see him!

So, we went to souza this last week to go pick something up. and I saw that someone that looked really familiar. She was the niece of Eric! one of  my converts. He had invited her to his baptism. anyways, she was having her baptism interview. at the end of the interview, the sister missionaries asked who she wanted to baptize her, and she pointed to me!

so, i got to baptize her, and her younger brother! it was such a cool experience. I had taught the uncle, and the uncle gave me a contact that I had sent, and i was later able to baptize them. Sadly, I wasnt able to get any pictures of the baptism. but one of the sister missionaries has it, so, ill try and get it from her.

So, Later that day, we went on splits in bekpota. and i actually saw eric. He wasnt able to come to the baptism because of work. but As I was walking he pulled up next to me on his moto! I was so surprised!

overall it was a great week!

So, again, i cant believe that my mission is half way over. Its shocking.

But, Im thankful to be here. I love the work im doing, and im so thankful for all of your help and support! I Hope year number 2 will be just as great and crazy as year number 1.

With love,

Elder Magre

 

Hello from Benin

Hello from cadjehoun, Benin

 

 

Hello everybody!
Its been a while. or as they say in ewe. bedeg bebe do. (and now you
reply back duog bedeg be).
well, the week is finally over. Three international transfers and lone
emergency transfer later, its finally over. I never want to deal with
that ever again. because its just exhausting. I dont think you realize
how frustrating it is to cross a boarder with a bunch of missionaries
who dont know what they are doing.
so,  as for the emergency transfer, one of the new missionaries wanted
to go home, so we moved him to our apartment. qnd we kicked elder
jeneseri out. he was mad. anyways, elder Bailey is now training? I
guess he might train the new missionarie with presidents permission.
its not official. Elder Bailey is so happy though. he has never had
any responsibility before on the mission, so he is really hoping to be
able to train.
We got a baptism!!!! hooray!!!!! Fabrice was able to get baptized on
saturday. HE had his interview that morning, and then he was baptized
that afternooon. It was a little last minute with the interview, but i
knew it was going to work out. he has such a strong testimony. Lets
face it, the guy walks two hours to hear us. If he wasnt interested,
he would never do that!
ON sundqy he got up qnd bore his testimony on the church. it was so awesome!!!
Life is well though. excited for next week. President morin is coming
to togo, so we will be going to mission council with him, new trainer
meeting, a lot of splits, and a meeting with the stake president. So,
im excited.
I hope conference went well for you. Sounds like it was exciting.
three new apostles. its no longer the quorum of the 9 Apostles.
SO, I hope you guys have a great week.
Read the scriptures, go to church, pray....
love you guys,
Elder Magre

 

Interesting!!!

you have no idea what i've been through this week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

yup, its been one of those weeks. one of those weeks where you want to crack open a nice cold malta, sit back, and think about how sweet life is. (because maltas are kind of gross, and they help you realize that... although, i do like maltas though)

so, you remember how last week i explained that someone stole our side view mirrors? well we got those fixed. how? hehe...

so, on monday, Blaise (a member who works for the mission, and takes care of apartment, visa, car, stuff) takes us to Mitsubishi to get our side view mirrors. we get there, and they tell us they dont have any more. so, now what do we do. we are stuck driving in west africa with no side view mirrors. i mean, its not like people use those anyways, so why do we need them. so, we start driving back home, contemplating what will happen next. thats when i see Blaise talking to a guy on the street. If you guys knew blaise, you would understand that this togolese man doesnt take no for an answer. so, blaise is talking to this guy. thats when blaise tells us take the next righ and park on the side of the road. When we do, the guy who Blaise was talking too, grabs a piece of paper, and starts to trace the frame of our side view mirrors. then he grabs a big mirror, and starts cutting it out, in the shape of our mirrors. Great idea!!! now how is he going to stick it on... thats when he starts stuffing paper in the frame, and glues the mirror to the frame.... Blaise, you are a genius...

now, do the side view mirrors work? well, its better than nothing i guess. i do have a massive blind spot on the right side, but like i said its better than nothing. and hey, it keeps the cops away!!!

on tuesday we went to ablogames district meeting, and we fixed some problems over there. the sister missionaries have a really bad relation with the members. but, thats because they chastized them during sacrament meeting....

wednesday we had our first of three zone confrences. We started with tokoin, my old zone. president morin wanted to go to every zone individually to help motivate the missionaries, and fix problems according to that zone. the overall theme was motivation, and fasting. missionaries really need to get motivated here, so i think it helped a lot.

on thursda we had our second zone confrence this time for hedzranawoe. again, same type of stuff, but more on what that zone needed to hear. 

so, wednesday we needed to print out some stuff but our printer ran out of ink. so on thursday Elder Dioulo and i went to go find ink... im going to ask you all a very serious question. Where do you find ink (more specifically HP 950 xl ink), in west africa? really think about that one...

so, our first thought was, lets go to a super market! a lot of white people go there, they must have ink. WRONG!!!! so, we drove to every supermarket in lome, to find no ink. then we went to the Grand Marché.... so, note to anyone who plans on driving in west africa, dont take a massive pick up truck into the the Grand Marché. very very small roads, that are packed with people, and motorcycles parked everywhere, and its just awful... but, in the mist of this chaos, we find a place that sells ink, so we go inside, and they sell ink!!!! HP ink!!!! but sadly they dont have 950 or 950xl printer ink. so, we begin the process again, driving through the marché, honking really load, to tell the lady selling Plantaines to move!!! and we find another place that sells HP ink! and again, nothing. Finally after the 5th time,3 hours later, we find Hp 950xl printer ink in west africa. and we didnt buy it! why? because the guy wanted to sell it to us for 80 dollars, and it was kind of a shady deal... so, finally we called a guy who works for the church here, and he told us that he would order our ink for us.... why didnt we just do that in the first place? I dont know. the thought came after we left the cavern of little boutiques selling knock off Nike shoes, and ladies selling tomatoes and onions on their heads...

so, on friday we had the last zone conference with Bekpota. that went well, it was the same kind of thing.

we taught fabrice, lodonou, and eric this week. Fabrice got the priesthood today, so we had a great lesson on that. Eric blessed the sacrament for the first time today, and lodonou fixed his baptism date for november 7th!!! he still has an alcohol problem. he was drunk at our last rendez vous.... but we are keeping him in our prayers, and hoping that everything goes well with him.

We were able to fix two baptism dates with a new investigator named Reine. she is actually our next door neighbor, so we dont have to walk very far! haha. her brother also excepted baptism. 

President Morin showed us a new way to invite people to be baptized. He explained how we concentrate to much on the date, but not enough on the first engagement. which is "will you to pray to know if our message is true" he explained how focus the baptism invitation, on that phrase. and the strategy works.

lastly, i finished the book of mormon again. its still true. READ IT!!! If you haven't already, i recommend you do. If you have, read it again!!!!

so, i love you guys, and hope all goes well back at home.

remember 1.make shift side view mirrors work

2. dont drive big trucks into the Grand Marché

3.Focus on prayer

Love you guys, 

Elder Magré

 

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