Ice cream/sushi.....

sushi, ice cream and twister.... and thats only the beginning of the week...

 

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Hello!

So, on monday we went to benin and had our office meeting. afterwards we went and got sushi... which was really good. then we to a super market and got ice cream. and then we played twister. Elder Teaupa is a cheater by the way because he was totally uisng his weight against me.

So, as some of you may know, elder vinson of the seventy cqme for a mission tour. so, for the past couple weeks we have been planning and planning and praying that everything will go smoothly.

On tuesday we drove back to Togo to get everything planned. we actually had a meeting with president at his Hotel about all the little important details that needed to get done. one of those things was that we need to find elder Vinson a hotel room. all of the hotels near president were full, so we needed to go and find him a hotel. so, that was cool. 

One of the things elder Vinson requested was a room where him and his wife, after the zone confrence they could eat in private with president. so, afterwards we went and helped the member we hired to make and decorate the room. It was really nice by the way. Sister Vinson LOVED it.

so, on wednesday elder vinson arrived. but he didnt come till the afternnoon, so in the morning we went and picked up president and took him to go see a bishop. President morin wants to meet with all of the bishops and branch presidents in lome to see how the relationship between the members and missionaries are.

afterwards we dropped president off at the hotel. he then gave me the keys to his car and asked to go get it washed. IT was really weird driving an automatic car.... i was so lost! You have no control!!!!

so, elder vinson came in the afternoon. we dropped him off at his hotel and then we went to the zone confrence. I got to translate again! The zone confrence was a success! And the spirit was so strong. Elder vinson gave us a lot of really good advice, and helped us to really understand our objective. He said something that stuck out to all of us. he said that when we fix a baptism date with someone we dont fix one. but two. He explained how we need them to realize that their baptism isnt just for them, but its also for their ancestors, and even their kids. It helped us realize the more eternal perspective of our work. He talked a lot about our companionship study, and how its actually three people that are studying, not two. us, our comp, and the holy ghost.

so, it was a great! we loved how everything went smoothly!

in the morning we had leadership council. Really great advice. He came to realize that our mission is forgotten by the inter region. That we have a shortage of missionaries.... like really bad... we have had to close a lot of areas. so, it helped a lot.

we were able to teach a lot... the okuy family will hopefully be getting baptized on saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

brother Okuy shared some concerns about how he has already been baptized and how his kids are too young... but we brought over brother frank. a nigerian whos family used to be neighbors with the okuy. brother Frank was baptized about a month ago. He shared his situation. He taught the lesson. we said nothing, and the spirit tesitified that it was true!!!! it was fantastic! 

We taught dele again this week. He came to church and actually stayed the full three hours. He admitted to us that he smokes, but he is going to stop.

som everything is going well.

interesting experience, pozer cut out yesterday while i was in the shower. its like the worst experience possible. you are just so lost. you dont know what to do!

anyways, i love you all, and hope you have a fantastic week!

Elder Magre

Halloween!!

it was halloween this week, and my oldest son, now has one year on his mission. (elder teaupa is my fils). They dont celebrate haloween here. its poor, and people cant spend money on candy to give to children. (and people would rather have the money, then candy in all honesty) the average togolese person lives on 200 francs a day. thats about 45 cents. so, you can imagine. they monthly salary for a police officer is 120 dollars a month. and they have to pay housing, food, and other necessities for there families.

i celebrated it with elder bailey, the american i live with. (i was acutally in the mtc with him). we put on our boumbas and ate candy in our living room and talked about how next year we will be back home!

dad said he did some research on how i want to go into addiction recovery. it sounds like its going to be a lot of work! haha, but ive come to realize that it is something i love doing. I want a career where i will be able to help people. my patriarchal blessing says that i will have a profession where i will help many people with their pains and sorrows. so, i think that is what i need to go into.

Honk!!!

right of way? LOL!!! honk the horn and hit the gas!

 

 

 

 

 

stop signs? Red lights? 

hello family and friends,

Its rainy season, and driving just got interesting! why? because now the roads are flooded!!!! hooray!!! so im no longer driving the Togo Mobile, but now, im captain of a beautiful boat.... now obviously some roads are better than others, but today when i was picking up president morin to take him to the airport we got drop him off at the airport, we got to drive threw a huge... deep puddle....

some good stuff is going on though here in togo. We are opening a gospel class at a local university here. we have a lot of our investigators, and converts, and a lot of members from all over togo who go to school there. We think its going to help us get a lot of new contacts, and get people intrested quickly. "teach why you find, and find while you teach". so, that class will help us do exactly that. The class started last week, and we had a couple of our investigators show up. we just need to find a time where a lot of students are on campus, but a time when they arent in class. so, its going to be difficult, but they were saying wednesdays work best.

on wednesday the bank called and said that our account didnt have enough money on it. so, i was running around trying to figure out what happened. turns out, ghana wasnt notified that we needed to pay rent for certain apartments... so that ended up cleaning out our bank account... but its all figured out now. hopefully. 

We were able to go and teach délé twice this last week. it was awesome! we taught him about prophets, and about christ and how he organized a church. He is progressing really well! he finally excepted a baptism date for the 28th of this month!!! he is a tough guy, who is hard to convince, but the spirt is starting to soften his heart, and he is starting to change. He said a really sincere prayer at the end of the lesson to know if the chruch is true. He also came to church! he said it was long, so he left third hour.... but, its progress though. 

we taught eric, and david this week. Lodonou probably isnt going to get baptized this week since we could smell alcohol on him at our last lesson. its just a little stummbling block, but we are going to be even more blunt and clear with him. maybe intervention number 2 will do the trick?

We went and taught a new guy named akouete. he lives really really far, in a place called agoe. there arent missionaries there, but the mission is going to send some soon. We drive there, and he explained how he just isnt intrested in our church. so, it was kind of a bummer, but thats okay i guess.

we are finally out of our old office. our temporary office is in the stake center... in the Hedzranwoe ward secretary office.... we put our computers here, until the internet is set up in our new and improved office that doesnt smell of mold, and that isnt about to collapse on top of us!!! 

so, the week has been good. Im happy, and healthy. and in africa that right there is a huge blessing.

I hope you all have a great week,

i love you all,

Elder Mahgray

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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