Dieu Soit Avec Toi

 I'm sorry everyone! I've been a real slacker with my emails the past few months. I promise to be better, although that might mean they get a little shorter. Although shorter is better than not at all right?

Last week on Tuesday we met a new woman named Maggie. We randomly stopped by a home of some family members of one of our members (she goes to an English ward but is still an African member). We knocked on the door and a woman answered the door. She asked if we were there to see her husband (we learned later in the discussion that he had been taught a decent amount about 2 years ago), we said not necessarily and asked if she was interested in a message. She said yes and we sat down, to start I asked her a bunch of questions just trying to get to know where her stance with god and church is. She's been to a bunch of different Christian denominations and said that she personally doesn't like to ask to many questions because it often to lead down a rabbit hole and doubting your faith. We said it is important to have questions because it leads to deeper faith and greater knowledge. We talked about prophets, joseph smith, and the book of Mormon. We dug a little deeper and she asked the common "why do bad things happen to good people", to answer we read from 2 Nephi 2 and invited her to read the rest. She said that she has some copies of the BOM in the home and she would read it. We set up to return on Friday but had to cancel because there was a viewing for Mama Suzanne

We exchanged with the ZL's on Wednesday and I went to go do English work with Elder Murray. He got feeling fired up and invited someone to be baptized off of a door contact ha-ha!! It really showed me that we can be bold with our teaching and that baptismal invites are a great way to assess someone's progress. the woman actually seemed interested too and said she would come to church on Sunday!

Thursday, we went by Landrye again and taught in detail the events surrounding the coming forth of the book of Mormon. She didn't fully understand how it was translated and not received by inspiration, but yet still had a super strong testimony of its truthfulness and the teachings it contains. That was a great faith building moment to me. We brought our new member who moved from Utah to help the branch, Brother Shumway, and he loved it. 

Two Tuesday's ago us missionaries we got a call from a member saying our dear Mama Suzanne had passed away. She was baptized in 2019, before the branch even started, and has even been through the temple. She was one of like 4 members who has gone through the temple. We had the viewing on Friday and the funeral service was put on by us on Saturday. Through some funny technological means, I made it possible for a member who recently moved to California to give a talk and testimony. It was a great service, and I can feel that Mama Suzanne is here helping her family still. 

I hope everyone has a great week! And don't ever forget CPR, which is Church - Pray - Read. I'm trying to enhance my studies and I invite everyone else to do the same. Love you all!

Elder Baird

Goodbye Zellers

I missed a week again ha-ha but we had a great week over here. Training has been going well and I'm proud to say that we've been doing good work. 

Elder Kocherhans got sick at the beginning of the week, most likely just being in a new environment, and he had some jetlag. So, we have been taking breaks almost every day for him to nap and recover, but he's feeling better now so it's full steam ahead this coming week! But here are some of the highlights.

On Tuesday we invited Byenigulu to come join us in a lesson with Norbert and Julienne since he lives on the same street! He shared his testimony about the importance of baptism, and it was really interesting to see them bounce the discussion off each other in a way that seemed to fit their culture. We're trying to get a lot more members to participate in lessons because testimonies from people that aren't missionaries can be exactly what friends need. Especially if these friends can come to church and see more familiar faces than just us young men but others who also care about them. 

We taught a woman named Bahati twice this week. The first time was Tuesday evening and we stopped for a surprise visit. We had received a referral from some other French elders, and they knew she only spoke Swahili, but I took a step of faith and used the little Swahili I have to share about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. We gave her a copy and she said she would read the page about the 3 and 8 witnesses. We came back on Friday also with Byenigulu to learn that she had read!! That doesn't happen too often, but it is a great feeling when it does. I did my best to teach about prophets and the restoration through Joseph Smith and Byenigulu gave me some much-needed help. He would often repeat what I had taught in a way that made more sense ha-ha. He also at the end explained the name of the church! He went over the same thing he had just learned the week before and it was amazing to see how important that knowledge was to him. 

On Thursday night we had a goodbye dinner for the Senior missionary couple Elder and Sister Zeller. They have been a huge help to the branch for their year here, but it is time for them to head home. I wish they could stay longer but that's life sometimes. They will be dearly missed, and can I say that I definitely want to serve a senior mission one day because of seeing how faithfully they have served here in this branch. 

We also attended an African funeral that was held in our church building. One of our member's moms passed away in Africa which means the community got together to essentially have a party with a preacher at the beginning. Everyone there was from West Congo which means they all spoke French!! That was amazing because I could truly communicate with everyone there. I got a few phone numbers of people who might be interested in a message from us. I also had a good conversation with a man who is a missionary for the Jehovah's Witnesses. We discussed how we can prepare ourselves for when we meet God. My first thought was repentance, because when we repent, we are made clean and draw closer to God. His first thought was the need for a personal relationship with him, because there are many people who think church is enough. That they go to church but 

do not take the time to speak with God. It was an awesome conversation. 

My invitation to everyone is to follow the council of this faith filled man. Make sure you have a personal relationship with God. He loves you and wants to talk to you but he will not compete for attention. When we pray, we speak to him, and when we read scriptures, he can speak back if we listen. 

Love you all and have a good week!

Elder Baird