happy birthday!
can you believe that its already the end of september? i don't know.
what's all the plans for the birthday?
you'll have to let me know how it goes.
i'll wish you happy birthday, nathan and emma, friday. fall is coming. have fun in winter!! haha.
today was a super nice day cloudy and rainy and cool-ish. the second rainy season is right now but for
the moment it's pretty wimpy, but it's been pretty windy lately. overall the only temperature we have here is
humid. its good though, i haven't had to
wear chapstick since being here, my elbows are so smooth! it's awesome, no dry
hands or skin. i kinda like it. unless its combined with 95 degree sun, then
i just die. but sounds like you all are still having fun even with school, the
utah byu game, eating at foriegn restaurants, birthdays, etc etc.
this last week president weed came around and did his
interviews with all the missionaries in Togo, it went really well, i learned
some things. president is so wise, i love it. sister weed challenged us to make
a list of 100 things that were grateful for, it was awesome! i copied mine into
my journal, and i'm thinking about getting another journal and making just a
list, at least one thing per day, of things i'm grateful for, i'm not sure how
exactly i'm going to do it but we'll see.
president said that we are getting 20 new missionaries at
the beginning of october ( around when elder Ndaye and Rakatsoniaina leave) and
so a lot of people are going to have to train, and it's going to be a huge
mutation [transfer], we'll see what happens.
i've been learning lately a lot about grace: the
strengthening and enabling power of the atonement. what a huge blessing. i've been focusing a
lot on improving my personal prayers, and it's taking a lot of work, but i've
seen some improvement, studying the atonement and grace is helping me change my
prayers.
not really any crazy stories for this week, but we did
have another lesson with our ami [investigator] martin. he is one of my favorite people to
teach. he is a philosophy teacher, and
super smart and loves learning. a lot
of smart people we talk to or people
that know a lot about the bible love to show off how much they know by just
talking and talking and quoting scripture, which is frustrating when you're
trying to teach. but with martin, he is
so receptive, and is just soaking it all up ,and he understands it too. it's
like someone doing a puzzle that just can't put all the pieces together fast
enough, and we just keep feeding him the right pieces, and he puts it all together
himself. it's so awesome to see and i
love teaching him. only problem is that
he has so many responsibilities in his own church he hasn't been able to come
to church yet. but he told us this week:
"don't think that you're wasting your time here. what you're doing here with me and what you do
with others is amazing". he'll come
to church, i'm sure of it, but it'll take some time, prayers, lots of faith and
gods help.
Thanks for all your letters and stories. have a great week!
I love you all!
Elder Rybin