12/16/2013 - Testimony in Ewe, New Area in Anfame



hey family! 
how was your week?  sounds like its getting pretty cold back there.  enjoy the snow. 

so far all goes well in my new secteur [area].  yep it is a little closer to the ocean but i can't see the beach from our apartment.  (there is one apartment where on the roof you have an ocean view...) but it's a good apartment.  i'll take some pictures and send them to you one of these weeks.  

Elder Dagrou is from the ivory coast.  he is a convert of 5 years this month.  his family wasn't members when he started his mission but now i think most of them are.  he is a great missionary, wants to work hard and so i think we'll be able to work well together.  our apartment has a banana tree, so that's pretty cool.  i was going to take a picture to send today, but then didn't... next week;. the apartment is a lot smaller though which is kind of nice for the cleaning.

the secteur [area] is big but we have some great members in the ward.  we are in the ward of Anfame.  I haven't got a chance to really talk with the bishop but i really like him already.  yesterday he invited me and elder Yamapia (the other elder who just got here with me.  he is working with elder faerber) up to bear our testimonies.  i get up there and start to bear my testimony in french, but i finished in some Ewe.  everyone loved it! i could see them sitting up a little taller listening and their faces just brightened up.  and right when i finish, everyone starts clapping.... haha not exactly the response i was expecting, but oh well.  as I'm walking back to my seat the bishop gets up and says "sacrament meeting is sacred, we don't clap"  haha.  but it helped win the hearts of some members so i was happy.  they love it when i speak their language.
 
i'm pretty sure everything in the package got here. everything that was on the list was there.  got the flash drive, but it didn't work with the music thing i have.  i plugged it in at the cyber and it worked there, so i'll keep trying, but maybe it's in a different format than my gadget can read.  i don't know and I haven't really had much time to mess around with it.  peanut butter and oreos are delicious thanks! and yes pillow cases fit, a bit big actually.

can you believe that i am at the one year mark this week?  I'm still a little in denial that half of my mission is done already, i'm not sure what to think.  but time just keeps going faster and faster.  if i'm not careful this next year will go by like a couple of days and my mission will be over.  just a day at a time though.  tomorrow we have a christmas party for the missionaries in togo.  it should be fun, i think we're going to eat some good food. 

as of right now i have really no idea for our christmas plans. the cyber we are at is pretty nice so skype is possible if we can work out the schedule. so i'll find out more details by next week for sure, but our number for our phone is 91034183.  i feel like we might be able to skype around 2 oclock here so 7 in the morning there or we could call at night.  but i'm really not sure.  i will talk with elder dagrou and let you know by next week.  but also i don't know how to use skype... i assume i can figure it out pretty quick but i don't have an account either.  do you have one i can use and one for you?  we'll see though.

so benjamin's finally engaged huh.  wow that took forever.  feb 8 is just around the corner though.  not much time.  maybe at christmas i'll get to talk to my new sister, at least once before they get married.  but i think that is all for this week.  it was kind of a weird week with the mutation [transfer] but we should be all settled in and picking up pace.  have a great week of finals. i love you all.  talk to you soon.

love
Elder Rybin