Hello again
family!
today was a pretty
action packed pday so i'm jumping right in. we went to kpalimé
(pal-ee-may) today and saw some waterfalls with all the missionaries in
togo. kpalime is a village place outside of lome about 3 hours. i
took a whole bunch of pictures and will try to send you some. it was
really awesome to see outside the city. i get a huge part of the african
experience being here, living in lome, but there is so much more to see and
experience. so it was really awesome to see outside a little bit. 
there were soo many
trees. it was beautiful. we saw
some villages with dirt mud houses and tons of crazy stuff. we didn't
really see any cool animals because there is still a lot of people
around. to get to the waterfalls it is a little hike into the jungle, but
not too long. the waterfall is not huge but super pretty. the
"mountains" (hills) are super green and covered in trees. out
in the villages the people are so poor. it is a much different experience
seeing a dirt hut in a picture or knowing that that happens in some places of
the world, and then standing next to a family that lives in a hut in the jungle
and farms corn on the side of a mountain to survive. crazy!
they are the most
amazing people in the world. i wish i had time to talk to them all, even
though most of them do not speak french, and number 1 share the gospel and help
them find joy in that, but also just to talk and get to know these
people. really it is hard to explain the feeling of seeing some of the
poorest people in all the world today. amazing, amazing people. i
wish i could help them all.
 |
| Elders Potter, Rybin, Hales and Ouonnebo (in front) |
yeah we have a few
young men and women in our ward not a lot but its growing. no mutual
though. sometimes they organize a seminary type class, or scripture study
deal, sometimes with the missionaries sometimes with just leaders in the branch
but that kinda counts. church is in its infancy here, not much, we are
just starting home teaching. it hasn't made it to hedzranawoe yet but
attiegou has started just in the past month or two months.
nathan, not really
any huge bugs in the apartment. sometimes pretty big cockroaches, and once a
big beetle, moths and termite ants too. nothing too bad. diseases,
not really. eyes are weird and unhealthy a lot of times here
though. it bothered me a little at the start but i'm used to it now. if someone has normal white eyes they are
usually pretty healthy probably because they are rich, relatively.
as for things i need,
not really anything. i'm not out of deodorant yet and have been keeping an eye
open for it, but have not found it yet, so that is a maybe, but other than that
no needs. wants, anything i would really want couldn't make the trip so
don't worry about it. i can get "candy" here, not like america
but it works and i'm used to it and like it now. and you can get some american
stuff it's just expensive, but it would be cheaper than shipping it over.
so as of now don't worry about sending anything. the one thing i would
like maybe for birthday/christmas is a flashdrive with a whole bunch of church
music on it. like all the general conference, mormon tabernacle choir
music and really anything and everything church wise. i got this little
cheap box that plays music off flash drives and memory cards, but i don't have
any music. i think that is all for this week.
I love you all. have a
great week and start of summer.
Elder Rybin