Hey family!
hows life back home? this week has flown by so
quickly! life is great. we had a baptism this last saturday.
her name is afi. her husband is a member that got baptized in
ghana. A couple came to help us get to kegue to save on a taxi but at our
designated spot no one was there.... we waited half an hour with the couple. no
one. so we decided to stop by her house. when we got there we saw
her husband who was rushing to get ready he said he just barely got back from work
and that his wife wasn't there. neither of them have phones so we asked
the neighbors if they knew where she went. one said she went to the
church. and so off we went. but she wasn't there. we decided
to go back to our meeting place thinking maybe we missed her. we get back
there and still nothing. at this point were about an hour and a half late
for our rendezvous [appointment] and the baptism starts in 30 minutes. we
decided that the last ditch effort is just to go back to her home and see if
she's there again. and.... yep we found her. she went to get her
hair done. which if i've never said takes FOREVER. they could do it
all day long attaching fake hair to their heads. anyways..... she got
baptized, that's the important part.
other news.... elder kognani just got called as
assistant. he was in attiegou with me for a really long time. that'll
be awesome. he called me last night and i didn't believe him until we
called the assistants and they confirmed it. haha the missions always full
of surprises. i'm trying to think what else happened this week.... not
sure. this week we have interviews again with president. then on friday we have a
leadership training for the mission. it should be fun. ahhh! just
got a call from the couple and we got kpalime confirmed for next monday.
so well be heading out into the jungle again. should be exciting. i've
been in togo for a really long time haha.
THE BIGGEST MIRACLE!! we've been teaching this family.
Joel is the father. i think i've explained a little bit of their
story but they are amazing. they've been coming to church for about 3
months now and have needed to pay the dowry to get baptized. his wife is from
the north of benin. transport to get to their village is 13000 cfa to get
there, 26000 there and back for one person. that's about 50 bucks there
and back. and he said he normally needs to take about 5 people with
him..... and then the ridiculously expensive dowry..... basically it wasn't
looking good. but after a huge long process many prayers and discussions this
last week he paid it!!!! nothing short of an absolute miracle. it's not
that he won the lottery or anything but he worked with the bishop and cut a lot
of corners which made it so only he had to go to cotonou and not really pay anything.
i'm not sure you can really understand how impossible this was to do.
in fact, i was on a split on Wednesday, the day we saw him and i came
back and asked how it went and Elder Rav said he's going to pay before sunday.
i said quoi?!? no how what? he explained it and i was so astounded.
he'll be baptized with his family on the 29th of this month. the
whole story from the finding of them to the dowry is just full of miracles it is
unbelievable. the day of miracles has not ceased.
i love you all! got to go! have a great week!
Elder Rybin