MARCH 10, 2014 - " Life is amazing. This has been the best week of my entire life and craziest week of my entire life! I am so happy!” DL, Elder Lavering! Elder Baker! Elder Naughton! New comp, new area,

Area: Yaounde, Cameroon

Ekounou – Elder Naughton- Snowflake, Arizona

Dearest Mother,

Life is amazing.  This has been the best week of my entire life and craziest week of my entire life!  I am so happy!

Ici en Afrique.... We don't get mail very often and now that there is no longer a couple missionary here in Yaoundé we will be seeing mail once every month. The Colemans are currently covering two cities at this time.  

I am now in charge of my District which entails numbers, money, working fund, District Meetings, picking people to do prayers for dinner and things like that. It also appears that I will be doing a split sometime this week with one of the other companion ships so that I can do a baptismal interview. Yeah being a District Leader is going to be really interesting a great opportunity to learn some new stuff. 

As you can imagine, Elder Lavering was freaking ecstatic that I was coming and it was pareil with me. Elder Lavering might possibly be the funnies person I have ever met in my entire life. Ha ha. We have been together for three days and we have already become instant friends. 

In other news, my new companion rocks and I am super excited for this transfer! I just can't believe I am back where it all started. I forgot to mention that I saw Elder Baker this week too! He flew in on Thursday and Elder Coleman said he was coming over to Bonaberi to pick up Elder Davis and thus began a conversation about whether or not Elder Massé was still in Douala or not. Well I was! I didn't know he was coming so as soon as I opened the front door to our apartment something came at me and attacked me! it was Elder Baker! this has been one of the craziest weeks of my entire mission. My mind is going about a million miles an hour in a billion different directions. Anyways, Elder Naughton is really really cool. As it turns out, his family lives in Snowflake! That started a huge conversation about Heber and Arizona and as it turns out all of his family is from AZ. He lived in Mesa earlier in his life but now lives in Snowflake, he moved there for his senior year. This week has been the craziest week of my entire mission. I can't even begin to explain it. 

Okay. Well I don't know what to talk about because there are just so many things to talk about so I guess I will answer some questions if I can. 

1. How’s Yaounde???  

Yaoundé is freaking crazy. It was one of the coolest things ever to get so much love and affection from old converts and members. So many people were so incredibly happy to see me. Anyways,. it was so amazing! I can't even explain it. So much love. So many great people. It's so fun to be back! 

2.  How is it different?

Oh man. I don't even know where to begin. The branch has exploded, or at least, the two of them have. I had so many people at church and things in Yaoundé are moving so much more fluidly and quickly than other parts of the mission. It's amazing to see the change that Ekounou has taken since I have left. It's been 1 year and three months since I was in Ekounou C and 8.5 months since I was in Yaounde. I am so glad to be back. 

3. How is it the same?

That is honestly really hard to tell you because so much has changed. They are still meeting in the same building, but the church has bought some land in my sector where they are going to build an official church building. It's an exciting time to be here. 

4. How is your apartment?

The apartment is good. The water has been intermittent since I got here. It's really bizarre because when I was there the apartment only lost water once in the entire 4.5 months I was there. 

5. Tell me about your new roommates

. Elder Zeregui is from the Ivory Coast and pronounces very excellent r's in English. Elder Lavering is the funniest person I have ever met in my entire life. Elder Naughton is a gymnast and lives in Snowflake, AZ. Elder Tripp is from Cedar City, Utah and his dad was a former NFL player. Elder Tripp loves Linkin Park and Tron. Awesome kid. This is his second transfer here on the mission. Elder Porter, who missed his flight home but is now officially gone speaks very good French. Did I forget to mention that Elder Lavering loves to study French?  I think we were meant to be twins but it got screwed up in the pre-existence. And Elder... Rakotondrabeharison... Yes that really is his name... Ha ha. Is super funny as well and knows a ton of English idioms. He speaks pretty good English and understands what we say. He reminds my of Elder Rambeloson. Fun and Malagasy. Ha ha. This is going to be an awesome transfer. I am stoked!

6. How was the bus ride?

 Bus ride was awesome. It went SOOO fast. I couldn't believe how fast it went.  I got on and then I got off. It was crazy. 

7. What are you doing for your birthday??

. No one knows it's my birthday so it's unlikely that we will do anything. I don't want to parade around and say "Hey Elders it's my birthday!" That isn't really how I roll so I will just leave it alone. We will see though. Elder Naughton knows it's my birthday though so maybe something will happen. 

8. What are you happy about?

 Oh I am happy! Need I say more!?

9. Tell me about Elder Naughton!

. I have said a lot already, but Elder Naughton is really awesome. He reminds me a lot of Elder Garland in many ways, it's really fun. He is a great Elder, he speaks great French, he has been in Yaounde for what is now his 6th transfer and it is looking like one of us will be leaving soon. It's unfortunate, but we will see. I will go where the Lord wants me to go.  It’s his mission, not mine, so I will do what he wants me to do.

10. What's great about being a missionary who is out 17 months?

Oh boy. The great thing about being an old missionary is that one learns a great deal from being around younger missionaries. You learn how to become better at all times and recently I have tried to look at every person with the perspective that there is something that they can teach me and something that they are much better at than I am. Elder Naughton will teach me some great things and I am excited. Getting old is fun though. It's interesting and scary at the same time

11. Is there anything you need?

. I think I may need another journal. I filled and the one with the picture of Christ on it. I am good on pens and I think everything else.

12. What adventures did you have this week?

 Church was the biggest adventure. I saw SO MANY PEOPLE. I am surprised how many people recognized me and wanted to say hello. I never realized the influence I actually had. It was really cool. 

I love you Mother! You are the best! I love you dearly. I will talk to you soon. 

Until next time,

Love Elder Massé

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This is an letter home from Elder Lavering- his roommate:

“…It is cool living with Masse and our whole apartment is super mellow. …Yesterday night, we ate tacos. Elder Masse went to his room and came back with some TACO BELL sauce. WOW. Thanks Elder Masse's mom.  Missions are great  LOVE Elder Lavering”