This letter tells all about what happened on the 7th!! (and THANK YOU to the Bailey's in Pointe Noire for the pictures!!)
-----------------------
July 14, 2014
Dearest Mother,
CONGO IS SICK! I have been waiting for this my entire mission and at
long last my wish was granted by a loving Father in Heaven. I love this mission!
Well, here it goes. We got transfer letters last Saturday, we left for
Douala on the Bus at 2:30 Sunday afternoon, I then wrote you from
Cyberlink in Douala in the morning, and then that an hour after
finishing up with my emails the Colemans came to pick us up for the
airport. Ahh!! I freaking love this mission!
Well let me start with the airport because that is where we left off
on my journey to Congo. The Colemans picked us up around 10:30 and we
went directly to the airport. We unloaded our bags, got scanned by
some guy with a wand, and then walked inside and waited forever in a
bunch of lines. The line took forever because they had two women
checking people in for a Boeing 737 which holds around 150 people so
it took the longest time. Not to mention that lines DO NO exist in
Africa ANYWHERE so everyone was cutting in front of us and I would
sarcastically joke about me letting them go ahead and so on and so
forth. It wasn't fun, but eventually we got through and every thing worked
out fine. AND! I managed to escape the evil clutches of BAGGAGE
FEES!!! First bag, the black one, 32 kilos. Not toooo bad. Second bag,
27. Awesome. She just smiled at me and bowed her head with a face that
said, "Oh boy". In any case, it worked out great, our luggage was
fine, and we eventually started boarding the plane an hour and a half
late because we are running on AST... African standard time which
means that if you have a meeting you always show up late because that
is just how it works.
In any case, the flight was awesome and I was so excited to be on a
plane again that I couldn't sleep. Ha ha. The flight was an hour and a
half and we actually got fed lunch which consisted of a chicken thigh
and some cantonese rice. It tasted great, the flight was awesome, we
landed, and we actually got out right on the tarmac which was awesome.
Before long we were shuffled into customs, we got through pretty
quickly, and we met the Baileys shortly after. They have a blog by the
way but knowing your sources you probably knew that after I told you
their names last week. Ha ha. They were super nice and they took us to
the house out in Mpaka because we really live in a huge house, and at
that point I said goodbye to Elder Etherington and Elder Naughton and
said hello to my Ghanian companion, Elder Tweneboah, and Elder
Ralison, the companion of Elder Tripp.
The night was awesome, Sister Bailey gave us a lasagna to eat along
with peanut butter fudge bars and some cookies. The food was
delicious, I unpacked, I wrote in my journal, and eventually I
snuggled into to my nice air conditioned room. 13/15 transfers with
AC! Woo-hoo!
Soo. I freaking love Congo. I love my sector, we meet in the official
church building, (the first official church building I have seen on my
mission), we have a basketball court with midget hoops but that's
okay. The house we live in is sick. We have a blender, a nice set of
knives, a deep-fryer, a waffle maker, a generator when the power goes
off, a washer and a DRYER, a electric oven and heating pad, a nice
fridge, a huge living room, and so on and so forth. I love Congo.
Elder Tripp and I have been playing chess for the last four days too
because we found a chess board. The people are amazing, I love the
members, I love the kikongo, the language they speak here, and
everything is just awesome.
My companion is on his second transfer so I am his dad! I get
to train which is cool. He speaks English and Trie and speaks no
French. So little by little I am helping him. He is super funny and an
amazing soccer player and he was Elder Simmons companion in the MTC.
He is so great and I love him.
What else...
I finally got to see Garland again! You should write him if you have
some time. He would love to hear from you and he told me to say hello
to you but I figured you could do that yourself. It was super cool to
see him and catch up a little bit. We haven't had a whole lot of time
to sit down and talk but we will see how that goes. It was really cool
to see him again though. I love him.
There are now three missionary apartments here in Congo. Garland and
Sperry are together by themselves in one apartment, I am in Mpaka with
Ralison, Tripp, and Tweneboah, and the other apartment is Naughton,
Etherington, Johnston, and Bybee. Things are great.
And that is what I got for today! I love you! Have a great day!
See you next week!
Love Elder Massé
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.