More Pictures!!

 Elder Gray and Biyion

We asked Elder Gray if this little girl was afraid of white people and he told us she was BUT with a lot of candy and weeks of hard work he has finally won her over.  Now they are the best of friends.

I love how she is holding on to his finger.

 

 

 

The Gbegamey District

 Elder Gray and Elder Bulunga after soccer on P-Day.  Elder Gray reports that all his comments/slams/cheers at sporting events come naturally in French,  I  told him that could come in handy when he got home, because a ref wouldn't be able to call him for thing he didn't understand.  He then told me he has learned all sorts of different things to say in at least 6 different languages! 

 (Should I be excited about that?)

 



January 27th, 2014

We were apparently supposed to get a great email with lots of love and goodies, and true to Africa...Elder Gray lost power AND lost the email in the process.  We were lucky enough to get the pictures before the outage, tender mercies.  Here they are:

  Elder Maxwell bought me strawberries for my birthday.

Normally that wouldn't be too much of a big deal until you realise
that they were a dollar. Each!
 

 

This is Elder Maxwell and Elder Gray with the typical Elder Gray face. 

 

 I think this is the famous Pate

 One HUGE Pineapple

 Our 1st Monkey Picture - We are all very excited!!


 

Ramblings from Elder Semken - January 2014

21 January 2014

Good morning to you,

    The mission is once again very busy as always.   President Weed will finish interviewing every missionary on Thursday.   He interviews every missionary about every six weeks and has frequent contact with them throughout the month.   So he and Sister Weed are very well aware of the missionaries situation temporally and spiritually.   Every missionary will have his/her ups and downs throughout the month.   Most of the time the missionaries are pretty even.   Once in a while there are things that seem to be bigger than life.  Give a day or two and things are back to normal.  For instance, I have a landlord who is may not be as nice as our other landlords.   He lives in another village 1/2 of the time, which is not unusual.  We spend more time with him trying to solve problems.  He seems to be difficult to live deal with.  Just before a major holiday on a Friday and another holiday on Monday he has left to travel to his other home.  On Friday afternoon the missionaries water was turned off by the water company for non-payment.  The water nor electricity company are suppose to turn anything off on a holiday.  So the missionaries were without water for 4 days.   We do own our water tank on the top of the building.  And the missionaries should have been able to get water.  But the door to the roof was locked and they had no access to the tank.   Results, no water.  So the missionaries went across the road and paid for water that they put in 5 gallon containers and carried up the water three floors every day for 4 days.  When I found out about it on Friday night, I offered to pick them up and bring them to to our apartment for showers.  They thought it was a nuisance and continued to carry the water.  Now how would you like that!  I visited with the elders following their ordeal, they said it was extremely difficult and was one of the hardest things they had to do.   The stairs are uneven and a new elder tripped and fell, hurt his back.   I think on Elder Maxwell's talk on "patience" and wonder what they learned and what I learned.   All is well.  I hope it doesn't happen again.  By the way the President was at their apartment when the water was out and the electricity went off as well; which is a usual occurrence in our mission.  The president seems to be where the challenges are and is well aware of them.  The Lord knows how he is tempering each of us.  There was a book written several years ago by Elder Dyer, as I recall, called The Refiner's Fire, or something like that. 

    Another example,  last Friday we went to the Post Office.   We received about 15 Christmas packages and 25-50 letters and cards.   We go to the post office 2 or 3 times a week.  They had been stored for some time.  This is not unusual.  They told us that there had been some kind of security breach which caused the delay.  Some of the packages were mailed 19 Nov and 23 of Nov and up to 21 of December.   This is why we suggest DHL or FEDEX and not USPS.  Some of the packages, letters will be delivered to Togo today.  Some packages that the missionaries are expecting still have not arrived.  Those with letters and packages were very pleased.

     I noticed a trend this month of January.   It is only 2/3 of the way through the month and missionaries are short of money.   I wonder if they got caught up in the Holiday season spending more than they should have.   They will be fine, they do know how to manage.  

     As I have said, the missionaries have lived many more wonderful days and have many more stories to tell.   I leave the stories for them to tell and most of the details are for them as well to share in their own way and time.  This is true of the no water in the apartment for 4 days.

    The new mission president for our mission was announced recently.  He and his wife are from Quebec Canada.  Both speak French.  I understand that she is a nurse.  I don't know much about him yet.  The picture is just being put together.  The new mission presidents go to Provo for four days.  His name is Pierre-Paul Morin. He begins 1 July 2014.

      We hope that all of you are well.  Our thoughts and concerns are for your well being as well as the missionaries.

        Elder Semken

Conversation from January 20, 2014

Elder Gray didn't really send out an actual email today, but we had a nice "chat" via email.  He is doing great, even without a camera he has managed to send home some pretty great photos, which I love.  We are in the process of sending a new on with another Elder's parents who are going to pick their son up from the mission.  I asked Elder Gray if there was anything else he needed, his response..."a waffle iron! know one here knows what waffles are"  Here are the few pictures we received:

 

The DREAM TEAM!!

 

 

Le Mangez Vous  (Google translated: The Eat You!)

 

Mr. Georgous, AKA Elder Bulnga :)

 

 

Elder Maxwell and Elder Brou, these are the two Elders in the Apartment with Elder Gray

 

Godzilla, Elder Gray has had several encounters with this little creature, his dad asked him what he tasted like, the reply, "I don't know yet, when I managed to catch him I will let you know!"



01/11/2013

Dearest Family!

      This week was super super fast. We were able to find a bunch of
new investigators, teach a whole bunch of new people, and do a whole
bunch of lessons with the recent converts. Lots of teaching. Lots of
learning. Lots of gospel goodness. Missionary work is definitely lives
up to its name. Work.

      It's always fun to see the changes that come to somebody that
has accepted the gospel. It's probably something that I'm going to
miss the most. Words can't really describe the process of watching
somebody becoming completely changed into a whole new person with
nothing but the knowledge and teachings of Jesus Christ.

      Anyway. I hope y'all have an awesome week!

- Elder Gray

We received this letter from a member in Elder Gray's mission

Hi Sister Gray,
          This is Sister Precious Kazadi (you can just call me
Precious) I am a member in one of the Branches where your son Elder
Gray served. I am a Nigerian married to a Congolese, I have 7
wonderful kids. My Branch (AkpaKpa) was the last he served in before
he was transferred to Gbegamey where he is serving now.

You have such a wonderful son, we all love him so much especially my
youngest son Destiny, because he taught him a lot of tricks. They, the
Elders usually  assist in our Family Home Evening every Monday. We
always love having them there with us.

    I want to tell you something about him. He is a strong
hardworking boy, He is usually transferred to where its not working
and he always gets it going I mean the missionary work.

I teased him the last time he came to my house and we had lunch
together, He's always willing to help, but I tell you in the name of
helping me and my kids out in the kitchen, he kept spilling everything
all over the place, and almost broke things. I teased him and said to
him ''give me your mum's email address I need to write her and tell
her how helpful and at the same time destructive you are'' so he
willingly gave me your email address.

    Sister Gray, I tell you he is one of our efficient and favorite
missionaries here in Benin and Togo. Well I know this because, I work
in the mission Home and office and I can tell you about each
missionaries, and the comments the couple missionaries make about each
and everyone of them. Elder Gray is a young man loved and cherished by
everyone.

      You are so blessed to have Elder Gray as a son, and I tell you
he is making you and your family proud here in his mission.
We miss him so dearly since he's been transferred, but fortunately for
me I get to see him from time to time at the office.

      Despite the fact that he spilled things in our house we still
love and miss him in my Branch.

I will talk to you again, its so nice knowing and writing you, I'm
sure you are a wonderful lady just like your son. My greetings to your
family. Bye.

Precious.

**Note** Elder Gray said what Precious doesn't know is that when he spilled that stuff he actually cut his thumb really bad and was trying to clean up all the blood before she found out, "power outages have their advantage's" There are a few pictures of Precious and her family further down in the blog**