Another week is here and past. I
can't believe I'm starting my sixth week in Benin tomorrow. We've kept
ourselves super busy and can hardly keep up with all the appointments that
we've had. Things at the apartment have taken on a different spin with everybody
agreeing to prepare their own food, but we'll get into that later.
To start things off we only baptized
8 of the 13 candidates this week. The five that didn't get baptized were
children that want to wait for their parents to get married so we can baptize
their entire family together. So we've just pushed their baptismal date back a
bit.
Getting the 8 candidates to the
baptism on time was a challenge in and of itself. We ended up having to beg the
office to let the assistants bring them in the mini bus. Driving with the
assistants is awesome, because their car has air conditioning.
All and all we have two families
that we're trying to plan weddings for, another family that has been
progressing nicely and is pondering baptism, and other investigators that want
to know more about what we have to teach. We also have received an assignment
to keep our eyes open and talk to anybody that owns a building that the church
could convert into a chapel for Cococodji.
One of the biggest problems we have
with our investigators is getting them to commit to the 45 minute taxi ride to
Menontien for church on Sundays. Having a chapel could potentially double the
number of people we could bring to church and progress towards making the covenant
of baptism.
With all that said I can start
talking about the life of the missionaries when they're in the apartment. This
week has been.... interesting. When I first arrived we were taking turns
prepping and cleaning up dinner/lunch. After a couple of weeks of people not
really making the best of food, doing dishes, or having much variety we decided
that we are going to fend for ourselves.
I've basically just stolen a plate,
a bowl, a fork, and a frying pan to hide on top of the cupboard because I know
when I use them and wash them they're clean. Everything else I can't say the
same thing. Almost nothing gets washed by anybody else, and by washed I mean
watered down. Soap is too much work. It's only a matter of time before one of
us dies from food poisoning. At least we'll die of that and not from
dehydration... the water still works! Ants have taken over, bigger bugs are
starting to follow, and I can only imagine we'll have rats in a matter of days.
I will never ever ever complain about loading or unloading a dishwasher again.
Still no sighting of whatever that
bug was, but we've started seeing spiders. Really big spiders. The lizards must
eat the spiders, because we've started seeing those more often too. The other
day I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to use the bathroom. I opened the
door, flipped the lights on, walked in, shut the door, dropped the shorts,
turned around, and that's when I saw it. Trapping me inside the bathroom with
only a plunger to defend myself was Godzilla himself.
I really don't know how my girlish scream of terror didn't wake up half of Africa. I didn't really have to try to use the bathroom either. It just sort of happened. If somebody could send me any information on the lizards that have taken over this country that would be nice. I really want to try and catch one for a picture; but I'm afraid that it'll eat my fingers, or give me some flesh rotting disease, or something like that. All of these thoughts were flashing through my head as I saw Godzilla just chilling out on the bathroom door.
I was convinced I was going to die
in that bathroom. After a good bit of time pondering on the thought pot I
realized I had the superior intellect and I wasn't going to trapped by a giant lizard.
My escape efforts started primitively. Throwing wads of toilet paper wasn't
very effective. Neither was the cardboard toilet paper roll after I had
exhausted my ammunition.
I thought about using the plunger as
a sword, but then remembered that would require me to be within close proximity
of this dinosaur, so I quickly disregarded the idea. Then I thought about throwing
the plunger, but then realized I wouldn't have any reasonable defense.
It was then that I realized I was
wearing flip flops! Taking aim I let loose the first shoe. When it hit the door
Godzilla flinched and moved just a bit. Progress. I let fly the second shoe and
he moved a bit more. The next however long it took was spent slowing using the
plunger to recover my shoes to hurl at the door. Long story short. It worked
and I lived to tell the tale. Really though if somebody can prove to me that
these lizards aren't poisonous I'll catch one Goblin Valley style and take
pictures. They're big.
So yeah. That's the crazy adventure
for the week. I hope you all know why I'm here and that's because the church is
true. We have the gospel of happiness and it's our job to make sure everybody
knows about it. I love you all and I hope you have the best of weeks! :D
-Elder Cheston Gray
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