Transferred Again!

Bonjour!!

How is everyone? I am doing great, and I'll update you on these last couple of weeks!

So, first of all, we got transfer news. Unfortunately, Elder Ntumba and I are both leaving Hedzranawoe. He got called to go to Kegue to be an office Elder, which he is not too happy about, but I'm sure that he'll do great. I got called to go to Agoé, another sector in our Zone. Agoé is a branch, and the first branch I'll get to serve in here, so that will be interesting! It's also a 2 companionship apartment, and the other companionship is the Zone Leaders, so that will be fun. I also got called to be District leader, so that's new. It will be good to take on some responsibility, although, I am a little nervous. It should be a great transfer!

We finished up work here in our sector, and unfortunately we weren't able to get any baptisms. Sr Yawa ended up having a problem with her marriage, and some other problems, so we had to push that back. The other friends in our sector just aren't ready yet. Cool story though, one day we were looking for people to teach, and this man who is a Muslim calls us out. He tells us to teach him the work of God. Well, it's hard to teach Muslim, because their beliefs are much different than ours. Also, the key element of our message is the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and they believe in Jesus Christ, which makes that hard. Anyways, we have a chat with this man, and it actually goes really well! We invited him to church, and he came! When we taught him again, he was talking about how he is ready to accept Jesus Christ, and let go of his old religion. This guy is seriously so golden, it's too bad we both have to leave the sector though. I'm sure the next missionaries will take great care of him though.

Other than that, nothing crazy happened. I got to go on an exchange with Elder Robinson, and see a tiny village, which was super cool. My companion had his birthday a while ago, so we celebrated that. But yeah, that's about it. I'm excited to go to Agoé, and see what's in store for me over there.

I hope everyone has a great day!

Au revoir,

Elder Orchard

A Trip to the Hospital...

Bonjour!!

How is everyone? I am good, and I'll get right into these last 2 weeks.

First of all, we have a baptismal date set for Sr Yawa. Yeah, so last time, I said we had no progressing friends, but now we do haha. We baptized Sr Justine last transfer, and Sr Yawa is her mom. She has been progressing well, but there may be some problems with her marriage, and whether or not it was legal, so we're still trying to figure that one out. We hope she can realize her date for the 23rd.

This last week we had to go to the clinic for my companion, Elder Ntumba. He has been having pain in his jaw, and I thought it wasn't a big deal, but he wanted to call President about it, so we did. I stepped out of the room for a second, and came back to find out we would be going to the clinic the next day. We decided to go in the morning, because we didn't really have any appointments, just for them to tell us to come back at 3pm, when we had stuff to do. We went back, and we were there for 3+ hours. He just got some prescriptions, and we came back, but honestly I was very impressed with the clinic. Looking at everything in Togo, you wouldn't think they would have a nice, clean clinic, but they did.

This past week, I finished the book The Infinite Atonement by Tad R. Callister. I struggled with reading it when I first got it, but then after this last couple weeks, just sitting down, and focusing on it, I finished it. Wow, it's seriously such an amazing read. It's so amazing to learn just more about this atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, something that we can never know enough about. What hit me the most was that there was no other way possible. Christ had to sacrifice himself in the way that he did, and he knew that he would from the beginning. But he did this so that we can live with our Father in heaven again. It makes me think of a scripture in 1 Nephi 9:19, which reads:

"9 And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men"

It's amazing to me the love that he showed for us, and continues to. It's something that I want to work on, charity, having the pure love of Christ.

I hope everyone has a great day.

À la prochaine, 

Elder Orchard

Little Miracles

Hello Everyone, 

It's been a while, so I'll update you on how things are going here.

Well, not too great. After having baptized Sr Justine, we literally have 0 progressing investigators. We had 3 young men that accepted baptism, and then a week later, they told us they had to move to go back to school, so that's kinda how it's going.

We're in the process of finding new people to teach, but all of it right now is through our own efforts. The members of the church here in our area haven't been of great help lately, but I'm hoping that will change. There's this old Nigerian man in our ward that LOVES missionary work, and apparently he's about to give us 5-6 people to teach, so things are looking up in that aspect. Not having church at the building because of Covid hasn't been a great help either. It just kinda gives people an excuse to not come to church, or at least, they think that.

We did have a super cool experience yesterday though. So, we have these friends that we keep inviting to Sacrament meeting at a members house, and they keep accepting to come, but never do. They live kinda far away, so what did we do? We decided to have a small Sacrament meeting at their house. We got everything set up, we talked to the bishop, and got a member lined up to go with us, it was all good. Then, we got there a little late, and the mom was out front picking weeds, and the children were dancing inside to a speaker blaring music way too loud, and the member was no where to be found. I thought to myself, why? Why can't we just have Sacrament meeting? Why do they have to be dancing, and working, when they should be getting ready for Sacrament? Well, then something super cool happened.  The dad, who we thought hated us, told the mom to get ready, because it was important that she take the Sacrament. How cool! She got ready right away, and we had the whole family gathered together, ready to start in less than 5 minutes. And then, I said the prayer to start the meeting, and I look up, and the member was there. We ended up having a wonderful meeting, and I could really feel the spirit there.

That's about it. We have zone conference on Wednesday, so I'm looking forward to that. Have a great day everyone!

Until next time,

Elder Orchard

Bittersweet

Bonjour à tous!

I hope everyone had a great week, and is just doing great in general. My week was, as you could guess, bittersweet. 

So, to start out, we visited Sœur Justine just about everyday this week, leading up to her baptism, which was a good choice. She was always a little skeptical about baptism, but her family members are members of the church, so I knew that she needed to trust God and take this leap of faith. It turned out being super awesome! She fell super sick the day of her interview, with Malaria of all things, but still made it to her interview. Then, the next day she texted us about an hour before the baptismal service, and said that she was super sick and couldn't make it. I was super devastated, and was pacing around and everything. I called her, with no answer, and then I called the district leader, just trying to figure out what to do. Then, 5 minutes later, she walks in. Turns out she was just messing with us haha. She ended up getting baptized, and confirmed and it was super awesome. Then, last night, to add onto that, she called us and was just thanking us for being persistent, and baptizing her. That was a super awesome confirmation that what we did was the right thing!! 

OK, so that was what made this week super cool. Now, what made it suck. So right after weekly planning on Friday, we got a text in our church group chat that said the government of Togo is going to shut down all church services for a month, due to Covid, starting that day. Now, we can't have church as a large congregation at the ward building, but as small congregations in the homes of families. That makes it really hard to get our friends to church, or even know how many came to church. Also, normally we could have confirmed Justine on Sunday at church, but we ended up doing it right after the baptism. It sucks because I thought leaving the states would be leaving Covid behind too, and at first it seemed like that. The first couple of months here were no masks, and Covid wasn't a problem. Now the case numbers are rising, and it's becoming a problem. I just hope that it's really just a month, and doesn't turn into 2 months, and then 6 months and just escalate really quickly like that. I'm sure it will be fine though. We got to have sacrament meeting in a members house with about 6 of us there, which was a super neat experience, and that's how it will be for the next couple of weeks. 

Well, that's about it, and that's why I had a bittersweet week. I would say that the good definitely outweighed the bad though.

À bientôt, 

Elder Orchard

1 Year!?

Bonjour à tous, 

How's everyone doing, and how has the week gone? This week had been awesome for me! I'll get right into it.

First of all, we had district council this week with the Zone Leaders. My companion and I were tasked with giving the lesson, which we were gonna do on following up after the lessons. I wasn't too nervous about it, given that I've taught before in district council, but when the Zone Leaders showed up, I got a little nervous. I'm not sure why, they are both super cool. Well, we didn't even give the lesson, because we ran out of time, which was OK because we had an awesome discussion. Maybe we'll give it tomorrow, I'm not sure.

Then, on Wednesday we had interviews with President. Again, not sure why, but I always get super nervous at interviews, for no reason. President Proudfoot is super nice, and always gives me great advice, and solutions to the problems of our area. I also got to see a bunch of other Elders there, which it's always fun to catch up with them.

That night, my companion felt really sick, and woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that. I had him take some medication, and go back to sleep. After that, I found that I didn't feel too great myself, but I fell back asleep. We woke up, and my companion felt fine, but I felt pretty bad. I didn't want to be the reason we didn't go to sector, so I sucked it up, and we went out. We taught a lesson, and we came back right away, and I slept for 3 hours, and took some medication. I woke up, felt fine, and we went out in the afternoon, but we came back after less than an hour. While I felt fine in the apartment, walking around in the sun was something different. I called the couple missionaries, and they weren't too worried, just told us to stay in and get some rest. 

That wonderful day where I was sick all day was also my one year anniversary of entering the MTC, a whole year on the mission. What a way to celebrate haha. Halfway done. It's crazy how fast this year has gone by. I still feel like a new missionary. I've learned so many things, and I'm so grateful for my time here. Living in West Africa for a while really puts into perspective how nice we have it in the United States. It's crazy to think how many times I complained about my life, or something small, when the people here are some of the happiest, and kindest people I've met, and compared to us, they have nothing. I am grateful for this eye opening experience for me, and the time I have left here.

To end off the week, we continued to work in the sector, even though I didn't feel to great. A lot of our key indicators were pretty crappy this week, but we finally got 4 people at church, a whole lot better than the 0 we had last week. We have a baptism planned for this Saturday for our friend Justine, so keep her in your prayers. 

Other than that, things are going great here. Here's to another year!

Take care,

Elder Orchard 

mangez-vous

waiting for the rain with some pals

we found a go kart track haha

I am the Coconut Man!

Bonjour,

How is everyone doing? I am doing pretty well. A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, so I'll get right into it.

My companion, who I am training, is doing well. He is learning a lot and making a lot of progress in the mission. The Africans that come on the mission are like pre-trained, so I guess that helps too haha. It's a little weird, because I am 19, and have almost a year on the mission, and he is 24  and just started. It's also kinda weird "training" someone who is 5 years older than me. However, we get along great and are doing a lot of work. 

Our week started out amazing, and then just kinda went downhill really fast. First of all, it started out great because we found 7 new people to teach this week. Some of them were people we found last week, and taught for the first time this week. But, we found this one family that we introduced our message too, and asked if there was a day we could come back, and they told us "right now" haha so we taught them right then and there. Also, earlier this week, we fixed a baptism date for someone we are teaching. She had accepted baptism with the last missionaries, but just before the baptism she got cold feet, and backed out. Over time, we were able to talk to her, and eventually fix a baptism date again!

So, those were the highlights of this week. That was the beginning of the week, and the week didn't end too well. To start off, on Saturday, we had 6 appointments scheduled for the day, and all 6 of them canceled on us. Some of them just weren't there, but some of them just straight up told us they were busy, after we walked all the way to their house. Then, on Sunday, after we invited all of our friends to church, not a single one came. We had 0 friends at church yesterday. And too add to that, all our appointments yesterday fell though as well. Those are kind of the lowlights for this week. 

Some other fun stuff happened this week as well. Like when we went to an appointment that canceled on us, we ended up playing a little soccer with these super nice kids across the street. They took a bunch of photos with us, and it was super fun. It was nice to meet with some kids that loved us, especially after an appointment canceled on us. We also have a coconut tree in our courtyard, so that's been fun to smash some coconuts and eat/drink them. 

Other than that, just living the life out here. I'm having a pretty good time, French is pretty good, and I'm used to living out here, which I never thought I'd be haha.

I hope everyone has a great week, and a great day.

Peace,

Elder Orchard

Training?

Bonjour,

I hope everyone is doing well. I have had quite the interesting week, so I'll just get right into that. 

First of all, from what I was told, I'd be getting a companion from the Congo, but that I wouldn't be training. I had assumed that meant he had already received his training, and he was just delayed getting here, which we have had situations like that before, so I thought nothing of it. I was told that there would be a new trainers meeting on Saturday, but I thought nothing of it because I am in an apartment with someone who is training. Come to find out, on Wednesday night, from the senior missionary couple that my companion would arrive the next day, and that he is new, so I would be training. I was a little surprised to be training, especially since no one told me I would be. But, it's been awesome so far, and my new trainee is Elder Ntumba!

It's been a little bit difficult because we are both new to the area, and trying to run it. The last set of Elders kept a good area book, but it's still difficult. Because there are no addresses here, the location of all our friends are pinpointed on the map, and we use Google Maps to find them all. But...it's not always the best at giving the location. We've had many times looking for our friends, and getting to where the map says they are, and either no one lives there or the person that does live there isn't them. We can try to call them, and have them describe where they live, but then again, I'm new to the area, and wouldn't understand. That doesn't mean we've had no success so far. We've been able to find some of their old friends, and find some new ones on our own too. Overall, it hasn't been to bad, and I'm excited to continue the work. 

My companion is pretty cool. I sat him down the first day, and said something about how I really wanted to work hard, and he responded by saying that he does too, so that was awesome. It's funny because he just kinda follows me around, and I cook all the meals, and all that stuff, and I remember that I literally was doing all those things that he is doing when I first got here. We also have Elder Kempe in our apartment, a brand new American. His French is not the best haha, but I was literally where he was when I got here. It's been cool to be able to translate for him, and just be that "cool old American" in the apartment haha.

Overall, the sector is going good, and it's been a good week. Can't wait to continue the work in Hedzranawoe.

Have a good week everyone!

Elder Orchard