"I'm loving my missionary life"

  I must tell you that this has been the best and happiest week of my missionary life thus far. My companion is called Elder Tapusoa, he's Samoan (and huge) and he comes from Kearns, Utah. He's a super great kid, he works hard, he studies all the time, we get along super great, I have him speak with people and teach during lessons and he does a fantastic job. Training is an absolute blast and I love just about every single minute of it. Seeing that I had a more or less difficult time during my training, I've decided to do the best I can to help my guy have the best training he can possibly get before he goes out all on his own after his training has been completed. Our district, by the way, is so amazing! I'm back in the same apartment as Elder Whitt (an American Elder from Idaho whom I lived with for the first two months of my mission) along with the nicest and coolest African from Côte d'Ivore named Elder Adjo who happened to be trained by Elder Sagers (the other American Elder I lived with for the first three months of my mission). The district gets along great, we eat together, we talk with each other and laugh all the time.

My new guy and I are currently working in a dead secteur -- meaning: we don't have any investigators -- in a city called Kegué. He and I have been doing what I had to do in Adidogomé with Elder Jeneseri when we were transferred into our new secteur -- a whole lot of OVB. I've been having my companion speak quite frequently as we've been going door to door along with stopping and talking with people on the streets. We've received a lot of contacts and hopefully we'll be able to take a few rendez-vous with them in the near future. We thankfully have a few recent converts in our secteur so we've been able to have a few rendez-vous with them. There's a recent convert that Elder Whitt helped to be baptized named Sr. Christine who showed us to the work place of one of her friends named Sr. Grace to introduce us to her to start the missionary discussions. We've had one rendez-vous with her thus far and she's already read The Restoration and The Testimony of Joseph Smith pamphlets along with a couple verses in the Book of Mormon that I had written in the book for her to read. First off, according to Elder Whitt and Elder Adjo, that kind of thing never happens around here. So, one could say that she's particularly and genuinely interested in our message and I have a good feeling that she can really progress. 

 As for other good news, ever since I moved in, I've been eating so good! Today, we as a district went and did our once a month shopping at the grande marché in a store that sells American along with other high quality merchandise. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant found in the Togo's equivalent of Beverly Hills that also just so happens to be in my zone with eight other missionaries where I ate an entire legit pizza.

 I'm loving my missionary life at this moment of time and everything so far has been going exceptionally well.

 As for the long anticipated details: This has been without a doubt one
of the best weeks of my mission that I've had yet. Elder Tapusoa, is absolutely fantastic! He's super kind, really charitable, always willing to serve, timid yet courageous, hard working, extremely
patient and humble, and filled with gratitude. To a degree, he almost reminds me of Alec. We get along super well, he helped me do my laundry today (which was super awesome), we eat really good, we have a super awesome district, and he's honestly just a champ. I've got a solid feeling that we're going to have a great time while he trains.

As I mentioned last week, Elder Tapusoa and I have started working together by doing a whole lot of OVB in our "dead secteur." I'm actually really glad that we had the opportunity to do so because it
has enabled me to give my guy many occasions to speak, testify and teach and it has also helped me improve my capacities in presenting, teaching and tesifying about the message of the Restored Gospel that we've had the opportunity to share with many persons. So far we've
found about four solid investigators by doing OVB. We'll see how we will be able to progress with them; however, with the help of the ward members, we should hopefully be able to see some lasting effects from our labors.
 Here's what I thought to be a halarious experience that E Tapusoa and I have had while teaching a couple of our investigators. I do this quite frequently, that is having my guy lead out the lessons; however, there were two particular instances that stood out to me that I'd like to share with you. There were two lessons during which I had my guy start out teaching; although, there came a time where he would turn to me to see if I would take over the lesson from there or continue talking from where he left off. As he did this, I didn't even look at him but kept my eyes on the investigator, waiting for him to continue to speak. Which is exactly what he did. I was so proud. He was astounded to find that he was capable of saying and doing much more than he thought he has capable. To his suprise, all I could do was just smile and look back to when I was in his shoes over six months
ago. I tell you what, the time really does fly by a lot quicker than I thought.
 Training with E Tapusoa has been a wonderful experience that has really provided me with many wonderful learning, improoving, and growing opportunities. Everthing that I've learned since I first
arrived, I've had to put into action. There have been many questions and situations that have been presented to me that I've never had to deal with before; however, I've felt the Spirit of the Lord sustain me and my companion in every effort that we've made to do our part in being worthy instruments in the Lord's hands to accomplish His work. Although it has been given to me to take over the majority of teaching during lessons, my companion's testimony, no matter how small
it is at this moment of time due to the language barrier, is sincere and filled with conviction which amounts to the same if not more to all that it is that I do. A simple testimony is enough to change
another person's world. Also, I thank the Lord almost every night for blessing with a wonderfully non-crazy companion.
Well, here's a quick brief on our current investigators. We've been teaching a lady named Sr. Reine along with her neighbor named Sr. Adjo. We've about finished with the message of the Restoration with them and will probably be moving into the Gospel of Jesus Christ really soon due to their questions about baptism. There's Sr. Grace whom we met through a recent convert named Sr. Christine who had been baptised by Elder Whitt. She's doing great and has been progressing
fairly well. She reads the BofM and the brochures and she's been praying to find out for herself if our message is true. One day, we hope to be able to meet up with not only her but her entire family as
well. Her work schedule and the work schedule of her husband don't correlate so well and so fixing an exact day to come to her to teach her rather than teaching her at the super marché that she works at is a bit difficult. We also have Sr. Annick, a lady who at one point in her life lived in France but came back to be with her family until she is able to renew her passport to go back to Europe. She poses a lot of difficult questions and has a variety of beliefs that contradict a lot of things that we teach and so we'll see how it all goes out with her during the week to come. Finally, we have a man investigator named Fr. John who had been a contact that we received from other missionaries who works as an imported goods unloader at the ocean whenever a boat comes in from other countries. It's a very difficult job for him and his circumstances are tough, having to take care of his eleven year-old daughter all alone. However, as time goes on, he will see as a result to accepting our message and doing the things that we invite him to do that the quality of his life will change and will sincerelly
improve for the better (a promise that we had given him the first time that we came to his home to present to him what it is that we do along with a brief of our message). It was actually really difficult getting a hold of him at first, but we managed to get a hold of him one day and we will hopefully be able to see him again sometime soon during the upcoming week.

There's a member that lives in our secteur that we've been trying to become friends with named
Fr. Ekoué. The first time we came to his house was a fantastic experience. All my guy and I did was help Fr. Ekoué prepare some sauce that he had been cooking up to go along with his lunch and we did nothing but introduce ourselves to him along with having conversation and talking about life. Based on the way that things work around here, that was a really good thing for us to do because we as missionaries have to do everything we can to develop good relationships with members by becomeing their friends so as to earn their confidance and trust. Along with becoming his friend, we've been hoping to be able to teach the women that he wants to marry the missionary lessons.
Fr. Ekoué would have married this girl a long time ago; however, he has to pay off what one calls the "Dote" -- an African tradition that requires a man to pay his wife's father a ridiculuous amount of money in order to be able to become civilly marry his wife. It's the dumbest tradition in the world because couples, even when the husband is in the process of paying off the Dote, are able to live together and have children before paying the entirety of the Dote which means that they are breaking the law of chastity because they're living together and having children without being civilly married. This has been a very difficult obstacle that every missionary has had to overcome while teaching certain investigators. Fr. Ekoué is a very active and faithful member who had been baptized over a year ago and comes to church every Sunday; however, he is now struggling with paying the Dote because his woman's father refused to allow Fr. Ekoué to pay the Dote in increments, meaning that he can pay half and then be civilly married, but we would still have to pay off the rest later. There's nothing that we can do to help him in that regard; however, we will do all that we can to teach his future wife the gospel so that one day, when he's capable of paying off the Dote and if she accepts what we teach, she'll be able to be baptized and then go with Fr. Ekoué to the temple so that they
can be sealed together.

Well, I'm afraid I'm all out of time, but there's the smack down on
the details of all that's been going on with us over here in Kégué.

Please keep these people in your prayers so that everything can work
out for these people!

I love you all and I hope you have yet another wonderful week!!!

Je vous aime et que Dieu vous bénisse!!

Sincerement,

Elder Gonzales

Prayers on my behalf will be very sincerelly and especially appreciated!!!

 Hey family! I apologize that I didn't get to write to you last week! We arrived late to the Cyber last week and I only had enough time to write to Casey who after a few months has written to me an awesome message.

  I'm super glad to hear that you've all had an awesome 4th of July and that you've been able to have fun experiences as a family through out the weeks! Do me a favor and send my love to all our entended family members for me and shout out "salut" from my part to them as well. 

 

 Check it out! I've got some crazy news to share with you! I might not have had the pleasure of watching fireworks blazing magnificiantly through the night sky; however, while my collègue and I were with an investigator whom we brought with us to go to church for her first time to institute Saturday night, I received the phone call from one of our assistants to the president. After working for seven months in the same appartment in Adidogomé, I have been called to serve in a city not too far from here called Kégé. While there, I will be training a missionary from Samoa who does not speak French. I'm not sure if he is directly from Samoa or not, for all I know he could have been born there and was later raised in the US; however, it seems to be that I am about to open up a whole new chapter of responsibilty and a lot of hard work. 

I'm not scared of what's going to happen due to everything that I've already been through; although, I am a bit nervous and a little anxious all at the same time. I know I am not anything close to perfect, but I'm ready to take on this sacred task that has been placed upon me and I'm willing to face the challenges that are bound to come my way. Dispite my anxieties, I'm actually very excited to have been presented with this wonderful opportunity that I've been hoping to have one day to be able to take part in the start of a new generation of missionaries as a trainer.

 

 Prayers on my behalf will be very sincerelly and especially appreciated!!! 

 

 Thank you so much for the prayers that you've made on behalf of our investigators. I've sincerelly seen the difference in the progression of four of them who we've been really concentrating ourselves on since I've asked you to pray from them last week. Our friend Rodrigue who has struggled to get himself to church because of his work, whom we teach, see, visit, talk to, eat and hang out with, has started to become re-interested in the Gospel, especially when we had introduced to him the temple, eternal marriage, baptism for the dead, along with other blessings that come from going there. In fact, among these four progressing investigators, there are two potential baptismal canidates named Sr. Yeabli and Sr. Patience, to whom we have as well introduced to the temple.

Sr. Patience, I am completely certain, will be baptised while I'm gone. The only thing that has stopping her is the permission of her mother, who has declared that she is not in agreement with her daughter being baptised. We only hope and pray that one day her mother's heart will soften enough to the point that she will allow her daughter to be baptised. Even though Sr. Patience is twenty-five years old, she is living with her mother at this time, and if Sr. Patience were to leave her mother's church, she could be potentially kicked out of her mother's home with no where to go and no means to take care of herself nor her daughter, who, unfortunately, does not want to be baptised due to the lack of interest and understanding, having also been persuaded by persecution. At the end of it all, we are all free to choose whatever it is that we so desire to do; however, we will patiently continue to persist diligently in doing everything that we can to help her and all of our other investigators understand and simply realise the blessings that are waiting for them in the temple.

 Sr. Yeabli has become particularly interessted in the church since we answered her truly significiant soul-searching questions by introducing to her the Plan of Salvation along with the temple. I'm sorry, but based off of everything that I've learned from the hundreds of churches found in Togo is that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the one and only true church on the earth. The Bible and The Book of Mormon correlate in such a manner that it simply makes absolutely sense if not provide solid proof that this church is nothing but absolutely true. I'm living the story of Joseph Smith every day. Apostacy is real. However, the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ along with the power and authority to act upon His holy name, I tell you, has been restorated and is only found in the church that we are in this very day. The evidence is real and is there to be found by those who sincerelly search for it. Even then, proof can be fought by the cunningness of Satan by distoration, misconception, antichristianisme along with many other things. However, if we so desire to maintain the integrity and conviction of our testimonies, we must follow the instructions given to us in Moroni 10:3-5 because it is through the Spirit alone that we will be able to protect our testimonies from the Adversary and his attemps to destroy them (D&C 10:5).

 Well family, I pray that the Spirit of the Lord stay with you at all times and in all places that you may be protected from physical and spiritual harm. Have another wonderful week and take good care of each other!!!

 

 P.S. -- Fr. Rodrigue and Sr. Patience were super sad when they found out that I'm going to be transfered. I'm not going to lie, it really put a knife in my heart to tell them that in a few days I'll be gone. It's really going to be hard to leave them. My collègue and I taught them so much and spent so much time with them these past three months. It's crazy just how fast the time has gone. They've become very good friends of mine and I'll never forget them. Thankfully I have their contact information so we'll be able to keep in contact throughout the entirety of my mission along with after as well.

 

 Parents, congratulations with your 20th anniversary! I sincerelly hope you two had a wonderful time in celebrating such an awesome day.  

Avec amour,

Elder Gonzales