Fr. Eloge

Hello everyone!!! Wherever you are in the beautiful world I sincerely hope that all is going well for you and that life has been wonderful despite the challenges and difficulties that we all have to overcome.

Here's a photo taken of me, our friend shortly before he was baptized, and my new companion named Elder Joseph from Layton, Utah. 

At the start of our new companionship, Elder Joseph and I were able to help out a friend that I've been teaching ever since I first arrived in Bè-Kpota named Fr. Éloge be baptized the 14 Nov. 2015. This guy is a stud and I'm really proud of him for the progress that he made in the short time we've been teaching him. He's still got a ways to go, but we'll do all that we can to help him prepare himself to go to the temple one day. Prayers for this one will be most appreciated!

 

 

Well, I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. 

 I'm pleased to announce that I had a fantastic last-Thanksgiving-on-the-mission holiday/dinner as well! :D Believe it or not, but for our dinner, we had mini steaks, rice, devilled eggs, mashed potatoes and gravy, pumpkin pie and chocolate cake, chips and guacamole, along with a variety of drinks consisting of sodas and cider. I guess one could say that after having lived here for over a year, I've finally learned how to eat (or rather, found the locations of the stores containing said foods). 

 

 The mission has been going incredibly well these past few weeks and the work has been moving forward faster than I've ever seen before. My companion and I have been teaching investigators with members almost every day (props to the ward and it's members). We receive an almost uncontactable amount of contacts from the ward. We've been having an average of ten or more investigators come to church every Sunday, some of which started coming for the first time since I've been here while others were brought by members and then would later become new investigators. Nearly all of these investigators have baptismal dates fixed, two of which named Fr. Honoré whom I've been teaching since I arrived along with and Sr. Nicole, a ten year-old girl whom Elder Joseph and I started teaching and has kept commitments and come to church ever since we started, are going to be baptized this Saturday. We pray and hope that everything will go according to plan.

 As for other exciting news, our mission received a visit from Elder Visent of the Seventy (the Elder with an Australian accent who gave the opening prayer at the start of the last general conference), with whom I was able to speak during a leadership training meeting, which was really awesome and quite inspirational. And then there's today, which would make the thirteenth month mark of the mission along with twenty-five days away from Skyping back home!

 Well, I pray that all goes well for you during the following week. May you perform well in everything that you do and in every pursuit and ambition that you strive and work to accomplish. May you be physically and spiritually safe and out of any kind of harms way. I pray that Heavenly Father blesses you with everything of which you stand in need. I sincerely miss you, I look forward to seeing you again soon, I love you all so much and I hope you have a wonderful week to come!!

Sincerely,

Elder Gonzales