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| "Elder Layton, Montross and Owusu, with Ties that Elder Owusu's mom made and sent to us! Coolest missionaries in the field..." |
Dear Family,
Well hey there! This is a little odd emailing you on a Wednesday am I right?? We had a soccer tournament this morning with all the branches of Lome so President Weed changed our P-Day to today. So that is nice! I was going to try and sneak a couple minutes away to the Cyber to let you know but I figured that you'd be okay! And I was right! Right? I am alive and preaching the gospel! And it sounds like you are all doing well! It sounds like you had a fun and active week. Mom, way to go on teaching your lesson! I bet that you taught those women all they needed to know about progressing the work! You better have thrown in a little something about your son in Africa progressing the work here!! I'm sure you did! And if not... Then I guess that's okay :) And I bet that you are excited to go "camping" in Manti this weekend! The parenthesis are for the fact that that isn't true camping! You gotta go to Flaming Gorge!! Or you can wait for me to get home to do that, that would work too! No but really I bet that will be super fun! Eat some pizza at Roy's, see the Millers, hang out with the family and just chill. I am jealous! But like I said in last weeks letter I think... I wouldn't trade ya! Don't know if I could do it... I do miss you though! Don't get me wrong ;)
As for me out here in Togo, things are going really good! We have fixed 3 baptism dates for the next couple weeks! So I am hoping that the people keep progressing and following through with coming to church! We have been doing a TON of Door-to-Door the past couple of days and it has been producing a lot of success. Before we just kind of relied on referrals and contacts from the members, which worked okay, but now we are doing a lot better it seems like! Innocent has been out of town this past week so we haven't been able to teach him as often as we would like. He is back now though and we need to make sure that we continue teaching him and don't let him slip away! We actually haven't even fixed a date for his baptism date yet, that is something that we are working towards. Innocent is a pretty cool guy. He lives by himself but with other people in his parcel. That is how they do it here... I don't know if I have explained that to you before. Like there are doors that line the streets and you walk into one, and it opens up to an opening with a bunch of other doors with rooms and that is where the people live. But yeah he lives by himself. I think that he said that he is 25 years old. He said that he wants to go on a mission too. He asks a ton of questions all the time and Ilunga loves to answer them in depth. I think that I talked about that last time. It is at his house where I watched a lot of the Olympics... The people that we fixed baptism dates with are with a girl named Gentie and a lady named Sandrine. Gentie I think will progress very fast seeing that she isn't married or anything with no kids so that will be easy to not have to deal with all that. And with Sandrine we just have to talk to her husband and hope that he will accept our message and deal with the whole marriage thing. So we will hold out for those two! We have only taught them both one lesson... So we will see how they progress. The third is with a 12 year old kid that is a little brother to a recent convert of Elder Ilunga's. He will be baptized for sure... There shouldn't be any problems. Both of his sisters are active. But you never know... After all, T.I.A! (This is Africa) Haha. But yeah that is about all that is going on with our sector here. A lot of OVBing... (open your mouth) in French, and teaching the gospel! It is going good. Hoping to see some success soon.
As for me personally, things are going good! French is progressing every day, learning new things, meeting new people, and loving to work. I have recently started reading JESUS THE CHRIST. I started it last Monday I believe and I am already somewhere around page 200! I can't really even explain that book... I have learned so much about Christ by reading this book. It gives me so many insights, so much information that I never knew before, and just... I don't even know. I can't really describe it! Elder Montross was sick again and we were on a split together so I had to stay in the house all day and I was just lost in that book all day. I have come to realize how much that I really don't know of this gospel... Every page I learn something new, I get a question answered that I have been looking for. Every single page. I don't think that I had even touched the Bible before I came on my mission, not something I'm proud of, but there is so much stuff that I have learned through scripture references and how the book explains in detail the things that Christ did when he was on the earth. It absolutely blows my mind! Yeah, half the words I have to just guess the meaning or go off of context, haha but it is just awesome. That is what has been taking up a lot of my personal study. I which I could share some quotes from it that I loved.. But I don't have it here and that would just take too long. So you should just read it yourselves... :) I actually have been reading the Book of Mormon a lot lately too. I just finished Mosiah and am just starting with Alma. My favorite part! I am excited to start it again. I seem to get a better grasp on the story of the Book of Mormon every time I read it, and always seem to find stuff that I say, "how did I not see this or understand that before?" I love it.
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| Togo Soccer Tournament ~ Missionaries vs. Branches of Lome... "AKA the semi pro soccer teams of Togo" They are Amazing! |
Hahaha that just brought back a memory from the Utah State Football Camp my sophomore year with Robbie Gunter and He asked me if something was wrong and I said, "I'm just not feeling it today". HAhahaha and dad freaked out! Like not in a bad way.. It was just super funny! I thought. Weird how that came back to me like that. I bet he will remember! That's the back of my head. ;) but better than nothing right?!... Elder Montross gave the pictures to me."
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| "The back of my head. ;) It's better than nothing, right?!" |
Today being our P-day has been pretty good! We got up at 5:00 to leave to our soccer tournament that was supposed to start at 6:00 but didn't end up starting till around 8:00... It was still fun to see all the missionaries though! My first trainer Elder Ngumbua was there and it was super weird to talk to him! He was shocked that I could actually speak French now and hold a conversations! So that was fun. As for the soccer part, all the missionaries were one a team and we played against the "branches of Lome"... AKA the semi pro soccer teams of Togo hahaha it was a joke! They are all amazing. I didn't play much seeing that I'm not much of a soccer fan... But it was good to get some exercise and competition. I kept getting in trouble because I kept doing something that I wasn't supposed to do and I'm still not 100 percent sure what it was haha. It was pretty comical. It was all in all a good time! Elder Burkhart is here in Togo now so I see him every so often. After that we just went to the apartment and showered then came here! I really bad want to go get some "fast food" hahaha but I don't have enough money... I am a poor missionary! Next month when I get more I'll go! I don't want to use my personal money on food... That is no fun ;)
So yeah that is pretty much it that is going on in my neck of the woods... It was pretty sad to hear about those Elders that went home. One was from France and the other one was from our group, 3 down, 3 remaining... But yeah it is rough to see all those kids leaving. But I'll be there in less than 16 months, and I will have completed this marvelous work that has got to go forth among the Children of man. I don't think that it would go forth very well without us doing what we’re doing. I'm not perfect, if not the farthest from, but I at least have a knowledge of one thing for sure. That this work has to be completed and taught to the people who haven't had a chance to hear it yet. And that is what I am here to do. Even though half the time they don't understand me... ;) Haha. It is good!
This is where I leave you for the week till next Monday! Unless something else comes up again... I love you all!!
-Elder Landon Dean Layton
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| "Me and Le Roi (The King) after church. He is Shelby's age (17) and says that if she comes here he will marry her... Haha he is a cool kid. He works with us a lot." |
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| "Me and this chubby kid that I needed a picture with... Haha he is a marshmallow! Overdone...? I dunno. Cute kid." |
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| "Us and some of the members. When you go to take a picture with one family, everyone seems to have the idea that they are all invited! Haha so family pictures always turn into Branch pictures." |
Pics:
1- Elder Montross, Owusu, and Layton with Ties that Elder Owusu's mom made and sent to us! Coolest missionaries in the field...
2- Soccer Tournament
3- Soccer Tournament
4- Me and Le Roi (The King) after church. He is Shelby's age and says that if she comes here he will marry here... Haha he is a cool kid. He works with us a lot.
5- Me and this chubby kid that I needed a picture with... Haha he is a marshmallow! Overdone...? I dunno. Cute kid.
6- Us and some of the members. When you go to take a picture with one family, everyone seems to have the idea that they are all invited! Haha so family pictures always turn into Branch pictures.
Questions:
1- Where is Elder Montross from? What can you tell us about him.
- Well, Elder Montross is from Michigan. He played the trumpet in High School and is a cool kid. We get a long good. He got here the transfer after me. Elder Haycock actually is a really awesome missionary who is from Colorado who I always talk to. He lives in an apartment about 15 minutes away from us and we see him all the time. I really like him a lot! All the Elders here are really good kids.
2- Any cool experiences? I am sure they are ALL cool ;)
- Cool experiences... Like you said, all of them are amazing! I made really good rice... That was pretty awesome...
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