Finagnon for at least the next 6 Mondays...

"Family night with our 3 families! The Atchado's, the Santos's, and then Pierre and Bertin! It was super fun and we had a good lesson on choosing the right! Do you guys have family night every Monday...?"

Dear Family,

     Well, here I am... Sitting in front of my computer in Finagnon, and here I will be for at least the next 6 Monday's of my mission. I am still with Elder Kobongo here as Zone Leaders. Anyways, yeah no transfers here. Well actually Elder Ta is going to Togo and another Congolese is coming to replace him in my apartment Elder Bukasa. I lived with him already in Ablogamé. Elder Lemaire, a French Elder in the zone, is leaving to Togo as well and is being replaced with Elder Maxwell from Arizona. His companion will be Elder Mbala, a Congolese. And Elder Merritt is still with Elder Kazadi, another Congolese. Elder Dagrou is being transferred to another sector in Benin, and he is being replaced by Elder Tshinoy, my second trainer, and yet another Congolese. His companion will be Elder Odnoknor who is from Ghana. And Elder Baird is staying with his companion Elder Diallo, who is Ivorian. So if you can count, counting my companion, that makes a total of 5 Congolese in my zone. 5!! There are like, a total of 8 that are left in the mission, and 5 of them are in my zone. Haha the zone of Akpakpa (that is the name of our whole zone) is in for a little treat. Ah man... So yeah that is what is going on with transfers in our zone! Lovin' it :)

It sounded like you guys had a fun little week! Shelby's graduation, Wahoo!!! I just got her announcement today and it was fun to open! That is so awesome that she was able to experience that! I remember how fun my graduation was! Haha and that is super funny about how they put their mission calls as their middle names! Classic Bountiful wits eh? I don't think that I ever memorized our school song... I know the first little part, but after that, it's all blank! I am sure you and dad had a fun time belting that out ;)

     So yeah... here is my week. Nothing really happened. Pretty mundane to be honest. During the week we were contacted by a Nigerian who wanted us to teach him. At first I was pretty skeptical. Number one because I don't like teaching in English... It is too hard. And two, I didn't really think that he was interested. But he came to church and I got to know him a little bit. He told me that his mom and dad live in Texas, and are members of the church! So it was his dad that told him to search for the missionaries and come to church. His name is Obot and he is going to school here in Benin to some private school. We set a baptism date with him for the 22 of this month. So we are happy that he will have the support of his family in the states to push him along. He is moving to Ghana in August to continue his studies there. That will be better for him though anyways. While he is here, I will have to translate all of the meetings for him into English, which is good practice so I don't mind. He is a smart kid and I am happy to be teaching him! 

     Francise, our recent convert that we baptized last Saturday received the priesthood yesterday! That was a pretty fun experience! He was so excited about that! We had a really good lesson with him the Saturday before and he was really surprised that he would have all of those possibilities! We explained to him that with great power, comes great responsibly, and he understood. He also told us a story that happened last weekend with his friends. He was hanging out will his work friends and they were all drinking and kept asking him to drink and smoke and all of that stuff but he said that he kept saying "No! I am a latter-day Saint now!" Haha so he is doing really good! I was happy to hear about that experience that he had. We saw him playing soccer with his friends on Sunday night and that was kind of a bummer... We are planning on teaching him the importance of the Sabbath day and how he needs to not do that anymore. I think that he will be ready at this point to do anything! He is loving all that he is learning! 

     Today we had a mission activity at the Marina Hotel and it was pretty fun! The mission rented a big grass field (those are hard to find here... So when there are some, you gotta rent them) and we all played soccer and I even brought my football and we played around with that to! I was goalie for our team and I had some pretty awesome saves... But then they scored twice on me and we lost. So I kinda sucked at it hahaha. BUT! My football team won playing 7 on  7 so that made up for it :) I got to get to know some of the new Elders pretty well to. I really like talking with Elder Oliverson. He is a really good kid and just like someone that I would hang out with at home. I hope we are in the same zone later on in the mission to kinda hang out. He is serving in the same sector that I started in. He went to Bingham and played at Snow. He said that it was super boring there and they always drove down to Provo on the weekends haha. I thought that was funny. We were talking all about Roy's Pizza and Manti. Good to know that all the kids from Bingham aren't lame. Haha. The activity was fun! I didn't get to take any pictures though.... :/ Just imagine a bunch of people running around and you get the picture in your head. We ate hamburgers and fries afterwards and that was a treat for sure. Always fun to stray away from the normal spaghetti and rice every once and awhile.

     Well I think that this is where I leave you off for today. Thank you for your letter and I always love hearing about how everyone is doing! I am so happy that you guys had the opportunity to listen to the words of Elder Holland at Stake Conference, I am SO JEALOUS! I bet that was such an amazing experience. Did you get to talk to him at all? Okay well I am outta here. I love you all! God speed.

            Love,

                  Elder Landon Dean Layton

"This is Frère Santos's little daughter Ségolynn! I don't think that is how you spell it though, but she is super funny! Her mom sells like scone doughnut things outside of her house and she hangs out with her so EVERYONE and their dog knows her. She is a little cutie and Sister Santos always calls her my wife... "

Pictures:

1- Family night with our 3 families! The Atchado's, the Santos's, and then Pierre and Bertin! It was super fun and we had a good lesson on choosing the right! Do you guys have family night every Monday...?

2- Family night with our 3 families! The Atchado's, the Santos's, and then Pierre and Bertin! It was super fun and we had a good lesson on choosing the right! Do you guys have family night every Monday...?