Missionary Perks

   Hello everyone back home...how are you!? The weather here is starting to warm up a little and I'm not liking it one bit! This week has been a really good one for us here in Pointe Noire! It was capped off with a baptism of Jean and his wife Leticia! I'll talk about that a little later, but it was just amazing! With how hard it is to be married here, with the "dot" (the bride price a groom pays to the bride's family...it usually takes several years to earn enough to pay it) and all, it was sooo lucky that we got to baptize this family! I would just like to thank all of the people who sent me an email this week I really appreciated it! I hope that you all had a good week and that this coming week will be good for all of you!

    But I have quite a good story to tell you guys! I forgot about it for the last 2 weeks but I thought that you would really enjoy it! As we came back from district meeting two weeks ago we went to catch the bus at Foncheche, which is a giant marche, (and it's really gross) but there went to catch the bus. And when we got there, there were no buses so we had to wait. After about 20 minutes of waiting a bus came. And it was all out war to get in! People were pushing and shoving and it was not was I was used to! And then everyone had got in, my companion was way in the back, and I was the only person who hadn’t taken a place! I didn’t want to be mean! But the guy who directs the buses, and everyone else in the bus, started yelling at one lady who had taken my spot and all I understood was "pastor" (because everyone was yelling in the local language: "key congo") but eventually she got out and I was able to get in the bus with my companion and head off to the sector! One good thing about being a missionary here is that you get a lot of perks! 

   But as I said, Jean and Leticia got baptized this week and it was amazing! But it was also really hectic. We informed everyone when it was, but when we got there Saturday morning no one was there. And we had to have one of the people from the branch presidency there to preside or we couldn’t have the baptism. So we were frantically calling everyone and nobody was able to come and we had to consider cancelling the baptism and doing it the following week, which was not what I wanted to do! But then we looked at the red handbook and we saw that if it is a convert baptism, then the zone leader can preside and luckily our zone leader was there so he was able to preside for us! And we had a really good baptismal service. Elder Bills baptized them both and after he did each of them sat there in the font and I don’t know if they were soaking in the moment or praying or what, but each waited about 5 minutes but we all just sat there with them. They seemed so happy and they both bore their testimonies after and it was just such an amazing and spiritual moment! It's times like this that I love in missionary work.

   The Friday before the baptism we taught this same family about the temple and how our families can be forever if we go to the temple and are sealed together with the priesthood for time and eternity. It got me thinking of the day that I went through the temple with my family and how lucky I am to have been able to experience that. I'm so thankful for the temple and for the ordinances that we can do. And I can't wait to go there with my wife so we can be sealed together for time and all eternity!

   But that’s all for this week guys! Once again thank you so much for all of you who sent me emails and I hope that I will hear from you all next week! For a challenge, I want each family to play an entire game of monopoly together!

Love

Elder Legerski