Definitely an adventure!



Loading the debris in the truck African style



Bonjour tout le monde!  Well, another week has flown by!  It's hard to believe I'm past halfway through my second transfer in Africa!  As always, life here is becoming more and more normal, yet the more and more weird things I see around me.



This week has been another great one!  Elder Dagrou and I have been getting along great!  We had our second appointment with the former Prime Minister yesterday after he came to church in the morning.  He said that he loved everything about church and he especially loved how central families are!  He spent the whole lesson talking about his past (just about every detail I think) and how it's brought him to this point today.  He also talked about how it's helped in the search for the truth.  My companion, Elder Dagrou, then made the perfect transition into baptsim and how he will be an outstanding example of the truth for this whole country and for many leaders around the world.  We found that he's already wanting to do missionary work, so we committed him to be baptized in September!  It was great!  We found out how important family is for him yesterday, so tomorrow we're going to see if we can teach the whole family!

On Saturday, we had a service activity somewhere in the business district of Lomé.  Basically, we were just clearing weeds in this one business compound.  However, there wasn't much to do due to lack of tools.  After about 20 minutes of watching 30 people or so work I got bored, so I grabbed a rake that someone wasn't really using and went to look for work.  Fr. Frederick, in my branch, found me and said that there was a big group of tree roots/dirt that needed to be cleared off of some cement.  It was about 2 inches thick of just roots and dirt, so I grabbed my rake and started hammering away.  About 15 minutes later, I had not made too much progress (they were extremely stubborn) and many people told me that I couldn't finish and that I should just stop.  Many of you know, I can be quite stubborn myself at times, so this just made me work even harder.  Finally, I found the main root, which was about 3 inches thick itself, so I grabbed a machete and started hammering away.  Once I cut that, the rest came easily.  It was really just dragging big pieces into the pile.  However, at about 10:30 am (the activity began at 6:00 am) the leaders began to realize that we couldn't finish the whole thing, so they decided to just have everyone stop and leave.  I was a little disappointed because I was so close to finishing!  But we ended and everyone went their own way.

Working hard at the Day of Service

In the end, I was still very grateful for the opportunity to serve.  It actually felt like a normal Saturday at home!  I was extremely dirty, and after I showered, I was exhausted!

That's how the work is going now.  I'm really loving being here and serving the Lord!  Definitely an adventure!

Je vous aime tous!

Elder Jenkins

All the missionaries in Togo who attended the Day of Service (except Doumassesse, who left early)

Elder Mundu and I