Date
September 12, 2022
Area
Yopougon, Côte d’Ivoire (Koweit area)
Companion
Elder Lytle
Triple Baptism & The Great Apartment Floods
Bonjour!
Let me start by saying something very important to you all. The Mission is THE BEST! Thank you and enjoy the rest of the email:
I think people liked the format of my last email so I'm gonna do the same thing again. Pick and choose whichever stories you fancy (They're all good ;)
1) Ivorian Mike Tyson
2)Frere Guyso
3) Happy 2 Months a MOI (to me)!
4)The apartment flooded episode 1; Bad Timing
5)The apartment flooded episode 2; Revenge of the Poop!
6) Triple baptisms!!!
7) It's not how many times you fall, it's how many times you get back up.
1) Ivorian Mike Tyson - Okay, guys, this story is awesome. I had a really hard time choosing the title for this one, but some other applicable titles for this story could be as follows:
• "Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth"...by the spirit
• Fly like a butterfly, sting like a Beatitude
• Romeo & the White Guys
• Monday Night K.O. - ft. Frere Romeo
• Tender Merthies
If you don't know much about Mike Tyson, those probably didn't make any sense. Yako. So here's the story. At church Sunday we met this nice non member man, maybe 22-25 years old, named Romeo. We talked to him for a bit and we set up a meeting for Monday night to go for a visit! Fast forward, it's Monday night. We show up to the meeting spot and he greets us. Guys, he's literally the nicest person I've met here. Frere Romeo also happens to talk EXACTLY like Mike Tyson except it's all in French, and it makes me so happy. I also think they look very similar.
We just had an amazing night with this guy. He introduced us to his whole family, had a wonderful lesson with us, walked us 30 minutes towards home, bought us bananas which was so kind, and even paid for our taxi to get us the rest of the way home. He called us to make sure we made it home safely, and set up another Rendezvous soon. Truly just a kind wonderful person and such a blessing to me.
Even as I'm writing this letter he called me to ask Elder Lytle and I how our day was. Let's all take a page out of Frere Romeo's book and serve someone today, love someone today, make someone feel important today. This experience is one I will be grateful for having had my entire life. The kindness of Fr. Romeo has taught me something of Christ's pure love for each of us. I am taking this awesome experience as a learning moment to become more like Christ.
2) We have this new friend, his name is Fr. Guyso, and we love this guy. I don't have a ton to say other than he just has a really bright spirit. He asks a lot of really inspired questions and when we teach him you can really tell he is pondering and comprehending things. I think we will invite him to be baptized in the next few days and hopefully have the service on the 24th.
3) Happy Two Months! WEDNESDAY (07/09/22) I HIT MY 2 MONTH MARK ON MISSION. THAT. IS. SO. CRAZY.
I can't even believe it's been 2 months since I left home. It's felt like 2 days. I love mission life. It's called missionary work for a reason, it is work. Every day we get up early, study, work, teach, eat, make new friends, walk miles, study more, speak French, serve others, etc., and my friends, I mean this with full sincerity of heart; there is nowhere in the World I would rather be than in Côte d'Ivoire, bringing the gospel to these people. Every single day on mission is a blessing and every day Heavenly Father confirms to me that I am doing the right thing in being here. I love it and it is everything I have imagined since I was a young boy.
To anyone who has/is considering serving a mission, I encourage you to get down on your knees and ask, with sincerity, to your Heavenly Father to help you prepare and feel a desire to serve. Then act by getting to work.
It is so important to remember the words of
James, 2:26
"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."
If you want to get an answer, pray for it, then work for it. I promise, in the Lord's time, your answer will come.
4) The Flood Episode 1; Okay so I flooded our apartment. We finally got our pump fixed and had running water around 12:30 on Wednesday. I took the task to make sure all of our water barrels were filled up. I may have forgotten about the barrels for a few minutes and overfilled them. After about 3 minutes I heard overflowing water and went to turn off the faucet in the kitchen. I neglected to also turn off the faucet in the bathroom, which was also overflowing. An hour of mopping later and voila! The floors in our apartment have never been so clean :)
5) The Flood Episode 2; This second flood was not my fault. It was two days after the previous flood and I was the first missionary awake on Saturday morning. I put on my crocs, stepped out of my room into the living space annnnnnd SPLASH!
SEWAGE!
Yeahhhhh so we think there was a little plumbing problem with our neighbors upstairs, but the issue isn't 100% diagnosed yet. From the brown colored water and the smell, we're mostly sure of what it was. Now, let me tell you something; this was the funniest morning we've had around here in a long while. Elder Matthew and I spent the next 30 minutes dying laughing while we tiptoed around scooping and mopping sewage water into buckets. Yes, the water was nasty, but our spirits were pure! We bleached our floors and now they are even cleaner than two days ago.
6) Triple Baptism!!! We had 3 of our wonderful friends enter into the waters of Baptism this week! The service was so wonderful. We had Sr. Ruth, Fr. Sami, and Fr. Yoan. It was such a wonderful and strengthening experience baptizing them and then watching them receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost the next day. I could feel such joy in my heart as I had the opportunity to perform their baptisms. I know Heavenly Father is so happy that 3 more of His children have set foot on the path back towards home. A couple interesting things about the baptism. Our ward mission leader asked me to give the talk on baptism. I was like, "Me, the guy who doesn't really speak French". He was serious and so I scratched together a very simple talk on baptism.
Also, Ivorians are generally very uncomfortable and often scared of going under water, which makes baptizing them by immersion a bit of a challenge. The baptisms often take multiple tries to get them all the way under the water and with each time, they probably think we are trying to drown them. It doesn't help that the baptismal font only had about 2.5 feet of water in it. Fun times.
7) There is a quote somewhere that says, "To be a winner is to get back up just 1 more time than you fall down." Well folks, if this is the rubric, then in the category of the French language, I am a winner, but do not be mistaken, I fall on my face nearly every time. Getting back up is not always easy however, getting back up IS always worth it.
In all of your trials, all of your endeavors, all of your failures, all of your loss, I encourage you to get back up, just 1 more time than you fall. When something is hard, understand that I completely sympathize with you, but infinitely more importantly, Jesus Christ knows how it feels. He suffered for us in Gethsemane, He knows our hearts, He knows our names. He will always be there when we turn to Him.
Cheers to 2 months on a mission! I have experienced and learned so much and I am excited for everything to come. I hope that all is well. Email me back if you want or have any questions.
-Elder Knoll
Pictures:
1-2: Abidjan is my home
3-4: Flood 1 - Clean water flood
5: Flood 2 - Dirty water flood
6-11: Baptism of Sr. Ruth, Fr. Sami, and Fr. Yoan
12: Filling the baptismal font the night before because water uncertainty
13: We have water (sometimes) but now we have no lights in our room
14: This is garba and I love it!!!