Bonjour!

Well this week has been pretty crazy. Preparation day was sacrificed so that Elder Sagers could go visit his converts in another zone called Baguida. We pretty muched walked from six in the morning to seven in the evening, with some breaks in between of course. It was fun to see another part of Togo and meet some new people but I was very tired after that.

Tuesday was our zone meeting after which Elder Sagers and I travelled to Kodjoviakopé to visit more people. We visited Sister Sylvie and her daughter Fiona. They made french fries topped with tomato and onion and offered us some drinks. Elder Sagers is very close to their family, they are nice people.

Wednesday 

Saturday morning began with a stake service project at five in the morning. We met up at a hospital with the members and some of our investigators were even there. After handing out a yellow vest, gloves and a dust mask we hiked over to where the service was. We hadn't been told beforehand what it was that we would be doing but eventually we stopped at a lot filled with small bushes and trees. Still nobody said anything but we assumed they wanted us to clear the lot of all plant life, which is what we ended up doing. We started pulling out plants by hand until several people showed up, one with  a wheelbarrow full of rakes, one with a wheelbarrow full of machetes, and one with a wheelbarrow full of hoes. It was a pretty entertaining scene because  everyone ran over to grab their weapons and then charged back and started attacking the baby trees. In about an hour a weed field turned into a dirt field. 

Two baptisms took place Saturday evening. One on the left's name is actually Moses. Pretty sweet huh. On the right we have Nadjombé, brother to Mawate who was also baptised a few weeks ago! He even brought his best friend to the baptism so we will begin teaching him soon.

Sunday was rather sad because it was the day before Elder Sagers' departure. He gave his final goodbyes and afterwards we had several of those precious few and far between food eating appointments in a many and very consecutive kind of format.

Today, Elder Sagers left to Benin. Where he will rest until Wednesday when he will fly back to the holy land.

That's a bit of the week for ya. Have a good week yourself!

Elder Archer

Life is good

It's been a while, but everything is okay. No worries. Ahhh, where to
start. Well, we have had several baptisms since I've been here in
Togo. First was Mike. Mike is probably the biggest eighteen year-old
that I've seen and he's actually a rapper. His mom is currently a
member of the church who previously decided to "go to a different
church one Sunday" and happened to walk into "l'Eglise de Jésus Christ
des saints des Derniers Jours". She loved it and soon was baptised.

Second was a young man named Prince. We taught him with his uncle
Junior who is around thirteen years old. Haha. Next is Ingrid, sister
Edwige's identical twin sister. It is always fun to go visit them, we
like to laugh a lot. I often get them confused, especally when they
decide to do their hair the same way to throw us off!

Third and fourth are Mawate and Dedegan. Mawate is a kind of younger
middle aged lady you could say. She is very smart and picks things up
quickly. We had taught her all she needed to know to be baptised but
she still would tell us that she was uncertain. She hadn't been coming
to church and we decided to stop the visits with her. Kind of sad, but
it happens. Then, we were pleasantly surprised to see her arrive at
church one Sunday. After the meetings she walked up to us and asked:
"when can I get baptised?" then she quickly said: "I can't believe I
just said that". She told us that she had prayed during Relief Society
to know if the church was true and she had gotten her answer. I
learned by this experience that church attendance is necessary for the
investigators :) Dedegan is an older woman who sells yams at the
market. She has no money to buy the yams to sell but she has a friend
at the market who trusts her with some yams and lets her keep some of
what she sells. She is very zealous and eager to learn.

Currently we have around 25 investigators that come to church and we
have about fifteen baptismal dates arranged! So now we just need to
keep on working and hope for the best. My companion Elder Sagers will
be finishing soon and returning home on the 19th of August. Taking
over the area when he's gone makes me kind of nervous but it will be
okay. I've done it once before and it can be done again. We have a
great ward and ward mission leader here who help us out a ton. It's
much easier to work in a well establish ward unlike the semi-put
together branch in Benin. I've heard that things have gotten much
better over there however. They called a new branch presidency.

Anyways, that's a little of what has been going on. Until next time!
Elder Archer - This is my banana tree that I planted.(Technically I transfered it from the front to the back yard)