March Letter!

We sometimes receive referrals from church headquarters through Mormon.org and other church websites. These are people who are interested in receiving a Book of Mormon or a visit from the missionaries and have made an online request. These persons are actually called before being sent to their respective missions to be sure they are sincere and have the right expectations.

One of these contacts is in our area. Our current investigator named Armel. He is a businessman and an English instructor. He visits with us for thirty minutes on Mondays before starting his class. His business is on the second floor of a three story building and the ground floor is a small shop called "Franc Prix". 

I had spoken briefly with one of the employees at Franc Prix when I used to work with Elder Bretherton. She had asked us if we were speaking German,well... we weren't. Just recently, Elder Adjo and I visited this store and on the way out, the same woman stopped us and said that she had seen us "last time". I realized that it was the woman that asked if we were speaking German. Her name is Sandra. We took her number and set up an appointment. We took a member with us to go visit her at her home. She lives with her two sisters and has a catholic background. The first lesson went very well and she was very receptive and focused. We like people who ask questions. I think she is very sincere. 

Before leaving to Ghana for a training with Elder Rasband, president Morin asked us to visit a carpenter near the office that the previous office missionaries used to visit. This man's name is «Janvier» "January". We found where he works a little ways away from the office. He is very kind and has a personality that shows intent focus and consideration for what is being shared with him. So far we have visited with him twice and look forward to future visits.

Well there's some of this week. The final round of elections are tomorrow. Who will be the new president of Benin? 

Until next time

Elder Archer

Here are some pictures:

I discovered the "night" mode on my camera! It's pretty cool.

Here are some pictures of me, that I took for putting in remembrance journals.

I'm still alive!

After around four months we finally had some rain. Everyone says that the sorcerers/voodoo practitioners do rituals to keep the rain away. Well, they must have gotten tired or needed some rain because ... there's rain now. The rain also conveniently transformed our apparent laziness of not washing the car into the wisdom of not washing the car because the rain would have ruined it. 

This week has been busy again with some random jobs. The mission president had me design an invitation to be distributed everywhere for the first stake conference in Benin. We needed several designs so the district leaders could decide on which they preferred. That was pretty fun, I enjoyed it.

Then as usual, we had some missionaries finish and return home. One of these was Elder Destribois from our district. He is home now in France. We are expecting, among other missionaries, the arrival of an Elder Asher. Seeing as how people already pronounce my name "asher", it will be interesting to see how this works out.

When bureau work is busy, missionary work is kind of suppressed. There are many preparations going on, such as getting the mission history ready to submit, creating documents concerning the stake conference, collecting new investigators contacts from the missionaries to send an invitation text for the conference, and sending out messages in regards to the elections coming up. On the other hand, our chinese investigator called us last week and said he would like to see us. We will go visit him today after writing home! Hopefully he still remembers that we don't drink fancy imperial chinese tea, or beer. (Those were offered to us in past visits)

Well still alive, still doing well. Until next time!

    - Elder Archer

 -  Picture with Elder Destribois and Elder Ajo at the airport..... and "Officework" picture