Necessity is the mother of invention

Health is great. no packages. Levitt's are rockin it up. Transfers are coming up le 12. I have a GREAT story this week, but after I read your letter.

They [the voodoo priests] hit them and they are SCARED to death of anything voodoo, so they pay... interesting stuff... I have the email for the Levitt's, I'll ask. And I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT HALLOWEEN!!! It was depressing... Sounds like Halloween was a bit of a let down.. Oh well.

Okay, so I have THE funniest story that can only be fabricated in Africa...

It all started one night when Ghisquiere and I were hungry. We had a couple a of packets of noodles, some eggs, some spices and salt and pepper. So we decided to throw it all together and make a little whatever. So we get it ready to cook and click the stove. Nothing. No gas. So we check the tank and we found out there was NO clamp holding the feed to the back of the stove so it had fallen off... So our tank was empty AND our stove couldn't work. So, as I said at the beginning, Ghisquiere and I were hungry. He had remembered that he had bought some charcoal, cause I guess if you put charcoal in your shoes, it gets rid of the smell. ANYWAYS, we remembered he had the charcoal, so we debated on how to burn the charcoal. So we started searching through the apartment and this is how we constructed our little outdoor stove.

We took an old metal fan and pulled off the front cover and put that on two bricks. Then we put the charcoal on the inside part of the cover and got a bunch of extra paper, old progress records, old curch news, etc. and began our fire. We burned SO much till the coals lit. We built a little fire underneath too. After2 HOURS of stoking this stupid thing, we commenced with the cooking.

It took another 30 minutes to cook the noodles, and 20 to cook the eggs with the noodles. We enjoyed our little meal.

So in the morning, we didn't have any charcoal either; so I had a bowl of oatmeal wheats in cold water. Luckily the Levitt's saved us that night, but man. Reminder I'm in Africa. We took pictures.

I had two baptisimal REQUESTS this last week! Patriartical blessing coming true baby! YA! LOVE THIS CHURCH! I also spent a day with Ghisquiere in my sector. We're both going a little nuts here. There's a good chance I could head off to Togo this next transfer. We'll see. It's crazy to think January is coming up. Soon I'll be halfway... Scary thought... It was 80 degrees with a fan on and I started getting cold so I think I'm DEAD when I get back...

Love you all so very much!!!

Love,

Elder Halvorsen

ADDITIONAL LETTER HE SENT TO FRIENDS WHO FORWARDED IT TO US:

Fast food doesn't exist here... We spend 30 mins to an hour making our food...... I eat yams and cooked flour off the street sometimes... That's my mcdonalds... And there's a TON of Chinese people here, too...Lol

Elder Halvorsen