Turkey "parts"..and a four dunker

I don't know who took it. [He's referring to some money that was stolen] I'm not trying to make too big of a deal about it. It's sixty bucks. Taken from the apartment.

Health is always great. Ya it's hot. It hit 145 degrees here today. So what do we do? We play basketball! Lol! Ya. So I'm a little burned and was a little dehydrated. Meh.

There were 166 people at Church. We had three baptisms last saturday with another 2 or four on the way for the sixth. I've been studying the Ancient Testament. I'm reading about David and his son Absalom right now. I don't have really anything inspirational, but I love reading in the Old testament all the times that Jesus speaks to the old Prophets. I didn't even know Christ was the God of Israel until Côte D'Ivoire! I was seriously shocked. lol!

Companion is fine. Work is great. We have to get home at 6 instead of 8 for a precaution for the elections. They aren't really serious. Just people trying to play trumpets and banging on drums in the back of an ancient truck. Lol! I took a couple videos. The elections I think are for the third March.

OH Package. If you haven't sent it... I need socks. I've worn the same black Champion socks after a year and a month... They're dead... Also deoderant and the burn stuff and PICTURES! That's probably the best thing. Still lovin the mish. People say the best two years and that's true. You get the crud beat out of you, you get insulted everyday at least 1452310 times (in Africa anyways) and slammed by all things just impossible to imagine. AND YOU LOVE IT! It's really weird...

That's a lot of trees [we just planted 1000 trees] and sounds like Dad's luck is terrible [He's getting over some stomach virus]. The rainy season is in April. But I've been thinking. I'm so dead when I come home... It's 130 on average here the month I'll be coming home, and it's 15 to 30 degrees with possible snow over there... Yeah I'm dead. I've forgotten what it's like not to sweat about 10 months ago... That golf really sounds cool. I kinda want it.. Lol! I wish I could watch the olympics right now. And yeah... There's basically just Soccer here and a little basketball. Hockey most definitely doesn't exist.

Yeah with these religions it's just hard not to laugh sometimes. We seem to ask this question a lot but "Do you even READ the Bible?" Lol! It's just ridiculous. I've definitely learned a lot.

Well here is some of the stuff that I noted for the last week. I don't know if I've told you but we contact about 65 new investigators a week now. I'm really tired. We've been working our butts off. This coming home at 6 for the next couple of weeks is a nice break.

We were doing door to door one day and we came across this Arabian family. It was really awkward... There were three girls and they didn't speak french. So they said We can speak English. So I said we're from the Church of Jesus Christ. And she said. We already have a shop. I was like WHAT? A shop? I'm talking about a church... So she just laughs and pulls out her cell and calls someone and goes off in Arabic. So she hands me the phone and I talked to I'm guessing her husband about the church in French over the phone. He was muslim so that was over fast but he was nice.

We had another interesting meal. TURKEY BUTT! Yes you read that right. We have eaten Turkey butt for the last couple days. The first day Elder Dea (Cruz's comp) started laughing after we bit into our meat chunks. We asked what was funny. And he told us "I'm watching two americans eating Turkey Butt. So we went ahead and ate it.

We had three baptisms. It was actually one of the best services I've had here. It was just fun and sacred and a good blend of everything! I can't really explain that very well... It was good!

OH! BUT! This is funny. Elder Kakou got to baptise for the first time... LOL! So He had to redo the baptism FOUR times! The first time the guy like collapsed in the water and his head didn't go under. The same for the second and the third his hand didn't go under. But on the fourth Elder Kakou kicks the guys legs out and he just goes down! LOL! It was great.

We try to play soccer, us four, everynight. Getting pretty good. We use two little chairs. The ball can barely get in. I just hate how much we sweat for so little effort...

Well that's it for the week!

I love you all very much!

Elder Halvorsen