"C'EST AFRIQUE!"

(French for: "This is Africa") A common term used by the missionaries when they want to express "thats just the way it is because "THIS IS AFRICA"! ie..."the power went out..AGAIN... C'est Afrique...or sometimes denoted as TIA...This Is Africa!!)) Elder Halvorsen has been serving a full time mission since January of 2009 in the Ivory Coast, Abidjan West Africa Mission. This mission encompasses the countries of Benin, Togo and Ivory Coast. He loves it there and is enjoying his experiences serving the Lord and the people of West Africa!!



Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Lumpy cake and routines




The Fab Foursome






The church building in Togo - Be Kpota Branch.


Elder Halvorsen devouring a Freedom Fries :) Burger.

P-day

Out to lunch


Africans do do scouting and the Duty to God. Health is fine. I'm wearing a little sunscreen. If I put too much on it burns me. A guy gave me a little baseball hat. I wear that if it's REALLY hot= strong rayness... I don't understand proper english anymore. Some stories, but like always, they come after this portion!
That's cool that you guys went on a river trip! Yakima is the mexican town right? That reminds me that I want to learn spanish now. How's Dad's rosetta spanish coming along?

4 MONTHS AND 29 DAYS! It's actually a funny missionary tradition. The day AFTER your month mark, you say you have one less. For example, the 28th I was saying I have 5 months left. Now I'm saying I have 4 left. Lol! We all do it... It's shocking when you say it... Especially when I know I'm getting my flight plans in two months... Crazy... It's like it's not real.

Concerning school, there are two things. Elder Forman told me that if you went to a community college before, you don't have to take the ACT. Can look up to see if you can give just all my credentials for the registration to BYU without my ACT score? Seeing how it wasn't the greatest at 26... But If I don't get into BYU, I think I wanna go to UVU. I just really want to go to Utah. Cousins, the city, the church, good climate, lots of dirt biking to do and... It'll be easy to find a wife. I put that last, but honestly that's number one on this list.

The lead with Adam sounds interesting. I've seriously been thinking a lot about a job as an ambassador. I'm pretty sure that I want to do something internationally. I really want to keep my french. There's a member here that was talking to me about being an expert on Africa and how there's a lot of good jobs in that. I've also been really interested in doing over-sea affairs in France, or African countries like Côte D'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Liberia. I think that that would pay pretty well also. So sure! I'd love information on that! Thank you! The other option I've really been looking into is a major in Business leadership. That interests me too. So in other words, no. I haven't decided... Lol!

Give my congratulations to Olivia! I can't believe she has 8 years... That's just bizarre... That's funny that Chandler hits with one hand like I did. It took FOREVER to get the stupid two hand back hand down. And to get power on it was still always hard. I probably forgot how to play tennis... I miss tennis a lot...Okay. So for our investigators. A month of no baptisms in August... That's my second month of my mission I didn't baptize... But we worked really hard and we're seeing the results. We have 8 possibly 10 baptismal dates fixed already for september. That's really got me pumped for this month!
We had an interesting (well I did) this sunday. We were walking along the lagoon and I saw in front of us these men using a machete? to cut up what I thought was a fried goat on the side of the road... Not something that's strange in Togo. It's very normal in fact. When we were just next to it I saw... A dog's head NEXT to what I thought was a goat's body... So I looked forward naturally and then realized what I had seen. My head snapped back and I said "Is that really a dog?" Then all the guys looked at me with big smiles on their faces. I just kept walking... C'est l'Afrique.

So you'll get pictures of Elder Call and his cake that we bought him for his birthday on sunday. That's a fun story. So Last tuesday we were walking down the train tracks (Elder Bo Bi and I) and I saw a sign that said "Order your cakes custom made here!" and I thought well that's way better to get it here than to go down town to get a cake! So we go by the house, and start talking about a cake. We show her the size we want and all that. If you go down town, a cake the same size we showed her is covered in frosting, two layers, and pretty pretty and it's 5000 cfa. (10-11 dollars) So she says well that'll be... 15000 cfa. Both our faces drop. QUOI? Non. That's too expensive. We want something of 5000. She says no problem. So We come back saturday night. she brings out the cake. She unwraps it. It was just like a big cake lump with "Happy Birthday Elder Call" and on top of that it was badly written... So we couldn't say no since we were needing a cake... We paid for it and took it home. I had a thing of chocolate spread and ate the cake with that so it wasn't too bad. I'm just glad he enjoyed it. The first thing he said that morning was "I forgot even that it was my birthday!" Lol! so it was a fun morning. Especially when a preacher guy and his two back up clapping girls started preaching DIRECTLY in front of our door with a loudspeaker. Lol! It was interesting.
I've just finished the book or Romans this week. I had read Acts the week or two before so I'm going to take a break from the Bible and Finish Helaman now. I read a ton of interesting insights on life and the gospel through Paul in romans. He's got so many powerful verses that just blow you away. I've been able to use a lot of his words in my teachings too. I just wish I had more time to study... Our schedule is rough. We gotta wake up, (the hardest part) do a morning prayer, share the ironing board, take cold showers, prepare our food, do a personal study, do a team study, and then out the door. Lol! My personal study is usually 15-30 minutes long and I try to catch it in the afternoon.

Well I think that's about it for the week. I also sent a picture of the branch and a truck accident that was kind of cool.

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