Answering questions....

I'm going to answer some questions here.

Q: How many Elders work Yaounde?

A: There are a total in 8: 4 in two different apartments. We have a companionship for each branch (4 branches). There are two in Bastos and two in Ekunu. I'm in Bastos I.

Q: Do you ever meet as a district?

A: Our apartment is our district. As far as further, larger organization goes, we do not have a district currently. Just branch presidents and the mission President over them. So sometimes life is tough when branch presidents aren't unified with us or their members (not always the branch president's fault; all our presidents are wonderful people).

Q: How about Zone Conferences?

A: We just had one! It was great. It's typically once per month, and only occasionally the Mission President is there. Turns out President Jameson is only at the mission home 8 days a month. This is not your typical "California Mission." We are pretty remote here in Cameroon.

Q: Do you ever see the assistants to the President?

A: Nope. In fact, I will probably never be an AP, nor any North American Elder. DR Congo is still in heavy war, and so it's not safe for me to be there, or any white for that matter.

Q: Do you keep track of how many teaching hours, how many contacting hours and stuff like that?

A: We keep track of number of teaching visits in the presence of a member, to recent converts or less actives, or to other investigators. We keep track of the "key indicators," eight different things we keep track of (see PMG [Preach My Gospel] chapter 8). If you're interested in being a missionary, or if you have to work with missionaries, read that book. It is a gold mine of information and mission stuff. It's the crown jewel of learning how to be a good missionary.

Q: Are there any sisters serving in your mission?

A: Yes, but they're in Brazzaville, Congo. They aren't even members of the Pointe Noire zone there, so I will never see them. In fact, I don't think sisters get sent to Cameroon, period, at least from North America. Don't know why.

Q: Was that picture taken inside of the Relief Society President's house?

A: No. It was in front.

Q: What is that curtain behind her?

A: That was the entrance to the bathroom of her house. Her house was the kitchen/bedroom/front entry way/family room you saw in the picture, and then a sink in the bathroom. It's really small for her and her two kids (16 and 5) but it was better than where she lived before. She has running water and electricity here!

Cameroonians cover door entrances with curtains. I don't know why. It's just what they do.

So things are moving along in Bastos I. I'm really enjoying it here. Frère Brent (the physician Andre has been teaching the Gospel to; for more about him, see previous posts) is totally gung ho about this gospel, and he is going to be a fantastic member someday. His wife is having trouble accepting completely, but she is progressing. I really love that family. I just got a text message from him the other day about how he knows that God is with us and that we are really helping him and his family. that was really encouraging!

Anyways, I hope you all have a good week this next week! I'll give more information about sending snail mail!

- Elder LaFleur

PS - You don't know a real thunderstorm unless you are in one in africa. The only thing even close to what it loooks like is this techno video by the band called "Underworld," the song named "Two Months Off" or something like that. You stand outside for 15 seconds and you are completely drenched. Rain in Africa is awesome.

More news in Bastos...

This week I will focus on some of the people that I'm teaching. I only have 15 minutes to type this time, so I'll go as fast as I can.

It's funny, Dad, that so many people are like "Where's Cameroon?" I guess it makes sense. Did you know this country is number 1 on the list of "Most Corrupted Countries?" Pretty wild, huh?

Like I said before, the people of Cameroon are incredibly accepting of religion. They all believe in God, and as long as you go to some church of God somewhere you are fine. We have to help them understand that that simply isn't the case. Sometimes you find some people who have some pretty crazy ideas.

We taught one guy, for example, who claimed to be Moses reincarnated. His friend down the street was Elijah reincarnated, and that the two of them know everything. They believed God is the Father, and the Word - whatever that means. We asked him "What does God look like," and the only answer we got was "God is the Word." Elder Tingey, after hearing how he knows everything, asked, "Who was the prophet before Moses?" and the guy couldn't answer. He just stared at us blankly for like 30 seconds. Finally Elder Tingey said, "there wasn't one," (correct answer) and the guy just said, "yeah, I knew that." So that was interesting.

Frère Brent, the doctor, gained a testimony last week. He called us out of the blue and said, "Hey, I was just reading in the Doctrine and Covenants and I know it's true. I want to be baptized ASAP." His family all love the gospel. We gave his kids a Book of Mormon Stories book in English, and they love it! We gave them French hymns also, and they sing and pray and do stuff together as a family. It's a really awesome thing to see.

We recently had an awesome rendezvous. We went out to this house, which was next to a cathedral, and the father of the home is a pastor of the Catholic Church. His wife directs the music, and the whole family sat down to listen to the two of us tell them how the truth has been restored. The father asked us "Do you worship Mary?" (No. She is the mother of Christ, but Christ is whom we worship). "Why don't you have crosses or cross yourself after praying?" (We celebrate the life of Jesus Christ, and the fact that He lives today). "Why don't you pray with a rosary?" (Christ taught to not have vainly repetitious prayers) Finally the father said that we were a secte (French for cult) and walked off and got super drunk in anger. The mom left also, and the kids were glued to every word we said. They all (all seven) were totally prepared to listen to our message. We taught them a little bit more and then left. They all followed us and accompanied us all the way back to the nearest carrefour (French for crossroads or intersection) (about a 15 minute walk). They all really liked us. I talked to the son about going to the states and missions and learning English. It was a really wonderful experience.

I also am sending a couple pictures. I am sending one with my companion, and a couple with some ward members and me. No baptisms yet, but next week we are planning on two or three from our branch. Oh, we typically get about 6-8 baptisms every two weeks here. It's fun, but it's tough.

I love you all. Bon courage!

- Elder LaFleur

P.S. If you want to be a real Cameroonian, to say, "I'm really hungry," you say "J'ai faim jusqau," literally translates to "I'm hungry until!"

10 October 2011 - Today's email is sponsored by food

Bonjour tout la monde! Comment ca va? (I don't know how to make a cedille accent. Sorry)

So today's email is sponsored by food. It will be the major subject for this one.

What I typically eat at the apartment is just these five ingredients cooked in different ways: ground beef, garlic, onions, peppers and tomatoes. I've really grown to like just those things. We often just eat ommellettes (sp?) with those five ingredients, or a pasta with those things in a sauce, or just those five things and lentils and call it "chili" with fried potatoes. That is predominately what we eat for dinner.

For breakfast, we eat a gateau (sp?) which isn't cake, like it says in your dictionary. It's just a type of bread here. We have Corn Flakes, but only either powdered milk (gross) or sterilized milk (also gross), so I don't usually eat Corn Flakes for breakfast. We always drink a ton of water with breakfast to get our doxycycline down.

We don't eat lunch. Sometimes we get a chocolate gateau (just a kind of chocolate sauce inside of a gateau) or a couple beignets (a special type of fried bread - if you can find a recipe, please please PLEASE email it to me).

Speaking of recipes, do any of you have recipes for the following?

Doughnuts (preferably Grandma Fran's best)
French Toast Sticks
White Cake
Beignets
Other cookies and things

As far as African food goes, I have eaten a couple dishes. The thing I like least is definitely a baton. A baton is manyolk (a type of root of a tree that acts a lot like potatoes and tastes far more bland than potatoes) that is soaked in water for a week and then put into a large leaf and left to like, ferment, for a couple weeks. People eat it like americans eat potato chips, and it's pretty gross...

I have eaten a quem - basically the manyolk leaves ground up and boiled with some spices - often a type of pepper called "pima." Don't listen to anyone when they claim that jalepeno peppers or jabenero peppers are the hottest. Not even close. Pima peppers are the hottest peppers ever. If anyone would like to dilute solutions of all of them and then titrate them for me so we can really know for sure, that would be awesome.

I have also eaten fish - mackerel, to be exact. There are ladies who just sell them off the side of the road. They are actually really good. You get some condiment (african condiment - it's green and tastes like mustard, but not as harsh, and has a different texture) and a little pima and it's delicious. It's often served with plantain chips (also good).

Beans and beignets are also common and delicious. Beignets are a type of bread that is fried, like a doughnut, but doesn't taste like a doughnut. It's kind of thick, often covered in sugar, and is really tasty. Like I said, I would really like a beignet recipe.

I have also eaten this cabbage dish with Befaka at a recent convert's house. Befaka is just smoked fish. I ate cabbage boiled up and then mixed with a sauce. It wasn't bad at all. I didn't like the boiled manyolk though.

I can receive mail here. Here is the address:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Elder LaFleur
B.P. 3171
Douala, Cameroon

I will provide more information when possible. Bon chance!

- Elder LaFleur

12 September 2011 - My First Week

Bonjour, tout la monde! So I love Yaoundé. This place is both fantastic and nuts. I love the people here. They are wonderful, and have some of the best and most ridiculous drivers of all time. I don't have much time, but I will try to say everything I can about the stuff you are asking me. My trainer is Elder Tingey, and is the total opposite from your trainer, Dad. He is always setting up tons of stuff in the day. There is never a slow moment here. We are always moving around and teaching. Speaking of which, contacting is pratically nonexistant. We are currently teaching 25 different investigators each of the lessons. More on that later. So Elder Tingey is from Kaysville, like Elder Frazier. He loves missionarry work, and his french has an african accent. He really likes sports, and he is really good at basketball. He is super tall (and I'm pretty short). He is fantastic. No amount of praise could express just how freaking fantastic he is. Let me tell you about what this place is like. Imagine a large set of mountains on Mars, and all over the mountain there is just green foliage. All over the place. The earth here is like walking around on deep red clay, and incredible amounts of green just spring up from the ground. Now imagine a gigantic city right in the middle of it. So you are always going uphill or downhill. That's Yaoundé, and it is beautiful. Yes, the form of french people speak is bastardized english-french pidgeon. It's kind of fun, to be honest. It's funny hearing people say stuff like "Tu est ou? Tu est ou?" or "Oui, il sera okay si vous faites la." The way we get around is by taxi. There are no addresses, just a couple of cartiers (neighborhoods) and important intersections. So you yell at the taxi driver as he drives up to you the place and price, if you want to go under the 200 Francs per person (I would say, to go home "Carfour Bastos, trois cent francs deux places" (Carfour is the intersection, Bastos is where we live, and 300 francs for 2 of us riding). Don't freak out when I tell you this, but they stuff about 5 of us in a taxi. All the taxis are totally beat up because the just whip around all over the place. Basically the rule is as long as it runs, it works. Second rule of Cameroon: everything is negotiable. There are cops who may occassionally stop you and say hey, you don't have this or that. You gotta go through the law (which means paying them money). Typically if you are nice to them and tell them they are doing a fantastic job, they will let you get away without paying anything. Not a whole lot of kids have seen white guys before, so often times kids will yell "Eh, les blancs! Bonjour! Bonjour!" One little girl once ran up to me and rubbed my arm to see what it felt like. I think it's hilarious. Sometimes we are called chinese. As it turns out, Cameroon and China have some kind of secret combination or something. I don't know all the details. So there are quite a few chinese here, and some kids think that we are chinese. Like I mentioned, we rarely go contacting. I never have, and it's because people are so accepting here. In fact, most people beleive in God and that He exists, but as long as you go to church, you are good. They also are pretty superstitious, so they never reject us. There was this drunk bunch of guys once telling me that the United States is the devil. "Les Etats-Unis est le diable! Et Barak Obama est un criminale! Il est le diable! Il est un faux noir! N'est-ce pas!?" They were pretty nice to me because they knew I was a missionarry. They think it's bad luck to be rude to a man of God, so they are pretty nice to us. There are a couple of serious problems plaguing our investigators and people in Yaoundé. First and foremost, marriage is really costly. People have to pay the wife's family a dote (spelling?) which can be upwards of 1 million Francs (about $2000, sometimes far more) and then go through the government to be civilly married (also costly). So law of chastity is a tough one for many to follow because they move in together and start a family, unmarried just due to the costliness of the dote. Many general authorities have come and told members to stop requiring a dote because it's basically forcing the people to break the law of chastity. Word of Wisdom is also tough. Don't freak out about this either, but a lot of people run around drinking and driving. We have hopped in taxis where the driver is drunk. The mototaxis (taxi drivers on motorcycles) drink virtually nonstop while driving around. I gave a blessing in French my first day. That was really neat. It was for a woman's daughter who was starting school. I blessed her that she will learn many things and will continue to learn well if she remembers God. It was really neat being able to say everything and feel the Spirit in French. I love all of you. Thank you for your love and support. I look forward continueing to serve the people here in cameroon. -Elder LaFleur

October 4th 2011

Bonjour, tout la monde!

C'était un autre semaine ici dans Cameroon, et il était beau! N'il y avait pas beacoup des choses pour moi écrire maintenant, mais je peux écrire un peu.

So life is still going on in Yaoundé. There have been a couple disappointments this week, but some really cool things too.

First of all, Temple in the DRC!!! I know I won't be going to Kinshasa during my mission, but I do want to come back for the dedication. Did you know my mission is the highest baptizing (because of the DRC, although the Saturday before I came in we had a baptism of 19 people on one Saturday in Yaoundé)? There are 6 stakes in Kinshasa alone, and the work is exploding there.

So I had a "Best Two Years" moment this week. I was with a meeting with Bennett (a member who gives sweet referrals) and my companion and I, along with another woman. He got a piece of bark and was talking about this food I've never eaten and how to prepare it from this bark. I wasn't paying much attention, until he handed it to me and said something along the lines of "mange mange mange, mange mange mange." I turned to Elder Tingey and asked him if I should eat it. He just said "Well, are you?" I moved it towards my mouth when Benjamin yelled "NO!!" and snatched it out of my hands. Everybody sat there and laughed. I felt pretty stupid, but I must admit, it was pretty funny..

We have been teaching a doctor named Frère Brent, and he is awesome. A little while ago we taught him and his wife the message of the Restoration, and watched the 20 minute video of the Restoration. Afterwards, I invited the two of them to be baptized. I was really, really nervous, but I asked, and they said yes! Frère Brent explained that he has been searching for the real church ever since he was 13, just like Joseph Smith, and then testified that it was true! It's always awesome to have your investigators testify to you.

Frère Brent is also a specialist (cardiology), and asked me to explain the Word of Wisdom to his wife. Turns out, that is exactly what he tells his patients. He explained that there is no way for Joseph Smith to have known all that about health in the 1830's. He then testified about how the Word of Wisdom is true revelation. Also awesome.

We have a lot of trouble with old traditions. We have a guy who refuses to be baptized right now (although he is totally prepared) because he does not want the blessings of baptism to enter his house he is currently living in. He explained that this house he is in right now is terrible, and he is building a new house. He will not let the blessings of his baptism be left in his old house! In fact, when he gets baptized, he wants us to carry him to his new house so the blessings of baptism can enter his new house.

This one of many, many examples of how people refuse to give up their old traditions even though they know that what we are teaching is true. There are many pastors whom we teach who learn of the truth of our church, and then don't get baptized because they will lose their job as a pastor. Others refuse because they "have been born catholic and they'll die catholic, darn it!" Still others say they've been baptized before (of course not by proper authority or properly, in some cases) and other others just can't accept the fact that the branch president/relief society president/other member belongs to their anciently rival tribe. Probably the biggest thing we have to face is old traditions.

Last Wednesday, we contacted a guy named Russ. Russ when we met him, was sitting on a bench with a beer in his hand. We walked over and talked to him, and he explained how life was really difficult for him. He explained how his whole family has been drinking, and he got caught in the same addiction. We told him about the word of wisdom, how all addictions can be overcome through the gospel, and about how his family can be together forever. He put down the beer and we will see him this week.

I also learned that it's a dang good thing I don't have trouble with stealing. Due to corruption, many laws that are written are not enforced (is it still a law if it's not enforced? See Alma 42?? It's somewhere in that whole talk to Corianton). And so, the people need to enforce the laws themselves.

I want to be honest: These people are wonderful, peaceful people. However, due to their impoverished state, they have gone to extremes to prevent theft. In fact, any who are caught stealing are beaten by everyone around and then burned alive. It's called a "Human Torch." If you get caught stealing, everyone will crowd around you and beat you up (often killing you) and if you are still alive afterwards they put you in a bunch of tires and light you on fire. It's more common in Congo with theives, because they are worse off then Cameroonians.

The only reason I know is because we have been told not to even look at large crowds of people. Elder and Sister Nuttal in Douala saw it happen while they were driving around. So a couple morals from this story: 1) Don't steal stuff, especially in Central Africa and 2) don't look at large crowds of people, especially in Central Africa.

Other than that, there is no danger here. I just have to make sure I keep my hands off of other people's stuff. Thankfully, if someone steals from me, no one will lift a finger (and I do mean thankfully!) because whites have the reputation to have lots of money here. So stealing from one of them isn't so bad.

To end on a happy note, Elder Tingey and I duked it out with a pastor last week. We were teaching Francie about prayer, and had her read Moroni's promise at the end. Just before she did, her old pastor at her old church walked in the door and sat down. We invited him to read it (his name was Frère Ernie).

So Frère Ernie read it and said "This is the most complex thing I have ever read. It's not in the Bible." Elder Tingey said "Really? It doesn't get much simpler. Pray with a sincere heart, real intent with faith in Christ; sounds easy to me." Frère Ernie then pulled out his bible and used a scripture that had no relevance. I piped up finally and said "Frère Ernie, you have read the Bible. N'est-ce pas?" He said yes. "And you prayed to know it's true?" He said yes again. "And you know by the Holy Ghost, that it's all true?" Frère Ernie, of course, said yes. "Well, it's the same for me with the Book of Mormon." And then I testified. It got him to stay quiet. The whole time Francie just sat there and giggled.

So life is going great. I look forward to all your emails!

Je vous aime.

- Elder LaFleur