More fun times from central africa - November 28, 2011

Bonsoir, devoted readers and fans!

So recently, we have been rebuilding. Our two most progressing investigators got baptized (the doctor and his wife), and so now we are in rebuild mode. I have high hopes for a few of our investigators, but our biggest challenge is having investigators get to church. Investigators coming to church is super important because it signals an investigator is progressing towards baptism. We don't want to baptize someone who isn't going to be active at church.

I think the reason church attendance is such a difficult key indicator to have a high number of here is because of the cultural opinion of what church should be. On average, people don't go to church to worship God, although that's what the pastor will be saying you're doing. Church here is more of a social gathering and performance than it is a sacred time to worship the Lord. Elder Tingey went to another church once (he promised an investigator that he would go to his congregation if the investigator came to ours), and told me all about it.

Basically, it started out with a rock band up front playing rock music. They were all getting into it and stuff, the band was totally rocking out, and there would be a pastor up front yelling stuff through a microphone. The pastor finally said "Alright, now confess your sins!" and everyone jumped up and started screaming all their sins. There was a guy there who yelled something like "I'm committing adultery with my neighbor!" while another guy was like "I stole from the supermarché!" and this and that. The band is still all rocking out and stuff, and then gigantic baskets get passed around. The pastor yells "Pay money and God will forgive your sins!" This money, of course, goes straight to the pastor, but never mind that. People are dropping like 50 000 cFa into these baskets (that's like $100; a lot for Cameroon), sometimes more into these baskets.

Finally after like a half hour of this the pastor calms everything down and asks for more donations in white envelopes. He said something like "Now this donation is between you and God." The woman next to Elder Tingey was dropping another 50 000 cFa into this thing. After that, the pastor gave a brand new mercedes to a random guy. The guy in the congregation who got the mercedes talked about how he has been praying for a new car.

Finally, the talking started, and the pastor taught something. Basically he taught that "Not all revelation from God is acceptable." Basically if God gives you an answer to a prayer you don't like, you pray and tell him to change it. He claimed that prayer is what changes the will of God (not a belief in our faith; you should always pray humbly).

And so, church for other people here is like going to a rock show. So a lot of people have trouble going to our church, where we don't have a band or dancing and dolling out the free cars. 

In other news, I finished the 12 week program for training. I am now a full fledged in the field missionary! I had to be trained for 2 transfers, and now I'm trained!

We are getting some new missionaries in the next few months. One is coming January (he should be entering the MTC in the next couple weeks), as well as a bunch more in may when Elder Tingey's generation leaves (that's a replacement force of 10 more missionaries; not a whole lot of missionaries get called to Cameroon). 

Elder Tingey and I had a cake off recently. Basically I took the recipe my mom gave me and Elder Tingey took his recipe and we gave it to a bunch of people and asked which was better without telling them who's cake is who's. It ended up being a tie, unless you count Elder Tingey's vote, in which I would have won. But whatever. I just enjoyed eating all that cake.

I also taught a District meeting using a nice long allegory about jazz ensembles. I don't have my notes with me, but next week I'll bring back what I taught.

Anyways, that's it for this week. Bonsoirée, and Excelsior!

- Elder LaFleur