Schedule

6am - get up, pray, try to exercise even though I am really tired. This is a time when i don't do as well as I should, at getting up, at concentrating on my prayer (it is hard when I am tired), and at exercising.

6:45ish - shower (cold), shave, etc.

7:15ish - breakfast, this is supposed to be at 7 but I am usually late. I usually eat oatmeal, it isn't instant oatmeal, it is the quick oats type or something but I just boil water and make it like it is instant oatmeal, and it seems to work fine. I eat cold cereal sometimes, but I am always hungry before lunch, and feel lightheaded, non-energized, etc often if I just eat cold cereal.

7:30 - personal study, this is when I am supposed to start, but like I said, I am often behind, so I usually don't have much time to study, which isn't good.

8:00 - Part of the reason that I don't have much personal study is that we only have 30 minutes in our schedule for that. Companionship study is at 8, though we don't always start on time with that either.

9am - This is when we are supposed to leave, again, we are not always exactly on time, but we do okay. Then we go out, and try to share the gospel. We generally have rendezvous (appointments) at least a few times during the day, often we have other people we will go visit that we haven't set a specific time with, we spend a lot of time walking, the area here in Akpakpa is big. We will do ''porte a porte" (door to door) sometimes, or OVB (ouvrir votre bouche, open your mouth) sometimes, but we generally don't spend a lot of time doing that. Partly probably because it is hard, we don't want to, etc, but we really have other people that we are visiting most of the time.

12noon - come back to the apartment, eat, I try to study French for a while, but we don't really have a specific time in our schedule that is for language study, but we come back from 12 to 2pm. A lot of missionaries will sleep, it seems like a break in the middle of the day is part of almost every culture except in the US. I don't sleep very often, since it seems like I am just more tired if I do. I can't really sleep during the day very well. Often, the food that we eat will take more than an hour to prepare, eat, and clean up. Especially if we eat rice.

2pm ish - This is when we are supposed to leave, often it is closer to 2:30 or 3. There are many reasons for this. We get back after 12 quite often, so I guess we can kind of justify leaving late sometimes. Other times it isn't really justifiable. We just aren't as diligent as we probably should be.
8pm - This is when we are supposed to come back, unless we are teaching a lesson, and then it is 8:30 (they use 24 hour time, so 20:30). It is usually around 8, sometimes a little early, sometimes a little late. We plan for the next day when we get back.

8:30 ish - sometimes before this, if we don't spend 30 minutes planning, this is when the day finishes really. THen we cook, eat, wash dished, get ready for bed, pray, etc. It is not very much time for all that, but you just have to go fast.

10pm - Sleep. I usually am in bed at 10, but by the time I pray, and fall asleep, it is usually a little afterwords.

Service Project

We had a service project on May 16th, for the three branches here in Cotonou. I am pretty sure that it was the first, or at least one of the first, organized church service projects in the history of Benin. So, that was pretty cool. It turned out really well. We cleaned a big roundpoint (that would be roundabout in English), ripping out tons of weeds, grass, etc. It was really quite amazing to see the difference after we had finished. I was glad to get a chance to do some work like that. It has been a while. I had been feeling a little sick the morning, but didn't want to miss the project. How is that for a good change. I think that there are probably other times in my life when not feeling completely well would have been a great excuse for not doing. I wasn't really sick, I've just had a lot of headaches the last little while.

So, since we were doing service, I was wearing a t-shirt. I am pretty tan from being out in the sun all day every day, but that is with a collared shirt. The skin under where the collar is is still really white. Anyways, that is the long way of saying that I got sunburned on the back of my neck. Probably the worst sunburn I've ever had, though that isn't saying a whole lot, since I hardly ever get sunburned. It isn't too bad, but now, wearing my white shirt again, the collar rubs against it all day, which is a little annoying, but I'm sure it will be gone before the end of the week.

From the Black's blog:

Ever since arriving in Cotonou we have been interested in promoting a service project. We have suggested it a time or two but couldn’t get anyone really excited. We were surprised last Sunday when the branch presidency member conducting gave a good talk on service and then announced that there would be a service project on Saturday. He made a pretty good announcement about how important it was to give service and encouraged everyone to be there. Then he said, “Now I will say it in Fon so everyone will be sure to understand. We want everyone to be there on Saturday.” When Findlays were here doing the measles campaign, they had some money left over and asked if we wanted some “Mormon helping hands” vests so as a result of that, we had a number of brand new vests just needing to be used. Saturday was a very eventual day for the members in Cotonou. All three branches met at the chapel where we handed out the vests and then everyone cleaned up the Round Pointe Gbedjromede. The Round point is a traffic island where four major roads meet. It is right by the chapel. The bright yellow vests really drew the attention of the motos and cars which were continually buzzing around the round pointe. We had about 70 people there working hard in the hot sun. We walked over to the round pointe from the chapel and President Lokoussou announced we were going to get rid of all the weeds, grass and trash. We thought that would take all day or maybe even longer. But people started in with their grubbing hoes and rakes and in about two hours it was clean. It was such a thrill to see everyone working together and having a good time for such a worthy cause. Service is a concept that has to be taught here as in a survival society one usually just considers taking care of himself. To see the members developing the Christ-like attribute of charity was such a thrill.

Testimony in French

Testimony of the Savior

Je sais que Jésus-Christ est le Sauveur de toute l’humanité, mais mon témoignage est qu’il a fait toutes ces choses pour moi. Mon témoignage est que Jésus-Christ est mon Sauveur, qu'il m'aime, personnellement. Je sais qu'il a souffert pour moi, et que je peux avoir le pardon de mes péchés, si je fais ce qu'il me demande. Je sais qu'il est mort, mais qu'il vit encore aujourd’hui. Il est le Fils unique de Dieu, et je l’aime plus que je ne puisse l'exprimer.

Mother's day phone call

I really enjoyed talking to Michael on Mother's day. We had a unique situation because Gary was in Spain. Gary called my cell phone and we put it on speaker. Then we called Michael on the home phone and put it on speaker. That way Gary could be apart of the conversation. Gary had to leave the call early so that he could go and do his presentation, but he at least got to participate for a little while.

We called at 5:30 AM Pacific time and Michael was just getting out of church. He said to call him back in 15 minutes, which we did. The kids here weren't all that thrilled to get up that early, but they did it.

A couple of interesting things that Michael said. He alternates cooking with his companion. He is trying African food more and his companion gets to try American food. I asked how his companion likes American food and he said that he doesn't.

Michael said that in his branch there is only 3-4 families. Where there is both a mother and father that come to church.

Only in the love of my mother do I come close to realizing the magnitude of the love of the Savior.

How to make African food

Find some piment, which is some sort of hot spicy pepper that I have no idea if it even exists outside of Africa. Then, for probably the most common thing. Make some rice. Then, for the sauce, use tomato (real and or paste), water, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, piment, and I think that is pretty much it. Oh, a lot of times they put what is called a maggi cube in it, which I think is kind of like a chicken boullion cube. Put hot dogs or ground beef in the sauce if you want. Then, put the sauce on the rice, in general Africans don't like a lot of sauce, so the rice should be slightly red, but not too much. Then, fry some chicken, and enjoy. Fried chicken, or some sort of meat (always fried) is eaten with pretty much every meal.

Another meal. Cut up some onions and tomatoes, and cook with garlic, salt, pepper, piment, etc. like the other sauce, though probably with a lot less liquid. Cook some spaghetti, then, put the sauce on the spaghetti. Fry some chicken again, and put a spoonful of mayonaise on the spaghetti. Then eat it. This is really good. The first time I had mayo with spaghetti I thought it was really weird, but it is actually pretty good, and now it just seems normal. I have also really learned to like spicy food, since pretty much everything is spicy.