Life in the New Area

Well two weeks has come and gone and here we are again.  Well a lot has happened these past few weeks so I guess I’ll start from the beginning.  There wasn't really anything exciting that happened the
first few days.

On Sunday we had the District conference of Benin Cotonou.  It was pretty awesome seeing all the members from around Benin and a lot of old friends from my first area.  We also had a member of the seventy there, Elder Vincent.  It was awesome.  I couldn't hear much of his talk because I sat in the very back but what I did hear was good.  Sunday afternoon we had an appointment with a new investigator. We got to his house and it turned out that it was a church... the appointment started out really well and then the guy’s pastor came and got in and after that it ended with a lot of yelling; them praying that Satan would leave us and they tried to "save" us. Lol… probably my most interesting appointment since I've been on the mission.

Last Monday we had a zone activity and we went to Ganvié.  Ganvié is a city that is built on top of the lake that is on the outside of Cotonou. It was pretty awesome. The city is pretty huge, something I thought was cool was they have people that sit on their boats and go around the city selling things. It’s awesome, and there were some kids on a boat that were on their way to school, I think the kids were maybe 8 years old and they were in a boat just chugging along. They also have a mosque built on the water that was pretty cool. All in all fun trip but I left my Oakleys at the city on the lake so ya oh well!

Finally the work in our area is really starting to improve, and it’s all because of an amazing member in our area.  She translates for all the people who can’t speak French. She is introducing us to her friends. Anything that you can do to help the missionaries she does. It is truly a blessing having her in our area to help us.  Most of our progressing investigators live on her street! We found a lot of new people this last week that seem like they will progress.  This new area is hard but I’m thankful for the opportunity.

I’m thankful for the help of your prayers. I love you and miss you. Have an amazing week!

All my love,

Elder Joseph D. Allred II

"Ganvié is a lake village in Benin, lying in Lake Nokoué, near Cotonou. With a population of around 20,000 people, it is probably the largest lake village in Africa and as such is very popular with tourists." (from Wikipedia)

Pictures from Google images: