Put your trust in the Lord

Hello fambo,

Well, it has been another week in Afraca. Savannah- man so sweet! By the time you're
a senior you'll probably be like the team captain. No joke. It's cool. You'll learn a lot. Just be patient. Trust me. Haha. That's so sweet though. Keep the good soccer name in the family, yeah? Good.

So this past week was pretty exciting. One of the big highlights had to have been this last Friday. The reason being because we went on exchanges! Exchanges are always exciting because we get to go out with other missionaries in our district. This last exchange was pretty different though. The reason being because this exchange was the first time I would have to lead someone in my area (Basically meaning I have to do everything without any help from my good ole trainer), and not only that, the person I was going with was Elder Walker- who is fresh from the MTC as of two weeks. He is still at that point where the Krio all  sounds like a bunch of jibberish. So it was pretty exciting because it meant I would get a small taste of being the "dad." I kind of saw it as a day to truly test how far I've come. Usually I can just let Elder Pabie answer the hard questions or interpret what people say if I missed it, but this time everything fell on me. Needless to say I was pretty excited about the challenge. So the day ended up being full of bounces. Seriously, like all of the appointments fell through. We only saw like 2 people we had planned for. So I had to find ways to manage the time. I dunno if the Lord wanted to really test me or something, but one of the ways that time management happened was by meeting all these crazy people that walked up to us. It was times like these where I really saw how much I learned from Elder Pabie. So there were three different people.

The first guy was this crazy drunk guy. He was telling us he had seen visions and had read, as he put it, "The Book of the Mormons." At first I thought he was just crazy but then he was like "mannnnn that book scares me!! Those Nephites and Lamanites fight too muchhhh! The sons of Ishmael are so crazyyyy!!" So I guess he really did read it. Ha. But then he was trying to tell us how he wanted to come to Jesus. Sidenote- you all should know that when crazy people start talking to the missionaries and start shouting at us, a small crowd of passerbys will ALWAYS stop and watch. Elder Pabie told me that when this happens we must always defend the truth. So that's what I did. This guy was saying all this crazy stuff and at some point I was crying him unto repentance and telling him he needed to follow God's commandments and I even gave him a Word of Wisdom pamphlet and told him ways to get past drinking. Did it make any difference to him after we left? Probably not. But it was intense nonetheless.

The second person was some guy asking us for money and saying that we're supposed to give him money because of the Bible or something. The small crowd began to gather. This guy started drawing junk on a piece of paper and telling us we owed him money. I told him we didn't give people money, but we gave people something that was worth more than money and tried inviting him to Church. He said Jesus would never do that to people so I told him that if he could find a place in the Bible where Jesus went around handing out money I would give him some. It was great.

So this last guy was a pastor. He kept saying stuff about how he had been ordained of God by his vision through Jesus Christ and that's why he had the right to open his own church. I was able to open up the Bible and show him why he can't just do that, how you are supposed to properly baptize and how you are properly ordained of God. He went back and ate food with his friends.

My point of saying all of this isn't to say "look how good I am now" or anything like that. While it was exciting to meet all these crazy people and to show them the truthfulness of the way, the thing that I was able to learn is that when we go forth among these people, we don't go forth alone. I know for a fact I couldn't have done any of that alone and that the Holy Ghost was leading me and guiding me through all those various situations. The day was successful and we were able to do the work of the Lord. My training ends after the first week in December, and after that I'm going to have to know how to completely function as a missionary if I were going forth alone. I still have sooooooooo much learning and growing to do but I know that I never REALLY have to go through any of it alone. The Lord is there to help me and strengthen me, and I know that as long as I put my trust in him, I will be able to do anything he asks me to do. The same goes for everyone who reads this. Put your trust in the Lord and it will all work together for your good. Na true bing! (Krio)

Anyway, everything is going really good and I am loving every day. The baptisms were a success and everyone showed up on Sunday! Also baptizing in that river was like the coolest thing ever. Man, it was so cool. Anyway, my time is up so I'll explain the pictures then go. I love and miss you all!

Love,
Elder Stewart

I've officially become addicted to buying jerseys and I bought a Cameroon one (Cody Guilbeau you know why. Oh by the way, heard about the teeth. Cushe on that one) And that tie I have on is from Nigeria and freaking nice and amazing and cheap.

People we baptized.

River where we baptized.

 The meal I made because I had real milk. It was pretty satisfying. And mushy.