Viande de Bousse

This week was fire, I don't want to write an introduction...don't tell my english teacher...

Another amazing week here in Togo, no such thing as a bad week when the sun is shining down and ya can buy African tenettes for 50 francs! I love Togo. African tenettes are basically just fried role thingys but they are so good. Miller and I have bought so many this week.

This week during a rendezvous we were talking to these lit dudes asking how life is and all that, then I hear what sounds like a dying chicken and I look over, expecting to see a kid trying to out run his mom, but instead I see a DYING CHICKEN!! Not trying to out run his mom btw, he was, however, trying to out run a moto, did not work, this chicken got the Will Smith 1-2 combo to the back of the head and was flopping like a grown man playing soccer. To make things worse the chickens brother took this opportunity to take a couple hits at him too and peck at his face...brother love. After the chicken was done flopping I went into hunting mode and was ready to clean and cook this bad boy up, some fresh meat right there, but the guy that we were teaching said "nahh it's not for us. it's for someone over there, it's theirs." BROTHER WHAT? IT'S A STREET CHICKEN! it's free game in my book, but he was adamant we couldn't eat it and the person would be coming to get it sometime... ofc though I picked it up and tried to give it to kids across the street that were marveling and seeing two REAL yovos, they didn't want it either... they always ask us for food but when I try to give them some they refuse...? Weird (They tie strips of material on their chickens to know whose it is)

Something else fun is I introduced bottle flipping to some kids. Thinking it’s gonna go big here. We were waiting for this ladies sister to get back from the market and they gave us water bottles so I obviously started flipping the bottle and once the kids came to their senses from seeing yovos in their house, they had to REGAIN their senses after watching me throw a bottle into the air doing a gorgeous flip and landing perfectly on the table, then they found bottles, filling up with water and taking turns flipping the bottles, which we did for 30 minutes until the sister got back. She immediately started preparing us food, took about 30 min, been at this house for too long but now we couldn't leave. And, she brought us a plate of fried plantains and sauce which was absolutely scrumptious. Then some odd smelling meat...upon inspecting me and Miller didnt know what it was so I used my amazing french skills to form the beautiful sentence of "c’est ce quoi?" (That is what) and she said "viande de bousse" (bush meat)...she didn't know what animal is was from and neither did we...but we managed...as much as we could... it wasn't that good of meat. The fact it was "bush meat" didn't do it for me, it was just the taste was not good, now if it tasted like my dads tri-tip on a Sunday evening, I would have eaten 4 plates...but it didn't, so i didn't do that. Anyways we ate as much as we could, then tried to give the rest to the kids, but their mom said no, eventually taking the plate to who knows where...probably the cleaning bins...that would make sense. To make things worse when we tried to teach them we were told "we are too busy" BRO TELL US THAT AN HOUR AGO! Frustrating but we did get some good plantains and not so good bush meat for lunch.

Miller and I made ties this week, they look cool.

Miracle time!

So one day Miller and I rode our bikes to the church, and on the way there idk why but the children and adults singing at us and calling us yovos was making me a little annoyed today, so i was a little frustrated and when we got to the church Miller and I put our bikes in the top secret hiding spot and then he, being the wise beautiful human he is, said "lets say a prayer" and he said a prayer for us and asked to help us find people that are ready to hear the gospel this morning, and ya know what! In that morning we found like 6 or 7 new friends! Which is awesome! And I think they will all progress beautifully, they loved the message, one group of 3 20-25 year olds called us over (usually they just laugh at us and yell "yoovoo") and were asking great questions about who we are and about this amazing church. Prayers answered, my friends, prayers answered. Even better is after the prayer I wasn't frustrated anymore and was able to feel the spirit while talking to people.

Spiritual thought is gonna be from the latest devotional from Elder Uchtdorf (wise man, go watch his and wife's talk they are awesome)

"The truth is that sometimes it just doesn’t matter to the Lord what you decide as long as you stay within the fundamental covenants and principles of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ."

"But then there are times when a question has multiple “right” answers, and you can find joy in any of them as long as you live by God’s eternal truths."

I like this quote, we have free agency, the Lord wants us to make choices for ourselves as long as they stay with in the covenants we have made and follows the principles, and sometimes it doesn't matter what we choose, there are times when there are multiple right answers and as we live by the truths we know from the word of God we will be happy with any of them! So rely on God to help you, but if he doesn't give you a "detailed" answer, go off what you know is right, what feels the best for you at that time and go all in, have faith it's the right answer for you!

Missions are awesome guys, highly recommend going on one! I am loving every single day and learning alot! Be safe this week! Love you all so much!

Also, my boy Elder Cowley pointed out lacrosse starts in a month, good luck lax boys, keep me updated, y'all are gonna kill it! This week I missed lacrosse quite a bit!

Love,

Elder McKee

Eating Like Kings