Homecoming!

Andy had his homecoming. We had about 100 people at our house after for breakfast burritos, treats, and fruit. He did a fantastic job on his talk. He brought all of us, and all his friends suit jackets, skirts, and ties. And he gave away a lot of ties. It was fun to look around the chapel and see all the African prints.

His Talk ( some of it ) :

I recently returned from the Benin cotonou mission…anyone about to pull out their phones and look it up, dont ill save you the time, its in west africa, in between ghana and nigeria, my mission was 2 small french speaking countries. When I first opened my call and learned where Benin and Togo are, I was a little nervous because of the new culture, French, far from home… and the voodoo. Benin is the birthplace of voodoo. I had only ever seen the voodoo from the princess and the frog. I was scared I was going to be turned into a frog.

Leading up to my mission I was uneasy about all of that but decided to push it to the side and just be excited to serve the lord. Getting to the MTC in Ghana I was put with an elder Ike Ake, an amazing comp from Nigeria. I thought ok he's a local he's gonna tell me how voodoo isn't real, so i asked him what he thinks about it…for 6 weeks he told me horror stories! People benign turned into cars, rubber bands, pencils and other various household things. I was scared I wouldn't be able to write my email home if i was a rubberband

Still I pushed my fear to the side and decided to focus on the work I came to do. After the MTC we traveled to Benin to the mission home and while we were all getting interviewed by the press and hanging out waiting to be put with our trainer's sister Lundeen, the president's wife asked what I whole heartily believe was an inspired question for me. She asked “what are you most excited for, what are you most scared of?” I instantly thought I was scared of voodoo but I couldn't say that in front of all my new friends they had to see that I'm strong! So I lied and said I was scared to learn French… luckly elder Miller was more brave than me and said he was scared of voodoo and sister lundeen with a smile on her face like she knew one of the americans was gonna say that answer! Asked another important question “how many of you have been given the priesthood? And how many of you have gone through the temple and kept those covenants you made?” all of us of course said we have been and we do keep our covenants she then said “dont you think the priesthood, the power of God, is stronger than any other power on this earth…even if Voodoo has a real power?” right then brothers and sisters i began to understand the power of the priesthood and how big of deal it is that God has given us this power!

Christian (porto novo)
Maman on the road (tokoin)
Jacob and cynthia (sanguera)

I testify that God has given us this power because he loves us and wants us each to have blessings from it. God made it specifically that the priesthood holder cant use the power on himself, he can only use it on others, by making it so we can't use it on ourselves we are forced to turn towards others and serve them and also be willing to be served.

God loves us, he is our heavenly father, he sees us in our hardest of times…

I can not tell you how many times i was having a bad day feeling forgotten by my friends and family here at home…and Brother Curt brunn sent me an email talking about his wonderful family and how he's excited to see me again, that loves i felt gave me the courage to continue and i saw miracles from it.

Or when no one wanted to talk, all the lesson planned fell through, the sun was little hotter, me and my comp were discouraged and that very day the young women had an activity and made posters for the missionaries and i get a very encouraging email from them, that email gave me and my comp the courage to continue and we saw so many miracles because of it

Or when I was having a hard time with something and a verse in the Book of Mormon I swear I had read 100s of times…meant something different, and helped me know exactly what to do.

God sees us, he knows when we are having a bad day and he knows exactly what we need, i needed curt brunn and he was there, i needed an encouraging email from the yw and they were there, i needed the book of mormon and it was there, each sent by God. I know God is placing people in each of our paths to help us, because he loves us, thats why he sent his son, thats why he restored his church through a prophet, that's why he gave us the priesthood to help us along the way

(something random in french to prove i learned it) translate it!

AMEN