Feliz Navidad - Port-Bouët, Côte d'Ivoire

Joyeux Noël! I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas last week.

I am elated to say that my Christmas was very merry. We did everything that we could to really make it feel like Christmas and, to our luck, it worked. 

We had a few events that really helped to make the weekend jolly. The first was a mission devotional on Christmas Eve that we had with half of the mission. I had the chance to sing in a quartet with a couple of other Elders. It was great to see so many Elders that I dont get to see so often.

On Christmas we were invited to a branch party on the other side of our zone. We traveled with a few other missionaries to the village and ate and celebrated with the members of that branch. I also won a viscous game of musical chairs against the other Elders.

Later that day, we met with some members in one of our wards for a Christmas dinner. We walked inside to find enough food for 6 men on the table for the two of us. We did our best to eat as much as we could out of fear of being found rude. We had a great visit with the family and learned a lot more about their story and journey with the gospel and the church.

It was a great week with a great Christmas. I hope you all have a fantastic New Year.

See you all next year,

Elder Farr

Merry (almost) Christmas - Port-Bouët, Côte d'Ivoire

Bonjour! I hope you've all had a great couple of weeks.

We've been working really hard out here in Aero-cité. I've been focusing especially hard lately on changing up the way that I teach. When I was first learning French, it was a bit too easy to learn just one way of teaching things. It was more comfortable. But now I've been tasked with getting off of my habits and explaining things in a different way. Since doing so, the spirit has been invited so much more fully and powerfully into our lessons. I've loved the experience.

We're getting excited for Christmas. Christmas, as would be expected, is a bit different here. Not much is done to celebrate it. So we've had to put in a bit of extra effort to really make it feel like Christmas. We've been having fun with it. Since last Christmas, my relationship with Christ has grown exponentially. It makes me appreciate the holiday much more. I love my Savoir so much and I am so grateful for Him.

I hope you all have a great Christmas!

Joyeux Noël,

Elder Farr

we got dumped :-( - Port-Bouët, Côte d'Ivoire

Hey everyone! We had another good week.

On Wednesday we had Zone Conference. We talk a lot about the way that we teach and how we can improve it to better invite the spirit. It really peaked my drive and motivation to get out and get working. I love this work so much.

On Saturday we received some good news and some bad news. 

The bad news, and the subject of this email, was that our friend, who was preparing to be baptized in a couple of weeks, told us that she has instead returned to her old church. Lucky for us though, she still wants to meet with us. We are really praying that everything will work with her.

The good news is that our friend, Prince, who has been coming to church consistently for about 5 months, finally has the plans for his wedding finalized. After the wedding in a couple of weeks, he wont have anything else keeping him from being baptized like he's wanted for so long. We are super excited for him!

That's about all for this week.

À la prochaine,

Elder Farr