March 17, 2010

Salut ma Famille!
This week was really cool we baptized the two sons of Marie. Daniel and Gabriel. Elder Mezerai baptized Daniel and I baptized Gabriel. Really cool experience. Our "3rd missionary" PaPa Denis he is a 65 year old African from Congo he has been living with President and Sister Miller (Branch President) well whenever we needed a 3rd male he would come with us and he was suppose to go back to Congo on Monday he spent Friday-Sunday packing everything up couldnt sleep because he was so excited/stressed so the Millers take hime to the Airport at 5:00am Monday morning after they get all his bags checked and pay and extra $150 for all that the Lady at the counter asks for him Passport so he gives it to her and it was EXPIRED!!! SINCE 2008!!! the Millers about had heartattacks they love PaPa Denis and just love him so much they spent almost all of Sunday in tears well when they found out he wasnt leaving oh man! One of the Sisters in the ward Sister Monica went with them and she said they both froze up for about a minute and they sister Miller finally started to speak and try to figure out a way to get him on that plane but President Miller who is about 6'2-6'4 just stood there in a daze Sister Monica said that she felt so bad but then when she got back to her apartment she said that she just blew up in laughter and couldnt contain her self. It was a very interesting/funny experience but they finally got everything all settled and he got a temporary Passport to go back to Congo so he will have to reapply for one once he gets there but he is leaving Friday.

I also failed to tell you that I broke my hockey stick but dont worry President Miller works at the temple and he is the head person of maintenance so he is going to take it to the wood shop and fix it for me so all is well :) You know i couldnt survive another 6 months without any hockey. I heard the good news that Canada won Gold and Silver in Men's and Women's hockey and won the most Gold medals. So that was good to hear.

The mission is doing excellent right now. We are kind of worried for transfers because Elder Mezerai and I got things going here in our Area and we dont want to get changed up now. So hopefully the spirit will guide President Mansell to keep us together for atleast 1-2 more transfers. We will see on Mar. 31

Right now we are working with a Women her name is Helene we went and checked up on her the other day taught a little bit about Baptism and set a date for April 11 it was amazing when we got there we asked her how her reading was going we assigned her to read Mosiah 18 well she pulled out her Livre de Mormon and she opened up to Mosiah 18 and there was a full sheet of white lined paper full front and back of writing so we were really nervous and we asked "are those some questions you had?" She said no I read and studied it and wrote down everything that I understood. Our jaws about hit the floor!!! She did a Book of Mormon study by herself!!! She is the first investigator that has ever done that according to Elder Mezerai and probably the first out of all the members and most of the missionaries too! When we saw the effort she had put into reading and praying we knew right then to set a baptismal date and for the first time since I have been here see answered without a seconds hesitation YES! You could feel the spirit in the room so strongly.

We also figure out that night that Sister Woffinden(Elder Woffinden's Wife) Can read French! She cant speak it except to say Hello, Goodbye, and Thank You but she is amazing at reading it she says she can read it but doesnt understand a single word she just read. We dont care! Now we can use both of the Woffindens for our appointments before we could only use Elder Woffinden because he went to France on his mission and he can still speak it really well. I hope I will still be able to speak and understand French when i'm 62. Well those are some of the few miracles that happened to us this week. I Love you all
-Elder Van Dyke
P.S. DUSTIN AND NATHAN WRITE ME BACK!!! Dont make me send Chelsea after you!