Alyssa Letter

wow so it{s crazy to think that easter already went by!!! i guess the
holidays don{t really feel the same here! so the big celebration was
semana santa...i guess that is the equivilant to easter in the
states..but really all the catholics here are just crazy! so this
¨holiday¨ that they have they do all these processions in the street
and it{s like a parade kinda thing of jesus and his death. really it{s
quite sad but they get really into it. the people pay Q400 to carry
these giant statues and yeah seriously they are nuts! there are about
100 people carrying these things for a block...that is how long your
turn is and then they trade off. the churches rake in soooo much money
for this!!! we calculated it out and it was like 90,000 for the whole
time which is every friday for like 7 weeks and they everyday for a
week they have the marches! you could check out youtube and probably
find some videos of it...

(Hey everyone this is Eve....here are three links I found to view this GUATEMALA
parade Alyssa is talking about.....It is wild compared to our 4th of
July parade in Idaho Falls)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iJI23zbJgY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWCphBTf9cc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHPpCCbXzkQ

i have some but i forgot my camera cord so i can{t send them. but
everyone is dressed in thsese little harry potter robes and they have
hats and stuff....each church too has a different color haha purple,
pink, yellow, haha it{s nuts! well yeah so that was exciting...yeah so
it was really weird to leave my area in the jungle! everything there
was sooo different and now we are in a real city! i felt so out of
place for the last week! we have hot water sometimes.....a place on
the roof for my hammock....couches...yeah it{s really weird! but i
will be here for probably the rest of my mission. our area is smaller
in the streets...there are tons of drunk guys passed out all over the
place. also we have a colony in our area...basically it{s that there
is a mountain side and they just build a million and half houses all
the way down and the conditions that they live in are very sad. but
the people are some of the most amazing people i{ve met. so what
else...i{m with the nurse now, training in the office and what not...i
thought it was funny because yesterday i had to do all the
filing...hahah good thing i had all those years of practice at Aspen!
hna king my comp said i was one of the most efficient file girls she{s
had haha. but yeah so we do the nursing thing, go to the hosptial with
the sick and afflicted, i{ve already had to give some elder a few
shots in the butt!! haha jason would probably think that{s funny so i
thought i{d include that in my letter...but yeah it{s different doing
both things...we have to speak english in the office so my spanish and
english are both horrible...can{t seem to keep them straight in my
brain! well i{m not reallysure what else to say about here...our ward
is great very small we only had 50 or so people in sacrament...and
they are faulting a lot with the priesthood so if we don{t help them
out this ward will not exist anymore! so it{s kinda nice to know that
we have a goal and it{s like a do or die kinda thing! they are very
willing to help, but the thing is that no one really knows how...but
that{s why we are here. my companion hermana king is from georgia! she
was an er nurse for a year before her mission and she is amazing! i
have already learned soooo much from her! yeah well i guess that{s it
for now, not really sure what else to write...hey send more stamps if
you guys get a chance because that is the only way that i can write
anyone besides on e-mail and our computer time isn{t very much! that{s
the only thing that i ask...i hope everything is going great at home!
glad to hear that jason is going to be with amber´s brothers, they are
really great guys! and tell alicia to write me so i can hear all about
her hawaii adventure. tell grandma and karla and all the aunts,
uncles, and cousins hey! love and miss you all! until next week (if we
have time...) -hermana collette

What? A YEar?!

I think that some is pulling my leg here, there is no way that I could be gone for an entire year already? But if time doesnt lie then, by next month I will be home! And to celebrate that special day, I was sick and blind in one eye! But I God gave me an amazing year mark present(followed closely but the package my mom sent me, i feel like a new missionary with the new shoes and ALL the kids love the candy!! Thanks you so much! Merci beaucoup! Ackbé Kakaka-lo!) So Sunday, there I was walking to church, thinking that it would be a normal sunday, nothing really untypical, as we came around the final bend and we could see the church from a far off, there were a couple of figures standing around, nothing too ununsual until I started asking myself, wow that really looks like... no it cant be.... your imagining things.... impossible....But I wasnt it was Hortance! My mother from Bénin that I was teaching over there and now she was here! I was so shell-shocked i couldnt even talk, just standing there smiling so big I could of eaten a watermelon! I was so awesome to see here, she attended the morning session and learned that I come in the afternoon, so she waited, and there she was!! It was such an awesome experience! I couldnt believe it, so day we went and visited her at her mothers house, I knew the grandma from Bénin, and we talked and chatted, ate a little, sang have a good little time!! That is what the picture is from!!!  It was a good moment for me, just knowing that someone you taught has gripped the gospel so tightly, and so thankful for it that she travels to another country!!! AMAZING!!!!!!!!! I am still grinning from it!!! God is so good!!
Well from now on, I have only one more day, only one more day of march 31 on my mission! So that means only one chance to work the hardest, it a  good motivating tool! BAsil and Ernestine are doing really well, they really seemed to like the plan of salvation lesson, lots of questions and lots of spirit!!!! We didnt get to go fishing or swimming with crocdiles, that is next monday, lots of problems with conflicts of schedules. Things are going really good, its soo blasted hot right now, still waiting for the rainy season to come.Well I dont knkow what else to say, except good luck david on the mission! Anyways life is good on Pride Rock! Have a good one,and remember who you are!! Love you!!

Elder Lee

Aie

So internet is always a suprise, never know if it will work or not!  Last p-day was a waste of time, no internet, no water, no power this week is looking up though!  so two weeks of catching up, well lets see, I got a new companion, Elder Adou, from the côte d'ivore. He hasnt been out too long about 4 months but he is a pretty good elder, he doesnt like to walk, and we walk alot cause our quartier is soo big! Its kinda funny to listen him complaining about the heat, the sun and walking! I prety used to it! Its kinda different just being the only yovo for miles! I like it! The little kids always want to come up and touch you, just to see if you are real, I think its really cute, cause every so often there is a kid that is DEATHLY afraid of me! I love it here! Next Monday we are going fishing!! I am really excited for that, Honoré made us bamboo fishing poles, and the other weekend we went to the fetish market to buy line and hooks. THe fetish market is really kinda creepy, all sorts of stuff, even voodoo dolls, these ones werent very good, the ones in Benin were ALOT better so next time Im in Benin ill get a real one... Honoré says the fish they catch our near Kuegué are pretty big, big enough that we bought 80 lb test line! Ill send pictures next week! So we have a nex power couple in our mix, Basile and Enestine. Basile owns the newspaper here and he is really a guy of BIG influence! Knows and associates with alot of high government officials. But he really a nice guy and really seeking to know the truth. When I told him that Dad worked for a newspaper he was asking me all these wierd questions about what does he do, what is the layout like, i dunno he was really excited, so maybe sometime in the future you can send a paper in a package for him. His wife though, is absolutely incredible! Since last rendez-vous tuesday, she has read numerous chapters in the book of mormon and has a zillion questions! She really is gaining a testimony in the livre de mormon! I love when my friends do that! It is such a powerful book if they open it and read it! I hear David gave his farewell talk! He is ready to go it sounds like! Petit is really a stud, we gave him a bunch our our ties and he bought a white shirt so that he can pass the sacrament! Yesterday there where only 107 people at church, I guess alot when to other churches for the Pacque, Easter, but the people that came really had an amazing experiences, the spirit was so strong among these few saints, I really felt privileged to be among them, they really are disciples of our Lord!  No matter how few here, just thinking through out he world millions are doing the same thing being cleansed thanks to the sacrament thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ! The whole sunday was good especially for our friends that came, they were 10 percent of our branch! was a very GOOD easter sunday! Today no one is around, on the roads all the 'stores' are closed, at least the recognize on holiday besides New Years! Well that about all i want to say, i think. if not there is always next week! Well hope all is well back home, and that you had a great easter and I love ya all so much! Remember who you are and have an amazing week!!!!!

Elder Lee

From Louise Gillis

Dear Sister Lee,

Just to let you know that your son is alive and well!   We definitely have had power and internet issues.  Power is always low just before the rainy season and we are seeing 8 hour outages fairly regularly.  The internet was down for us for about 6 days about 10 days ago, up for one day and then down again for three days until this morning.  We had a very busy day and knew we were to go on a renedevous with your son so wanted to wait until that was over before we answered your e-mail.

He had no messages other than to tell you that he said "Tell my Mom I love her!"  He also said yesterday was the 2nd worst P day he has had.   The power was out so they couldn't clean the apartment or do their washing and the internet was down - made for a boring day.  However, I think today made up for it.  He got a new companion last week.  Elder Howard was transferred to Benin last Friday.  His new companion is Elder Adou who has been out for 5 months.  He is from Cote D'Ivoire.  He is a native African and seems like a very nice elder.  He will get along just fine with your son.  So now Elder Lee is with 3 elders whose native language is French.  Wish we had that in our home so we could improve on our French!  They are teaching a newspaper editor and his wife.  We were there last week for their second discussion and then again today for the third.  His wife is a very spiritual lady and I know your son was very excited about the way the discussion went today.  Basil (the husband) became acquainted with the church through the Measles Campaign which took place the middle of January.  Findlays were over here from Canada on a three month humanitarian mission to get everything set up with the government.  Basil's paper ran quite an acticle in their paper - his paper focuses mostly on health issues.  I know they were very impressed with how the church was involved with the campaign.  He has come to church 2 or 3 times and his wife just agreed today to come on Sunday for the first time.  If they join the church they would be a wonderful center of influence.

We had quite a rain storm last night.  Lots of lightning and thunder and a very heavy rain.  It's the first rain we've had for about 2 months.

Must run, but be well assured that Elder Lee is just fine and doing a very good job.  He has such a good nature and is always very positive.  Don't hesitate to check if you don't hear from him.  If you don't hear from us right away you can be assured that we're either having internet, power (or both) problems.

Sister Gillis

On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 11:05 AM, <ronleeiii@aol.com> wrote:
Elder and Sister Gillis,

I know I am beginning to sound like a broken record, BUT we haven't heard from our son, Elder Lee again today.  I know that there are problems with power and computer issues, but could you just reassure me once again that the missionaries there are fine and well?  It would sooth a concerned  mother.

I appreciate all you do for our boys!

Becky Lee

siempre feliz nunca contento (Alyssa)

family!!! well it´s always nice to write e-mails on p-day! the problem is that the time here goes by crazy fast! so lets see...this week we had a conference with the misison president! always is a great experience becasue i leave feeling insprited and rejuvenated in the work! as much as i love to teach people i love learning too! the holy ghost really is the best teacher though! i have learned so much in my personal study as i just focus in on what the sprit wants me to learn! it´s a lot easier to study becasue mysteriously my cd player and my comps broke at the same time! so this whole cambio has been without music! i thought i would go crazy but i seem to be surviving! well lets see so the conference was amazing! and in my interview with presidente coleman he told me that in my next change 17 marzo i am going to be in the capital with the nurse! i ahve two changes with her and then i´m on my own! i´m not going to lie i am a little bit nervous! and already i have crazy elders forcing me to checkout all their bug bites haha but if my mission president who is called of god decided to have me be the nurse there must be some inspiration behind that...therefore whom god calls he also qualifies and so i know that he will help me to be able to handle everything! i´m a little sad because i am going to spend a lot of time in the office and in the hospital...but at the same time it´s service and we still will be proselyting ect so that is neat! plus i don´t know think i will have expericenes like the ones here in the hospitals in america! haha i don´t even think the word sterile exists here haha but anyway so yeah que mas.....this week was pretty chill...we only had one investigator in sacrament and so that is a bummer....our family that was going to be baptised on my last saturday here couldn´t go to church because they were sick so now because they don´t have enough assistences they have to wait another week to be baptized! sad that i will have to miss out! but they aren´t baptizing for me so yeah...oh speaking of haha i have hijos! haha two kids that we baptized nereida and juan 8, 10 years old! man they are attached to me! juan is always coming into relief society to ask me for gum....haha....all the other kids come in and want their moms too so they always tease me about it haha and this sunday i helped nereida to bear her testimony haha but they are the cutest little gorditos!haha but yeah so i was happy to see that cindy our one investigator to come to church was ready come sunday morning for church becasue we had not stopped by all week! it was truely amazing to see how her heart is so pure and her desire so sincere! i wish all investigators were golden like this! but i also learned not to waste time with people that aren´t prepared! if i do my part...the spirit may just have to work on them a little longer but eventually they will come around! i love this work! so yeah that´s about it i think...the mission is great! oh today we had a barbeque as a district with the other elders very fun! and we watched baptists at our barbeque IN ENGLISH!! haha but it had spanish subtitles! man i don´t remember that movie being funny but i laughed pretty hard! well i guess that´s it for now! love and miss you all! glad to hear things are going great! haz lo justo -hermana collette

YEEEE-AWWWWH!!

That is for all the Texans reading this letter! Well this week has been interesting... I decided that I dont even tell a moitier of the things that happens here, sorry there just isnt enought time! Well anyways, I kinda was sick, had a thing called runny stomach, first time on the mission! NOt bad for where I live and what I eat! But just lasted all night and day, and now its good! I forgot to tell you guys in the last letter that IN July or mission is going to be changed!! Togo and Benin are going to become a part if the Cote D'Ivore Mission! Which means that I going to add another country to my lists of places been and we will be the FIRST WHITE missionaries over there since the War!!! I am pretty excited cause my favorite Arfrican food comes from there!!! I think it is going to rain for the first time in a LONG time which means that the HOTTEST season of the year is over and now the rainy season which means MANGOES!!!! I love Mangoes! This weekend, our best investigator, Petit was baptised! Yeah this guy is a stud! So strong already and he will be a great anchor when the new  branch moves clear the heck out there by his house. This week was the pinnacle of bad weeks as far as numbers were concerned, everyone had some ridiculous excuses or just flaked out on us. We taught 13 lessons all week, then 11 investigators came to church! Only if that ratio worked when we taught 40 lessons! Things are really good here, except today I found out some bad news, Jayne can offically beat me in basketball, I went and played this morning over at the lycée and I got a lot of work to do, i cant jump worth anything, still can grab rim really easy but dunking, forget! Whatever, thats a long way off and im coming back stronger than ever! Fortuné, the little boy who had an infection/weird bump on his leg, finally had surgery and removed an assist on his bone, he is doing really well! Thanks for the prayers on his behalf! Anyways thats all for now, hope everyone is all right and I especially hope you remember who you are!!! Love ya!

LOve
Elderly

Bom!!

So this week was pretty dang good for me! Especially because I got to leave the confines of the City of Lomé, and go explore out in the fresh air jungles of Africa!! It was soooo good! There are actually mountians here, I miss mountains soo much I forgot!!! I will never leave them when I come home!! It was amazing to get out and walk, breathe some really good air and hike, just the thing I needed to keep from going insane!! Hopefully the pictures of the little waterfall we hiked up to will come through. I perfect, soo green and humid and thick and tangly and tough get around, just like in all the movies, we had guides to show us where to go, then when we reached the waterfall, Elder Gillis, Howard and I took the guide and started to hike the ridge on this nothing of a trail, straight up and then all of the sudden a BEAR jumped out and ate our guide... no there was no bear but that would have been interesting, but halfway up we had to come down for some odd reason. After that we drove to the tallest mountain in Togo, and hiked al little to see a old castle that a German built, really wierd, all the French people were complaining cause this 'castle' is just people houses in France, and their real castles were 1000 times bigger. Whatever, its a castle in Africa. THe most amazing part is the whole castle, the materials and ALL the rocks were carried on the heads of the people up this mountain to build this castle! It was sucha cool trip! The villages were good, we bought a little souvenirs and lots of bananas and pineapples really really cheap! BEautiful day! I want to make a trip all the way up north to the elephants and lions... we will see. This week was also Zone Conference, Elder Golden of the Seventy was here and talked to us, very nice guy, challenged us to ask him any questions we had about the gospel, that was a headache, lots of things I never need to know in this life! Yuck! Well we added two more to people with baptismal dates, lots more are arriving there very soon! The church here will explode here in a few months, I think they are going to start to build a stake center here, which would help us soo much! People could take us a little more seriously, the TEMPLES magazins that the church has, I read it the other week and it BLEW my mind! I want so much to render myself to the temple! I cant wait to go back! Really so many blessings and feelings that I miss, and I didnt go all that much! anyways Iam afraid that if I dont send this off quick the computer is going to eat this message, so anyways I love you all, I love the Lord, and I love this work! toute est bien! have an amazing week and remember who you are!!

elderly

Well, a quic pose with my comp with our new piens

A baptism!

Lost African Waterfalls

This is my apartment...