Buckets!

Bucket showers! 

Flushing with buckets! 

Cooking with bucketed water!

These are all of the things we became really good at this week! 

So yes, bonjour and mboté to every single one of you! I hope you each had a very inspiring and well-passed week and weekend! 

This week a lot changed:

1) We moved from our nice bougie solar pannel powered apartment to.....a not very bougie and not very solar pannel powered apartment! It was the apartment I left (escaped) before I went to Point Noire. We've been able to survive which has been a tender blessing! I have never had a greater appreciation for running water! What a God-given luxury! 

2) We went on exchanges with Elder Kabala and Elder Mboungou! Elder Kabala is very humble and nice when you are around the house with him. Very fun to hang around. Now put him into Elder Kabala teaching mode and....he becomes like an apostle with his teaching and Christ with his diligence to spread His Gospel! I really enjoyed being with him!

3) We saw a ton of life-changing miracles for our friends and the members of our ward! We made the goal to help bring 8 of our friends to church. With the help of prayer, the members, and the Lord, around 18 people came to church. We were also able to help a couple of friends make the commitment to be baptized! Fevrier Le 19. We hope to help Frère Christ Farkel, Frère Mardoché (a super good story there) and Frère Christ Djoltany enter into the Lord's flock! So, if you would, please pray for these special young men that they'll always remember God's love for them and that they'll be able to prepare themselves for their baptism! It truly was an epic week! Faith in God works! 

    

Thus was our week: tough, gritty but all-around miraculous and heart softening! 

I hope each of you can feel profoundly God's love in your lives. Search Him and He will let Himself be found by you. If there is anything I can keep in mind and pray about for you let me know! He is always very happy to help!

Avec amour, Elder Habel 

 

 

NEVER SURRENDER!

Elder Doctor Bjorkman looked over the screens of the weakening and despaired Elders of the Congo Brazzaville Mission through his computer. After months of fighting, ignoring malaria prevention rules, and the mounting malaria cases all seemed lost. The mosquitos of Congo were on the brink of total victory

The annihilation of the Mundelé kind seemed imminent. 

Yet these disparaging facts did not deter the determination of the fiery anger of our dear Doctor Bjorkman. Uttering with fierce determination he said speaking of our fiercest, most intimidating enemy: the mosquito, "We will meet them at the coasts and in the streets. We will fight them in the air, in the apartments, and in the secteurs. We will attack them with our hands and our insecticide. WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER!"

Mboté and bonjour! Hope you all enjoyed the Congo's take on the Winston Churchill speech! As you can tell we've had some problems with malaria in the mission to the point where we had a mission-wide call about it with Doctor Bjorkman the regional doctor of the church! There were some golden quotes that came from that! Let's just say we learned a lot and we are going to fight much harder to not get malaria. 

As for this week like always the Lord gave us some tests and some success! We met with a couple members from our ward (which was awesome) lots of friends, and we even went out with our Elder's Quorum President, President Arcy! God's work is a lot more effective and fun when we work together and this fact really shined brightly this week! 

One miracle from this week that God gave us was the fact I saw Frère Chance and Frère Guichel before our district council this Wednesday! Elder Konan and I had helped them get baptized when I first arrived here in the Congo! I hadn't seen or heard from them in forever which was really a load for me. When I saw them walking up to the church building I hurried on out to meet them! We had quite a joyful bear hug reunion! This miracle showed me God really is very present in our lives!

So to be brief, I hope each of you can see Him daily in your lives! He loves you and cares about you! He is willing to reveal Himself to you if you seek Him with all of your heart (Jérémie 29:11-13)!

I love each and every single one of you and the Lord loves you even more! Have a great week!

Love, Elder Habel

Flirt to Convert

Bonjour, mboté, and hello to each one of you! I hope life is treating you each very well! You each are wonderful lights in my life! Keep shining bright and highly!

Quarantine this week thankfully wasn't 10 days! We got out early because I started filling much better (thanks to your prayers) and we all tested negative! So we had a couple days to go back out and do the Lord's work in the field! Honestly, it was quite a wonderful miracle! 

God's work is advancing in our paroisse (parish)! One of our friends Sœur Esther came for the first time to church! She really enjoyed it! It is great to see people smile! A funny moment from church was that one of our friends Frère Berthely (he is 19 like Sœur Esther) had need of a Book of Mormon. So I brought one to church to give to him and when I saw him I gave it to him as promised. All was well. Then after turning my back for 2 minutes I turned around and there he was talking with a gigantic smile to Sœur Esther and he very kindly gave her his Book of Mormon, something we were waiting to give her this week! So I guess you can say it's at least somewhat helpful when those you teach apply chapter 14 amongst themselves to flirt to convert. Now as I am writing this I really hope this doesn't turn into a problem haha. 

To close I would really just like to testify God created all things by His Son for us because He loves us (DC 59: 16-21). Think of all the amazing vastness and beauty of nature and this universe. Think of how all this was created for you! For us! This has really given me a desire to learn all I can and admire all of God's beautiful creative masterpieces! 

God loves each of you perfectly and His Son has already paid the price for all our weaknesses, pains, and mistakes because He loves us! May we use continuously with reverence, joy, and humility His loving and healing power of His sacrifice and resurrection! I love every single one of you and I hope you have a very joy-filled week!

Avec amour (With love), Elder Habel

"bonne année"

Bonjour et mboté! Hello to every single one of you!

Like always I'd like to begin by expressing my hope that you each have had some wonderfully joyful experiences this week! Bonne année and Happy New Year to every single one of you!

New Year in Africa is fun! People get dressed up, go to parties, dance, and then to tie it all off they shoot off fireworks and bang random kitchen tools together screaming "bonne année" at the top of their lungs! I'm astonished it's already 2022 and I'm very excited for that which is to come: more miracles, college, family, etc!

Now as some of you might've heard I am in quarantine right now for Covid. I found out this Thursday. Quarantined till next Monday. Not the words a missionary would like to hear but hey, such is life and sometimes life is meant to be a test. So I'll have fun taking my test haha. Time in the apartment is spent by lots of studies and talking...maybe a little bit of napping too haha. It has passed by well already and with Elder Call's and Sindika's cooking, I am sure it will continue to pass along ever so smoothly! 

As for a spiritual thought, I love what the Savior says in Matthew 10:40

"He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me."

May we live our lives after the manner of Christ. Why? Because our Heavenly Father loves His children infinitely and He wants to help them. When we follow Christ's example we let Heavenly Father love, talk, teach and serve His children one by one. Truly God is with us and for us. 

He loves you, Jesus Christ loves you, the Spirit loves you and I am trying my best to love you like them. Have a great year and may you ever feel God's presence in your life and heart.

Avec amour (With love) Elder Habel