The bucket

Hello Everyone!

There once was a man who had two buckets for carrying water. One of the buckets was very solid and no water would ever leak out. The other would lose half of the water by the time the man arrived home. The bucket one day asked the man why he continued to use him because he lost his water. The man then told him to look at his side of the trail and how there were many flowers blooming but not on the other side. Despite the buckets faults he was able to do good. And we can too! No one is perfect but there is good inside each of us. This week I invite you to look for the good inside of yourselves and in others. I know you can find it!

Love Elder Stephens

Sister Missionary

Hi guys,

This week we had a zone conference. It was really good. Elder and Sister Call taught us and it was just awesome. We finished the conference and had lunch then a Sister missionary shows up….(we don’t have any Sister missionaries in Cameroon)….She came to be released from her mission in Benin, Togo, That’s all normal right?... We all rush to greet her. My companion is in the bathroom. When he comes out and she sees him she kind of loudly says “I know you!” and points at him. Not knowing anything he turns pale. She then says a minute later she says “From the MTC”.  Without hesitation my companion points to me and says “he was there too!” Then she looks at me and says” yes, I know him too.” My comp and I are using 200% capacity to remember this Sister. Well she was released and had her camera and was able to show us pictures of us with her, my comp was finally able to remember her. So that was definitely the funniest part of the week. I hope you all have a fabulous week!

Love, Elder Stephens

Preston.stephens@myldsmail.net

Transfers

Hello Everyone!

This week was transfers and not a whole lot happened here isn Doula. One Elder went home and another to Pointe Noir. We are getting a new Elder this week. We also will be getting a visit from President Hamilton of the South Africa area president on Friday. Not much has happened. We taught a lot about family history this week and were even able to send two names to the temple. I was able to see the spirit remind a sister.  She only had the last name but later on she was able to remember. It was such a cool experience.

I love you guys. Have a wonderful week,

Elder Preston Stephens

Preston.stephens@myldsmail.net

Diligent Focused Effort

Diligence, Focus, & Effort

These are the keys for success. We can combine them to “Diligent focused effort” So how do we use this in our lives? Well I’ll give you an example and then you can write me how you applied this in your life if you so chose to. Let’s take the scriptures.

·         When I study the scriptures am I diligent?

·         Do I focus on what I am reading?

·         Do I focus on the details or just read the story unaware of the minor characters?

·         Am I giving my best effort?

·         Am I finding what the Lord wanted me to learn from the story this time?

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week.

Elder Preston Stephens

Preston.stephens@myldsmail.net

Lots of visitors

Hello Everyone,

This week was really good. On Friday I was able to work in the village branch with Elder Odimba. He is from RDC. We’ve been together since Brazzaville but it was the first time we were able to work together. Sunday was awesome. We had a lot of investigators at church. We even had Elder and Sister Call too! Plus someone from South Africa and RDC it was really awesome. The rest of Sunday went really well also. This week I hit 1 year in Cameroon. Pretty crazy! I love you all have a great week.

Elder Stephens

Preston.stephens@myldsmail.net

http://elderstephenscongo.blogspot.com/

Our new mission President and his wife have a page for our mission. You can see what’s going on here:

https://congobrazzavillemission.wordpress.com/

Baptism

Hello Everyone!

This week was really packed with a zone conference, companion exchanges, missionary activities, and we had a little girl in our branch get baptized by her dad! What a crazy week it has been. I think the highlight was the baptism. It was small, it consisted of 12 people with my comp and I. We gave talks, we were the witnesses and we also assisted in her receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It was a wonderful service. Today we played basketball with Elder Call and the zone. It was a super sweet activity! We played for like an hour and a half it was really cool. Well that sums up my week. Love you guys have a wonderful week,

Elder Stephens

preston.stephens@myldsmail.net

Chicken

Hello Everyone,

This week was very cool. On Wednesday my companion and I started to work out at the gym next to our apartment. Wow it’s been a long time since I had a good workout! On Saturday we had a baptism for the New Bell Branch and then we had a leadership meeting. I spent most of that doing my best to translate the meeting into English for Elder Call but one time Elder Call asked me to translate what he said and well I started then half way through I switched into English and everyone started laughing. It was pretty funny but life goes on! On Sunday we had church and I gave a lesson on Missionary work. It went really well. I hope you had a great week. I appreciate all the Birthday wishes.

Love, Elder Stephens

Preston.stephens@myldsmail.net

Pictures:

·         So we go to this place that has chickens. We pick out which one we want and they kill it, de feather it, and then cut it up, & stick it in a bag and give it to us for $5. This was the head.

·         My Moms B Day present