Thursday, December 26, 2019

Week 24 - December 23, 2019 "Merry Christmas"


Merry Christmas everyone! It's fun just saying that because honestly you don't hear it here at all. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. One of my favorite things about Christmas every year has always been the Sunday before Christmas. I love the songs the Choir sings and just the Christmas Spirit that I always feel when I'm there. I was super excited to see how they did it here and listen to their Christmas songs. When we got there I bore my testimony and centered it around Christ's birth so I definitely felt like we got off to a good start. Then the next person got up and started talking and just said nothing about it, the next person nothing, then the Bishop got up... I was like ok here we go, Light the World, Bishop! And then he started talking about Adam and Eve. I was like NOOOOOO hahaha. We had all of these investigators there and we promised we were going to have a Christmas Sunday and it was just not Christmassy at all. But it's all good, just thought it was kinda funny. 

The first week as Zone Leader was super exciting. I honestly just feel like I'm learning so much. One day my companion just tells me I need to prepare a Spiritual Thought for a meeting so then I have to go study some topic and it's just extra reason to study and learn stuff and I really like that. 

Also this week we got to go to Dabou which is like an hour and a half outside of Abidjan and it's more like a village. We have a District out there so we went to do a district Council and that was really fun. This week we also had a Christmas party as a mission and it was super fun. We did a nativity reenactment as a Zone and at the end of it the night before the party my companion decided we needed to sing a song... But it was literally like the end of the night so we didn't know what we could do to sing. My companion really likes this song on my MP3 player, it's called Far Away by National Lights, and so he asked me if I could sing it for the Christmas party in front of everyone. I didn't want to say no; after all it's just another opportunity. So I sang a solo in front of the mission. It may have been painful for people to listen to but I thought it was kinda fun. 

French is definitely the biggest struggle right now but I think I'm pretty hard on myself too. I can teach and talk and my companion says I'm actually pretty good. So I know that I'm getting it but I'm not totally fluent yet. I love being Zone Leader though and getting to know other missionaries and getting to be an example. I love that about it. 

I hope all of you guys have the best week ever. Something I haven't really thought about too much until I got here is the beauty of the manger. When I think about the mission of the Savior and the manger they go hand in hand. Everything he did on this earth was to understand us. he was born in a manger to understand us. He was born in literally the worst of the worst. And because of that he is Wonderful, he truly is the Prince of peace, our Savior our Redeemer... the mighty God. I know that he was born and I know that he lives. I know that there is peace in him and I know that he loves us. I'm grateful for him and for this Christmas Season. I love the Christ.

I love you guys. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas! Thanks for being in this work with me!

Bises,
Elder Freedman



Andrew's Companion Elder Cola from Haiti

There are many more trees and jungle in his new area






They recently opened the first KFC in the Ivory Coast very close to their apartment









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