Bonjour, ma famille!

Average Transfer Calls:

​Us to Sister Missionaries: You're transferred to Togo.
Sisters: BEST! DAY! EVER!

Us to Elders: You're transferred to Togo
Elders: wellforgivemefornotleapingforjoybadbackyouknow

Haha, yes, we had transfer planning and calls yesterday. There's always weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, but there's also a lot of happy missionaries, and that makes me happy. Normally, President plans out the transfer, and he invites us into his office Saturday afternoon to look at it, and maybe make a few changes. I'm always amazed at how inspired President Morin is when it comes to transfers, he's very creative, and often I find myself thinking "Wow, I never would've thought of that, that's such a good idea!" The Lord definitely inspires his servants with the revelation necessary to fulfill their callings.

This upcoming week will be transfer week, which is honestly very tiring. But, the transfer in Togo is super huge, so President said that if we get the Benin side done quickly, we maybe will get the chance to go to Togo and help out for a couple of days, which would be awesome! In all cases, keep us in your prayers, that we'll be safe and protected, and that we'll get everything accomplished effectively, and that we'll have the strength and stamina to keep going.

During Tuesday and Wednesday, we had a split with the Cadjehoun zone leader and his companion, Elders Kola and Ballie. Elder Kola's an old friend of mine from Akpakpa, so it was good to be with him again. During the split, we had to go pick up Brother Isaac, a member from Ghana, who was visiting Benin to look at possible sites for a distribution center here in Benin, which would really help the members out. We got to drive him around a bit, and show him a few buildings in Benin. He's a super nice guy, and it was great to learn a little bit about the Church's temporal affairs.

Yesterday, we had a very unique opportunity.

The Church here in Benin has a group in Hillacondji, near the Togo/Benin border. Because it's so far out and we don't have enough missionaries in this mission, the members are responsible for teaching amis. These amis can't be baptized unless they have been taught by the missionaries and received a baptismal interview, so President Morin asked us to go with President Briga, the first counselor in the mission presidency, to review the teachings with these amis, and have President Briga do the interviews. We ended up working with two couples and the husband of a member (Felix & Marcelline, Bryce & Gloria, and Patrice). These people were super humble, warm, and welcoming, and were very open to the Gospel. They all passed their baptismal interviews, and we spend six hours teaching and interviewing them all. We had to leave a little bit early to plan the transfer with President, and so we asked the member organizing the group how many more people were left, and he said at least six youth. It really seems like Hillacondji is an area bursting and ready for the Gospel. It was such a cool experience to work with these wonderful people in this unique part of the world.

We rushed back to Cotonou to plan with President. While waiting for him, a random yovo walked into the bureau, without a badge. I thought for a second that he was a missionary, but I had never seen him before, so I was confused for a second, but then he introduced himself as ex-Elder Jenkins! He was visiting converts in Togo and Benin, and he decided to stay for stake conference this weekend. I felt so stoked and privileged to meet one of my mission heroes, and I took a second to thank him for his blog, his work in the Akpakpa area book, and his great example. I'm super lucky I got to meet one of the mission legends. (:

Today, we went to stake conference, and it was very inspiring. Two Area Seventies came, Elders Dekaye and Guei, from Cote d'Ivoire. The messages were inspired and well-presented. This was the last stake conference for President and Soeur Morin, and I suppose it was mine as well. That's a weird thought that hasn't quite registered in my head yet, but is still disconcerting, in a happy, au revoir type of way. It was great to see most of my friends and converts from Benin there, and I felt like the Lord is pleased with the work I've done.

I'm going to be staying in Cocotomey as Assistant for my last transfer (six weeks). I don't quite know what to think about this idea, but I feel happy, and ready to give it my all in the time that is left. Towards the end of the week, I felt the Lord give me a push of energy, and I feel a little bit more rigour in my work. I want to finish strong. I'm super happy to be working with Elder N'Guessan, my companion. He was the dark horse candidate for being my last companion, but we get along super well, he's taught me a lot, and we're both happy together. I'm glad I get to work with him.

I feel like these last six weeks are going to be the best, and that I'm going to have a happy ending. I love you all. I'll try to find more time to write y'all during the week. Have a wonderful week! (:

Love,
Elder Brian H. Phillips

"Travailler comme c'est votre premier jour, témoigner comme c'est votre dernier."

Bonjour ma famille!

This week, we saw a lot of miracles and tender mercies.

Tuesday afternoon, we were driving, exploring the limits of our sector, and we started to hear a thudding sound coming from our tires. We got out, and lo and behold, our tire had been stabbed. In the less developed parts of Benin, people leave their trash in the streets, and some lady left her high-heeled shoe in the middle of the road. And then the shoe ended up sticking out of our tire. Haha, we just had to laugh and change the tire. You know what they say, a woman is as dangerous as her shoe. (;

On Wednesday, we did a split with the Cocotomey zone leaders. It was super convenient, because we're in the same apartment. I got to work with Elder Linderman, who's a young American in his first transfer as a zone leader, and he's a stud. We had a great time, and got a lot of work done. Marlene loved church, and she had a lot of intelligent questions, and she came back today! How cool is that?

Edmond and Veronique are doing okay. They want to be baptized, they're just going through a few "problemes conjugales," so everyone feels it best to push the baptism back a little bit. On top of that, Veronique doesn't know how to speak French, so we need to find someone that can help us translate into Fon. Yovo si fon be bedek bedek. (;

You know, at the beginning of my mission, I was always disappointed whenever investigators push back their baptismal date, but now, I'm actually pretty content. It just means that the person needs a little bit more time to prepare, they understand the importance of baptism, and that they will be strong in the Gospel after they're baptized. Keep them in their prayers, and pray that we'll be able to help them.

I received the best phone call ever last night. My convert, Frere Bertrand, called me, and he informed me that his whole family has just returned from Ghana, recently sealed at the temple. I was jumping around for a good minute! I was so, so, so very happy. I can't begin to describe how happy I am. For us missionaries, our converts going to the temple is the ultimate "it-was-all-worth-it" you can get. Today, we passed by the Akpakpa branch building, and I got to say hi to a lot more old friends, like Nathan, Urvon, and Mariano. Mariano, his wife, Yvette, and their children, were sealed in the temple as well! That just added to my happiness! I know that the temple is a holy place, and that families can be together forever.

Thursday morning, I got to go to immigration to get my visa renewed. It's been a while since I've been to immigration, and I got to drive the mission's "bus," a Toyota Hiace, manual drive. I was scared to drive it, because it's a longer vehicle, but it was actually really fun, and a very smooth ride.

That evening, we tried to go out to see Edmond. There's been a lot of rain in Benin recently, and there's a lot of sand around Edmond's house (it's the village), ergo, the driving conditions were not too favourable. Edmond was not home, so we started to leave, and I got the truck stuck in some clay. Well, we tried 4x4, people joining us to push, shoveling out some sand, jacking up the wheel and putting bricks underneath, but the tire just got deeper and deeper with every try.

A truck passed by. We tried to flag it down, but it kept going.

As we got ready to give it another try, I had the idea to invite everyone to join me for a quick prayer. I know that prayer is powerful, and I figured maybe we could try to teach the people helping us about the power of prayer. In my prayer, I asked that Heavenly Father would send His angels to help us get the truck out.

And....

We were still stuck.

Well, we kept trying and trying, and then the same truck that passed us by came back from the other direction. The lady driving rolled down her window and said that she had sent for a machine to come get us out. We said thank you, and she kept going.

Night had fallen, and everyone was tired, and I was ready to give up.

Then, in the distance, I saw bright lights, slowly marching towards us. It felt like something out of a movie. As the lights got closer to us, and we realized what was coming towards us, three successive thoughts entered my mind:

"Oh wow, that's a bulldozer!" [our prayers were answered! This is so cool! I'm gonna put this in my email home!]
"Oh wow, that's a bulldozer!" [well, that was the last thing I expected to come to our rescue]
"Oh wow, that's a bulldozer!" [these people are going to ask for sooooo much money that we don't have!]

Two men hopped off of the bulldozer, shook our hands, pulled out a large chain, hooked us to the bulldozer, and pulled us out like one of those AFV videos of people yanking out teeth.

It was super cool! As we got out to thank them, we asked if they'd like to be paid. They called their boss (who was actually the woman that passed us by), and asked about the money. She told them to refuse the money. We expressed our sheer gratitude as best as we could. She simply stated that she had seen us in trouble, had assumed that we were missionaries because of how we were dressed and my nationality, and had sent some of her workers with their bulldozer to get us out, because she's a Christian. We thanked her so much, and she said "No, thank the Lord."

I don't quite know how to express how awe-struck and amazed I am. Does Heavenly Father love us so much, to the point that He responds very literally to prayers, even in sending a bulldozer? Yes, Heavenly Father sure does answer prayers. Very, very, very much so. In magnificent and mighty ways. So, if you find your prayers seem to be unanswered, don't worry, they will be; just let the angels take their time to put on some shoes and hop in their bulldozer. (:

Well, that's all I've got for this week. I love y'all! I hope y'all have a wonderful week!

Love,
Elder Brian H. Phillips

"Travailler comme c'est votre premier jour, témoigner comme c'est votre dernier."

​​Joyeux Paques, ma famille!

Hey everyone, happy Easter. This week was a rollercoaster, and I love rollercoasters! (:

On Monday, we helped the Calavi zone with their activity at Ouidah. It was super fun.

During the week, we had zone conferences here in Benin. Zone conferences are to missionaries what ice cream tubs are to the belly: wonderful! (; Spiritually speaking, I had three tubs of ice cream, as opposed to one. As can be expected to eating three tubs of ice cream, it was tiring, but oh so delicious! (:  I taught a lesson on fixing baptismal dates. It's an oft-repeated subject in zone conferences, so I tried to be creative. The key to any good lesson is the Spirit and creativity! (: My companion talked about inviting friends to church, the zone leaders talked about teaching the plan of salvation, Soeur Morin talked about mango fly worms (hahaha, guess who inspired that health informational?), and faith. President talked about the new schedule, as well as Doctrine and Covenants 93, talking about the Savior, His glory, and our missions. I really, really enjoyed it, and I learned something new at each zone conference.

As I said earlier, we were ridiculously tired out from zone conferences. We went out every afternoon after the conferences (when not taken by mission business), but the work progressed pretty slow nonetheless. One particular occasional difficulty for missionary work here in West Africa is that people see nicely dressed young missionaries, and they think that our message is equivalent with money, therefore they follow the lessons because they think there is some temporal perk or gain. Thankfully, these investigators don't end up being baptised without a change in mentality, but unfortunately, because we're in a truck, we're finding a lot more of these investigators. We're seeking more earnestly for those who are prepared by the Lord for His Gospel.

In an otherwise slow week, we got super duper good news yesterday: Edmond and Veronique got married!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Missionaries aren't allowed to go to weddings, so we got a phone call from the Branch President, who worked very hard to get this couple married. Me and Elder N'Guessan went crazy! I can't describe how happy we were, I haven't been that ecstatic and energetic in a long, long time. For unmarried couples here in Benin, a civil marriage symbolises all of the work they've put into repentance. We bought them a meter of pagne (pagne in West Africa is a typical gift to newlywed couples).

Today, Easter Sunday, was golden. Sacrament meeting was great. Edmond's family, as well as Marlene and a new ami, came to church. While driving, I saw very many people dressed in boombas and pagne, and I knew that they were all going to Church, and it reminded me that I'm living among and serving a people who love God very much. I found out that Damien, Soeur Christine's son, received his mission call, and he's assigned to labor in the Cape Coast Ghana Mission, so that pumped me up. We had a great meeting with President about an idea we had that could possibly change the mission. President, among other things, said this little gem: "I know that when we say 'he's dead' that people on the other side are pretty irked, because they're quite, in fact, living," and that we can ask our Heavenly Father in prayer for news about our loved ones. I now look at the Plan of Salvation slightly differently. (:

Over the course of my mission, Jesus Christ has become a very real person for me. I believe that every person has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and I've come to know my Savior so very personally over these past few years. Easter and the sacrament mean a lot more to me, and I understand the Lord's Plan for each one of us better than I did a year ago. Because of Him, we will all overcome the grave, and we can all receive a remission of our sins. As we apply His Gospel in our lives, we will draw closer and closer to Him, and, little by little, we shall find that His character was inside us all along.  I know and believe that Jesus Christ is our Savior, Redeemer, Best Friend, and Eldest Brother. I know and believe that He was risen from the tomb on the third day, and that He lives! I know and believe that His Plan for our happiness is real, and that His Gospel brings us joy. I know and believe that families can be together forever, that the miracle of physical and spiritual healing is possible, and that we shall all be amazed by His "merits, mercy, and grace" at the Judgement bar. I love my Savior. He is a Powerful Master. I leave you all my testimony, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Have a wonderful week, y'all! Happy Easter! love y'all so much! (:

Love,
Elder Brian H. Phillips

"Travailler comme c'est votre premier jour, témoigner comme c'est votre dernier."

Bonjour ma famille, et bonne Dimanche des Rameaux!

Hi everyone! I hope that your week has been wonderful, and your Sunday has been splendid. Today is Palm Sunday, and we've seen multiple people walking around with palm leaves to celebrate, which I find very cool. The Beninois and Togolais are very God-loving people, and I love serving them. (:

Quotes of the week:

• *in a casual, joking conversation about my driving* Elder Phillips: Don't worry President, we're protected by angels when we drive. President Morin: Yes, but we shouldn't abuse angels!
• *President calling a missionary from Madagascar* President Morin: Hello Elder Ranaivo...arisoa? I still have a tough time mastering the Malagasy names. But to be fair, President Morin is a lot easier to say than Elder Ranaivoarisoa.
• *Elder Linderman giving a talk in church about prayer* Elder Linderman: It's true that you could pray for a new moto, but God might say "Nah, he doesn't need that, I'll just give him a child or something".

Well, apparently walking large distances after living in a truck for multiple weeks does a number on your immune system, and that's what happened. On Monday, we went to the market to get food, and I felt pretty under-the-weather, and then my body hit its wall, and we had to take Tuesday and Wednesday off because of my cold. It's important to listen to your body, and rest when you need to rest. Had I tried to work through that, I would have gotten even more sick, and that's no good for the greater good. While resting, I did a lot of studying, pondering, meditating, and reflection.

And oh, how good it felt to hit the ground running once again! I love missionary work, it's become perhaps my biggest passion, and I'm loving every minute of it out here.

We received a contact from a member, and he said he knew where the church was, so we decided to make that the meeting point for our first rendez-vous. Well, as it turns out, he was talking about the stake center in Menontin, not the local chapel in Cocotomey, so once we had that confusion cleared up, the poor guy had to u-turn all the way to Cocotomey again. Nevertheless, Dieudonne (the contact) was super happy to meet with us, and he posed a lot of solid questions. We talked about the Plan of Salvation, and at one point, we explained that our Heavenly Father has a body of flesh and bones, and that we, His spirit children, came to this earth to receive a physical body, gain experiences, and to become like Him, and Dieudonne asked "Well, if we came here to become like Heavenly Father, then at one point was Heavenly Father like us?" Haha, I've never had an ami ask that question before, so that was a cool experience.

Today, an investigator that we haven't even taught yet, who's only gotten a brochure, came to church.
Edmond and his family, as well as Narcisse and his family, are planning on joining the group marriage this Saturday. Civil marriage is really expensive for many people here in Benin, and a prerequisite for baptism is that couples who live together must be married civilly or find an alternative living situation. The stake here occasionally organizes group marriages, which permits lower prices for the marriage, less confusion in paperwork, group support, and multiple families ready for baptism. We're really blessed to help out these families. Keep them in your prayers! (:

Normally, President Morin doesn't want us to run too many errands, he wants us to develop a model sector, but we had to go help him with a few errands yesterday. I learned quite a bit, and I had some great spiritual experiences. At one point, President said something that I love. I don't have the exact wording, but it went something along the lines of this:
"The adversary, the destroyer, wishes to destroy things. If there is a relationship in trouble, he tries to destroy it and convince us that it is past saving; The Savior encourages us to never give up, to always try our best to make the most of a difficult situation."

I testify that our Savior, Jesus Christ, is the Messiah. He can heal us physically, mentally, and spiritually. He, with His divine perspective, never has and never will see us as a lost cause. In His infinite wisdom and mercy, He invested His whole life, death, resurrection, work, and glory in each of us. As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland has said, "However late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines," (General Conference, April 2012). As Lehi testified, "Redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth," (2 Nephi 2:6). He truly is Wonderful, a Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace (see Isaiah 9:6). I know it to be true!

I love you all, and I wish you a very wonderful Holy Week!

All my love,
Elder Brian H. Phillips

P.S. Also, forgot to mention, Elders Motshikana and Linderman found a natural reserve in their sector. Apparently, it's infested with crocodiles, snakes, and even hippopotamuses. They stayed clear away from it, but apparently there are people that live in the reserve! Wow, that's insane!  Well, you know what they say, "People would do most anything for lower mortgage rates these days." Ba-dum-psh! (;  Sorry, that was a terrible joke.

​Bonjour et bonne conference, ma famille!

This week was pretty great.

Our dear truck had to go in to get serviced at Toyota, so we spent a couple days without the truck, and man is our sector big! We walked a whole hour just to get to one family! Haha, you learn to appreciate what you don't have. (: Walking for a couple of days was tiring, but a great experience. We got the car back, squeaky clean and good as new, on Friday, and boy oh boy did we enjoy the drive home. It was the smoothest ride ever. (:

Throughout Wednesday evening and all of Thursday, we did a split with the Finagnon zone leaders, Elders Wride and Dorsey. They're two upstanding young elders, who are young and are going to accomplish a lot of great things in their zone. The new policy is that all four elders work in the model sector for splits (in this case, ours), and so I worked with Elder Dorsey in one corner of our sector. He's a great guy, and we had a lot of fun, and got a lot of work done. In the morning, we went finding, and I just let him lead the way, and he actually received inspiration necessary to make the right turns, and we found six new amis. I was very impressed with Elder Dorsey! Since we were lacking the truck, we took a bus (here, what we call a "bus" is a passenger van) to Gbojde, the outskirts of our sector, and did some good finding. We also taught Marnen, the investigator I mentioned last week, and it turns out that she and her sister had already received some missionary lessons, but didn't really understand or remember, so we started from square one, and taught the Plan of Salvation. I've got faith that Marnen will progress very well. In all, a great split with the zone leaders, and we're expecting good things to come from their sector. (:

Yesterday, we taught a new ami, who seemed interested in the Restoration. In the afternoon, my companion was feeling sick, so we stayed in for the afternoon, and I got in some extra study. I was inspired with a new way to look at repentance: imagine ourselves as blocks of marble, fresh from the quarry. The Lord is the mason, and His work and glory is to carve us in His image. The only condition upon which the plan of salvation can be made manifest in our lives is faith in Jesus Christ and sincere repentance; The Lord will not carve us if we don't want to. We are all statues in progress. Some may be un-carved here or there, thus looking ugly or unfinished. We should not judge another statue based on how it is carved differently from us, because we too have some chunks that need chipping away, but sooner or later we must all abandon our chunks, let the load fall away at the Master's feet, and we will discover the person inside each of us that was there all along, with His image graven upon our countenance. I love scripture study and receiving revelation! (:

My highlight of the week was today. We had the blessing to go see general conference this morning (the Saturday Afternoon session). It was so wonderful to listen to the speakers, and receive revelation for my life. I loved Elder Hales's talk about becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ, and I loved when Elder Sabin said "If I can't walk, I'll run," and I applied that as an end-of-mission strategy. I found Elder Ballard's talk very practical, and I'm taking his challenge! Another great blessing I had was that I got to see some good old friends from the Akpakpa branch at the broadcast of the general conference. I got to see Soeur Christine, Dorcas, Damien, Bertrand, Delphine, President Dagnisso, and several other familiar faces. Damien and Damienne have put in their mission papers, Salvador is going to put them in next week, Henri is baptized, and Bertrand and Delphine are going to the temple this month. There are special moments that just make a missionary burst with joy, and today was one of them.

Well, I hope that y'all have a wonderful week! I love you all, and I wish you the best during Spring Break, and wherever you may be called to go! Keep moving forward!

Avec tout mon amour,
Elder Brian H. Phillips
"Travailler comme c'est votre premier jour, témoigner comme c'est votre dernier."

P.S. I forgot this experience!  The branch president and his wife accompanied us to teach Edmond and his wife. It was such a great lesson! We're lucky to have a very awesome branch president, President Komi. He's got a solid testimony. The stake has announced a group marriage for all couples who want to be baptized, and that is a life-saver! We referred the branch president to three families we're working with (Famille Edmond, Famille Narcisse, and Famille Toussaint), and he's working hard to get their marriages accomplished. It's a miracle! Please keep these and other families in your prayers as we work towards the goal of baptism. Wish us luck! (: