Cher famille,

Hey howdy hey! How're y'all doing? What's new chez vous?

This week was slower on the teaching side, but great nonetheless. Our biggest highlight was definitely our two baptisms this weekend! It was awesome. I'll get to that in a bit.

During the week, we focused mostly on preparing the kids for baptism. We also taught Celestin. Celestin has really loved the Plan of Salvation. Sadly, he's going to Kpalimé for the summer, so we won't have the opportunity to baptize him anytime soon. If the mission opens up a sector in Kpalimé (a possibility this transfer), then maybe they'll get to baptize him. It was really bittersweet seeing him go, but I know that he has a testimony. He's such a stellar spirit, and I'm going to miss him. I know that he'll get baptized soon! Dieu soit avec toi jusqu'au revoir, Celestin! (:

In temporal news, I made a trip to the legendary King Burger! (: Elder Whitt treated Elders Hammons and Olela to dinner for their stellar lesson feat, and we tagged along. It was soooo goooood! I've had some burgers on the mission, but none were this close to the ones back home! It was definitely some of the best fast food I've had in a while. And they had real, American cheese on their burgers! So good. (:

The kids had their baptismal interviews on Friday, and Noelle and Eli passed! Louise is going to have to wait just a little longer, but that's okay, we'll just keep teaching her. Their parents also are starting to get interested in taking the lessons. Their mom came to the baptismal service, and sacrament meeting!

Our Ward Mission Leader brought a friend to the baptismal service, and we've started teaching him since then. His name is Pierre. He's an older gentleman, and he works as a teacher (common ground! (: ). He's got a problem with the Word of Wisdom (a really bad problem), but Frère Messan, the Ward Mission Leader, was a super friend, and introduced us to him. He came to sacrament meeting, and I know that the Spirit was present. We'll see how we can help him. (:

The baptismal service was definitely my spiritual highlight. It was awesome to have a real baptismal font, that looks like the ones we have back home! It was definitely the best-organized service I've been to. Eli and Noelle were beaming. I baptized Eli first, then Noelle. It's been a while, so I was a little rusty, but the baptisms passed without a hitch! They both came in and out perfectly. Noelle had a close call, with her dress almost not getting submerged, but she made it! It was definitely a powerful spiritual experience. I felt so grateful and humbled at the opportunity that Heavenly Father gave me to help His children enter the waters of baptism. I felt the Spirit, and I knew that the Lord was pleased. That evening, I offered a prayer of thanks to Heavenly Father for answering my prayers.

The confirmations went well. During Eli's confirmation, the Priesthood holder confirming him said "Know that it was not by accident that the missionaries found you. Know that it was not by accident that you have entered the Lord's true church. You were foreordained." That was such a cool blessing. I felt very touched by it.

Taking the sacrament was all the more meaningful in the perspective of baptism. We take the sacrament to renew our baptismal covenants, or promises, with our Heavenly Father. The Spirit was there in abundance.

In Gospel Principles class, I taught about the Sabbath day. A high priest, the same one who confirmed Eli, made an interesting comment: "Sanctifying the Sabbath day is really about sanctifying ourselves". I had never thought of it that way before! It's very true.

Baptism and confirmation, as Elder N'Guessan Bi taught in his talk before the service, are simply the passport and visa for our spiritual voyage. The journey has just begun! This journey is a journey of sanctification. The Lord intends for us, between our check-in at customs and our arrival in His Kingdom, to become saints, and put off the natural man.

I have been baptized and confirmed, I have received my spiritual immigration papers, and now I am mid-air on the greatest journey of my life (indeed, the journey of a life), and I have no regrets. I promise each of you, wherever you may be in your spiritual voyage, to take the next step, and discover who the Lord meant you to be.

May your journey draw you ever closer to the Savior! I love you all, and I hope that you have a great week.

Bonne voyage! (:

Love,
Elder Phillips

​Bonjour ma famille!

I once had a sociology professor tell us that children under the age of 5 have no concept of race. Well, I'm here to tell you that that is false. I cannot begin to count how many little kids and babies have seen me and screamed in terror. Just another part of the missionary job.

This morning some of us missionaries in the zone had some fun playing soccer in the field just next to the Church. I'm still terrible at soccer, but I am getting slightly better (thanks to the mentoring of Elder Joseph), and I had loads of fun. I made a few great passes/assists, and my defensive skills are good. Definitely a fun morning.

This week was Karim, a Muslim observance where the people fast from dawn until dusk. One of our recent converts, a little girl, decided it would be fun to wear a Muslim shawl that the women wear. She also said that she frequents the mosques occasionally. We did teach her a little bit of doctrine to make sure everything was okay, but I personally found it cute.

Kids here love playing marbles. They like soccer, just like the kids in Benin, but they play marbles a lot too. That's just something cool that I noticed.

The weather is actually really cold nowadays, because of the rain. I sleep with a hoodie on most nights. 

Elders Hammons and Olela set the goal to teach over 30 lessons this week. They worked non-stop, and they made it! Everyone in the zone was celebrating and congratulating them Saturday night, and Elder Whitt, our zone leader, is planning on taking them out to King Burger for their treat.

We have one investigator, Cecille, who is the coolest person ever. She and her husband are blocked from baptism by the marriage/dowry thing, so it's a little discouraging for them, but she's still super positive. She speaks very limited French, but in the past 4 months, since the missionaries have found her, she has rapidly developed her French skills. She can even read the Book of Mormon very slowly. We have to explain it to her, but she's doing great, and she asks lots of good questions. She gave me a name in Evé, the local dialect here. My name is "Ehlom," which means "himself". I like it! My comp's name is "Dodji," which means "courage".

In other news, our sector is doing okay. We're gonna try and blitz to baptize Eli, Noelle, and Louise this Saturday. Pray that the baptisms will hold! We also fixed a date with Islène, a teenage boy, who is incredibly intelligent, and reads the Book of Mormon very well. We fixed a date for Celestin to be baptized this Saturday, but there's still some stuff we have to teach him, so we're going to push that back a little bit. However, in extending the baptismal invitation, he gave the best response, ever: "Well, that's a little soon, but I've got nothing better to do, so why not?" Haha, he's great, I love him. We're still not going as fast as I want to, in fact a little slower, which is driving me insane, but I have faith that it'll all work out.

So, confession time, for my entire mission, I have struggled with being exactly on time. Exactly on time for personal study, language study, even going to bed. Almost always I've been within a 5 or 10 minute range, but never exactly on time. I've hit exactly on time every now and then, but never consistently.
One night this week, I just prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help me regain my zeal, and help me be exactly obedient. I woke up the next morning 15 minutes early, and thought "Well, I've got nothing better to do but get up and go to work". Because of that, I was finally able to hit personal study exactly on time, and that made all the difference in how my day went. The Spirit was there in so much more abundance, and it stayed with me. I could feel the Lord's pleasure, and it helped me stay cool and calm throughout the rest of the day. The day afterwards, the same thing happened. It's become a habit now: wake up before 6am, not at 6am, and the rest of the day just falls into place. It's incredible! The Lord can and does answer prayers.

On Saturday, I finished reading the Book of Mormon in French (for either the second or third time, I can't remember). I read the Book of Mormon during personal study, and during language study. In personal study, I read silently, and in language study I read out loud to help me with my pronunciation. During language study, I landed on Moroni 10, and reading Moroni's promise (verses 3 to 5) out loud was so much more powerful. I totally recommend trying it. I got down on my knees and prayed, and asked the Lord if the Book of Mormon is true. The answer was, and is, YES! It's true. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, a second witness to the divinity of Jesus Christ, and a proof that God still loves His children, and reaches out to them in love. No one can tear that testimony from me, it's mine forever, and the devil's going to have to pry it from my cold, dead hands if he wants me to deny what I know. I know, as surely as you know that you are reading this letter, that the Book of Mormon is true. I invite you all to read it, ponder its message, and pray to know if its true. No matter what comes my way, I will keep walking, preaching the Savior's Gospel, with this book and the Bible hand in hand, ready to show the world that God loves and will always love His children.

I love you all so much. Have a fantastic week, y'all! Happy belated Father's day, Dad! You're the best! (:

Tout mon amour,
Elder Phillips

Cher famille,

We were on our way to a rendez-vous, and there was a massive pond in our way that we couldn't get around. We stepped into water that was up to our waists, and we trudged through the swamp water. My companion cried for help, and I turned to see a snake swimming towards him in the water...

Okay, just kidding, haha, Attiegou is not that African. But seriously, I am in love with this town. Here are just a couple of "I'm in Africa now" moments I've had this week:
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- There are these cool/creepy flying insects that swarm lights in the evening. Freaky, but cool.
- We found a patch of our sector that is seriously village. It's tall grass, large ponds, and little huts. Maybe not legit village, but still, this town is awesome.
- We had about three massive Noah's Ark rainstorms this week. One of them happened during a zone meeting, so we were trapped inside the church for a while. The second happened while me and my companion were out proselyting. We stayed inside a member's house for several minutes, doors closed, in a small one-room home lit only by flashlights and cell phones. Afterwards, when the rain was tolerable, we trodded and sludged our way back home. When it rains, the red earth turns into slick clay. It's slippery, fun, sometimes annoying, and epic. The third one happened after church.
- After a rainstorm, bacteria/fungus/stuff grows in the ponds leftover from the rain. When the water evaporates, the bacteria mixes with the red clay, making this epic scarlet/deep green mix on the ground. It looks so cool.
- Crossing a rain pond using bricks as stepping stones.
- To avoid muddy roads, walking on a short brick wall, road on my left, corn field on my right.
- Tasting baobab. There is a member that makes it, and it's delicious! I love it! (:
- Going to the Marché at Kodjaviakopé. It's the Togo equivalent of Benin's Marché Tokpa, and it's so much better. The people are comparatively nicer, things are much more calm, the prices are much more cheaper, there is less yovo-price-jacking, and there is a better access of legit African souvenirs. I love it!
- Walking to our last teaching appointment of the day, after nightfall, we were walking with a member along a road, and in the distance, I see a large pond in the road. Then, of all things, I hear a deep chorus of croaking. Like, the croaking you hear on something like Planet Earth. In my head, I think "No way." That's right, they were bullfrogs. I didn't see them, but for a good two minutes, and again on the way back home, I heard an epic bullfrog croaking soundtrack. Totally made my day.

The Togo adjustment is going better. I'm still helpless when it comes to the sector, but I think I'm getting my feel for the life here in Togo. I'm growing to love it more and more, and each day is its little adventure.

Eli, Noelle, and Louise all have their dates fixed for the 25 June. Also, I mixed up Celestin's situation. The patron of his school is actually officially too old to fund his school, so he is now officially free to join whatever church he wants. He came to church for the first time yesterday, and he loved it. We're going to order a Braille Book of Mormon for him, and we plan on fixing his baptismal date for the 25 June as well. We also plan on fixing a baptismal date for Philomenne and Brigitte, the wife and daughter of a member.

The sector did improve, from a numbers standpoint, just a little bit this week. Little by little.

Me and my companion, well...

Haha, we're doing a lot better. The key was lots of prayer, and becoming a goofball. It's amazing how much prayer and humor improve things. Don't get me wrong, we still have spats every now and then, and I still get frustrated with him, maybe once a day. There are still things that we need to improve, things I don't like, and plenty of storms down the road, but I feel like we are better than we were at the beginning. Let's hope and pray that it stays that way. I actually have grown to love Elder N'Guessan Bi a lot. During a rainstorm, trudging through the mud, we just talked a little bit about our families. Nothing too extraordinary, but it was special for me. Building relationships, block by block.

Sacrament meeting in a legitimate, Church building was awesome. The Spirit was more tangible. The Attiegou ward is much more organized, comparatively speaking. We aren't getting any contacts from members, which is hard, but I feel that if we work hard and earn their trust, we'll start changing things. There is a member who is trying to learn piano, so she gets top piano priority in sacrament meeting, but if she doesn't know a hymn, I hop in and play it. The Attiegou piano is so much nicer than the keyboard at Akpakpa.

If there is a spiritual thought for this week, I would say it would be becoming a daily Christian. In the third hour of church, we talked about "True Greatness," and during a group discussion, we came to the conclusion that acts of selfless service make us truly great, and that true greatness is charity. One member said that true greatness, as demonstrated by the Good Samaritan, is focusing on people more than obligations. I really liked that, and I'm going to try to apply that more in my daily life. It all starts with prayer, which has been such a big help to me this week. Pray to the Lord, and He will show compassion to you and to others (see Ether 1). People are the most important things in life.

I love you all. Have a super epic week, stay together, and know that I love y'all soooo much!

Mawu ni fomi (God bless you),
Elder Phillips

​Bonjour ma famille!

I say goodbye to converts, members and amis. I pack my bags. We're picked up by the Togo Assistants. We drive away from the apartment that I've lived in for nine months, we drive down the road I've walked hundreds of times, and we drive across Nouveau Pont, crossing the Lagoon, and I say goodbye to Akpakpa.

The rest of the week is kind of a shmorgasbord of experiences and adventures, so this'll be a bit jumbled. Tuesday, we hung out at the Benin Bureau for a little bit. The Togo Assistants treated us to Festival des Glaces, which is a nice restaurant that makes legitimate fast food. It was soooooo good. Confession, I did fall on my no-soda diet, but it's all good, repentance works. (:

We then road-tripped West Africa. That was probably the most fun I've had on my mission. It was a day for me to take a break from the work of salvation, and just enjoy this place. We drove past Ouidah, and from thereon out I saw a ton of new terrain. It was hours of small villages, tall trees in the distance, green shrubbery and rivers surrounding us, and eventually we were running alongside the Gulf of Guinea. This place is gorgeous. It was the West Africa I imagined in a safari or something. Heavenly Father has made a beautiful planet.

Togo is a beautiful country! It's not too urban, like Cotonou, and the actual city-like parts are well organized and relatively clean. By the end of the road-trip, we dropped off Elder Kola in his new sector, then did a u-turn for mine. According to Elder Jorgensen, we were only a mile away from Ghana. We seriously road-tripped West Africa. It was awesome. It was like our family roadtrips, minus the family, but plus on the roadtrip. I wish y'all could've been there, but it was still sufficiently fun. Definitely an "I Lived" moment, and a great way to finish being 18.

We arrived in Attiegou that evening. I met my companion, Elder N'Guessan Bi, and then we joined up with Elders Hammons and Oléla for a Family Home evening. I ended up vomiting the food they gave us, but it was still delicious! (:

Elder N'Guessan Bi is from Cote d'Ivoire, he's been out for about 18 months. Elder Hammons is from Payson, Utah, and has been on the mission for about 20 months. Elder Oléla is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and he's been out here for around 5 months. Our apartment is a solid group of guys, and we have a blast.

For my 19th birthday, we didn't quite have the time to do a legit party, which is sad, but oh well. I got to walk around and get to know my sector. It's a completely different ballpark out here, folks. Togo is much less urban than Cotonou. It is exactly what I imagined Africa being. The roads are red earth and uneven, like you're on a hike. The streets are much more calm, the shops on the side of the road fewer, and the houses smaller. One finds an occasional patch of corn.
Imagine Adventureland, mixed with Indiana Jones, mixed with Freetown. That's Attiegou. It is such a sweet, awesome town. I have been taking pics like crazy. No Benin pics compare to this place. It's a lot more physically strenous, but it's so much fun. It's an adventure. (:

Our apartment isn't an apartment, it's a small house, and it's beautiful. There is legit grass in our front yard, and it's beautiful! I love our new house. (:

The ward of Attiegou shares the stake center with other wards (Hedzranawoé, Kegué, Kélégougan, etc), and we actually teach some of our amis at the chapel, so we run into other missionaries in our zone a lot more frequently. The Togo Assistants are in our zone, our zone leader is Elder Whitt, who was in Elder Hansen's MTC group, as is Elder Joseph. There are some of my Benin friends, like Elders Kiala and Ouizan Bi, and some other new faces too. It's a great zone, from what I see. I like it.

Our sector, specifically our sector, has a reputation for being the Akpakpa of Togo. I personally feel like it's because the missionaries before us weren't working as hard as they could. My companion is setting a pace that's way too slow for me. I'm internally screaming. Y'all know me, I like running like a wild horse, going at reckless speeds. Maybe the slower pace will be healthy, but for now I feel like I'm not doing all that I could be doing. It's like you said, Dad, the work will go on at the Lord's pace, not ours, we just need to put in our efforts. But I'm still banging my head against the walls, hoping for a change in pace. Or a new companion in 6 weeks, whichever comes first.

We've got 3 amis, all kids between the age of 9 and 13, with a baptismal date fixed for the 25 of June. They're named Eli, Louise, and Noelle. They're awesome, and we get along great. We've also got a really cool, awesoe ami named Celestin. He's in his 20s, and he loves the Church. He has a problem with his eyes, the pupils are extremely dialated, so he's blind in one eye, and sees with very limited vision in the other one. He can see the forms of things pretty well, so he sees us, but he can't read. Here's the catch: he goes to a special school that gives him training to read and write, and the school is funded by a Baptist pastor. The pastor refuses to let Celestin continue in the school if he joins the church, so he's blocked in progression right now. He can't come to church, but he excels really well in the lessons. The pastor is old, and won't be able to fund the school for much longer, so with time we're expecting Celestin to be baptized. He's a sweet, genuine guy, and I like him a lot. 

Here in Togo, the government accepts traditional marriage as sufficient for a civil marriage, so it is much easier for couples to get married. Relatively. There is no searching for government papers, they just have to get the parents of the wife to sign a paper saying that they're married. However, for the dowry, parents can often ask for very ridiculous expensive random stuff, like 20 pagnes, or a box of cigars, or a smoked fish. It's still a financial burden to get married, but it's more convenient, from a paperwork standpoint.

We had stake conference at the Palais de Congrès of Togo this week, which was super. I got to catch up with a lot of Benin buddies, and meet a lot of cool new faces. I caught up with Elder Herring, my MTC comp! It was so great to see him, we were both super stoked about it.  Stake conference was different here than from Benin. It felt a lot more casual. Maybe because I wasn't here for the announcements, or Benin had just gotten a stake, but it was cool to see the differences. The people here seem to be a lot more humble here, which I like.

The poverty is a lot more striking. Togo is the 9th poorest country in the world. But interestingly enough, the people aren’t bothered by their poverty. They just accept it as a fact of life and keep going.

I'm having more culture shock going from Benin to Togo than I had going from the USA to Benin. It's such a weird change. Jorgy told me that it would take about a week to get used to. I am doing better now. I don't have the sector mastered yet, which is frustrating, but nothing I get down about.

My companion is... an interesting guy. Our honeymoon period lasted until about Saturday. We have companionship inventory every night, which I like and dislike all at once. He lets the littlest things bug him, which is a curse, but he is very open and communicative, which I like; He just gets mad a lot.(;

I do take it in stride a lot better. My skin's a lot tougher, and I don't spend my time pouting too much. Just pray that I'll be passive about the unimportant things, courageous about the important stuff, and that I may have the wisdom to know when to sit down, and when to fight back.

Monday evening, back in Akpakpa, we were in a Family Home Evening, and one of the members had texted Elder Dakouri telling him that I was transferred. He called, and I got to talk with him. It was such an awesome conversation. He's happy to be home, he's having a tough time finding a job, but he doesn't let that get him down. He asked me how the sector was doing (he was super stoked to learn that the Johnsons were getting married), and he asked me about the challenges I was facing. He was completely loving and encouraging. After that conversation, I totally let go of any bad feelings, regret, or sadness I had about my time with Dakouri. I love that guy so much.

In listening to John Bytheway's talk, I thought a lot this week about Matthew 5:46-48. I think it could be appropriately modified to say "If ye are only happy in your comfort zone, what reward have ye?...Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." Or, as they say, "There is little growth in the comfort zone. There is little comfort in the growth zone." This could be applied to our relationships with others. If we loved others only when times were easy or good, then we'd never develop a greater capacity to love, would we? If happiness was based only on what happened to us, then we'd only be happy in the happy times. If we were not asked to step out of our shell and try a new one every now and then, we would stay cramped up.

During stake conference, the first speaker talked about the love of God. She didn't say anything extraordinary or new, but as I was taking notes, the Spirit hit me hard, and I felt like Heavenly Father was putting His arm around my shoulder. I felt that He was very aware of me, lowly me, in a room of thousands of Latter-day Saints. It was a humbling experience. I cried. I was motivated to step up, pray for grace, and spread that love to the people I get to serve.

I know that charity is the pure love of Christ. Feeling God's love leads us to love others like He loves us, and that leads us to feel more completely God's love for us. It is the best cycle in the world.

Here's to a week full of adventures and charity!

Love,
Elder Phillips

P.S. The connection at the cyber is great, but their software is out of date. Therefore, all the pics I took this week can't be uploaded. Bleh. So no photos this week, despite the fact that they're awesome!!!!! Seriously, my Benin photos don't even compare, Togo is significantly more photogenic than Benin. I will take photos this week on a different card, and see how that goes.