Sign Language

February 4, 2019

A literal school of children following us!!

Short email this week but just wanted to tell y'all about a cool experience this week! Thursday night we were coming back from a rendevous that fell through and were trying to figure out what to do before we went back home when we saw this inactive member that we have been trying to get to come to church ever since I got here. Well he saw us before we could stop him so he started walking as fast as he could in the other direction but we caught up to him and started talking to him. Well he ended up being a little drunk so we started talking to his friends that were with him. One of them turned out to be a professional soccer player in Thailand and we shared with them a little bit of the Plan of Salvation. Well, this lady who was Muslim saw the brochure and yelled out to us, so we went and started talking to her but she wouldn't take a brochure because she was about to go pray. This woman came up behind her and the Muslim lady turned around, did a cross sign with her hand to this other lady, then ran off. Well turns out the lady who came up to her was deaf and she started doing a bunch of sign language and it was pretty clear that she wanted to hear our message. So me and my companion are standing there trying to figure out how were going to explain the Plan of Salvation in sign language!! Well, luckily a whole 5 or 6 signs I had learned back in 6th grade came back to me along with how to sign the alphabet, so in about 10 minutes of us trying to get a message across by spelling it all out with alphabet sign we found out that her name is Afiwa and even though she knows sign language the only other person who knows sign that she can talk with is her dad!!! No friends or other family know sign! She was super nice to us didn't stop smiling once while talking to her and we told her we would come back to see if her dad could translate but we gave her a Plan of Salvation brochure and had her read certain parts of it. Her face just lit up and she kept thanking us over and over and I hope and pray that her dad can translate so she can hear our message! Hope y'all have a great week!!

Love, Elder Briggs

Bad idea of the week.

War and My Blind Role Model

January 28, 2019

So we got this really weird cockroach problem in our backyard cause there is this septic tank that doesn't shut all the way. They haven't really been a problem inside our house but there's starting to be more and more that we've found coming through this door that doesn't close all the way, so this week we decided the war was on. Either we go or they go and we don't have a choice to leave so that means they go. Plan was if we could kill all the ones outside that have been coming inside... Problem solved, right!? So we've been going out there at night every couple nights and they are just EVERYWHERE - all over the sand so we're just running around going crazy smashing them. These things aren't babies either they are all 1-2 inches long! So after one week of doing this, and a death count of over 60, Elders win and we haven't seen anymore inside!! 

We started teaching 2 blind guys this week! First we met Gaston on the street and fixed a rendevous with him. He is probably the nicest guy you'll meet and though he can't even see us he has a permanent smile on his face. He is a teacher at a blind school that's not far from our apartment. This place is so cool! All these kids come to live at this school for most of the year and they have all grade levels at this place. The kids there are all so cute and it's insane how fast and well they can get around without even seeing where they are going!  We started teaching him and his student by the name of Blaise joined us. I was really surprised when he walked up because he definitely could see me and didn't need anything to help him get around so i was wondering what he was doing here at this school. We introduced the Book of Mormon in the lesson and both Gaston and Blaise wanted one so we gave them both one and they are going to have people read it to them. I started talking to Blaise after our lesson and he is 23 years old but this was his first year at this school. He had grown up with his uncle 'cause both his parents had died. His eye sight was really bad and all he really needed were glasses but because his uncle was too poor to afford glasses he went without them. He went to a normal school but within a couple years he had to drop out because he couldn't see well enough to keep up with assignments. He dropped out for 5 years until he finally got into this school, in which, within one year being at it he had learned how to read and write brail! He even showed me a little how to do it and it looks so insanely hard! There is this folder that they put the paper in and then they use this pin to poke the letters out, but because it is face down the have to write the sentence backwards so that when they flip the paper over they can read it normal!!! I love this kid so much and he is by far the best example of making the best out of the life that God has given him. He could complain about not being able to get glasses and wait until someone came along to give him some, but he decided he wasn't waiting for someone to help him someday. He decided he was going to help himself, right now, to the best of his capacity, and he was going to work the best of what God had given him. Hope y'all have a great week! 

Elder Briggs