This week has been full of things to do with missionaries and getting ready for 9 new missionaries coming in next week. We had a new sister come into our mission on Wednesday. We have been working with the missionary department trying to get her here for months. She got her call last December. The problems were with Visas. It was a relief when she finally made it. She is from Cape Verde. We also had a missionary spend the evening with us who had his tonsils out. He had just got out of the hospital that morning and was staying with the Office Elders. They needed to go teach some families so he came to our apartment. He slept most of the three hours he was there. I would like to share a conversion story that President Adams shared with us this week. This took place in Reunion and they heard about it when they were in this ladies home having dinner. Her husband is the Branch President. She lived at the edge of town, at the end of the street, on the fifth floor, in the last apartment, opposite the stairs. She rarely had visitors, not even friends. She had a knock at her door and was surprised as she wasn't expecting anyone. When she opened the door two young men in white shirts and ties were standing there. She normally wouldn't let in a stranger, as her husband was at work. The next thing she remembered was sitting on the couch listening to these two young men. She was amazed at the message they were teaching her and felt as if her prayers and questions about God had been answered. Her husband came home for lunch and he also sat on the couch and visited with the young men. When it was time for him to go back to work the missionaries made an appointment for that evening and left. When the door shut the lady had this overwhelming fear come over her. Her fear was that these two young missionaries wouldn't come back. They did come back that evening and visited with the family most of the evening. They came back for the next several nights and invited the family to come to church on Sunday. On Sunday as the family was preparing to go to Church there was another knock at their door. It was the ladies father whom she hadn't seen for 15 years. So they visited with him and didn't make it to church. The missionaries visited with them again and they said they would be to church the following Sunday. When Sunday morning came their son was very ill, so they had to stay home again. It seems Satan was working on keeping this family away. On the next Sunday their son was ill again, but they decided that they would go to church anyway. When they got to church the son started feeling better and hasn't been very sick since. The family was baptized and have been faithful members since. Now for the rest of the story. The two missionaries that taught this family were both fairly new in the mission and weren't having any success in their teaching, or in learning the French language very well.They had committed to fast and pray every Tuesday. On this particular Tuesday it was about lunch time and they were about to head home to end their fast. As they were walking down a street at the edge of town, they looked down the street at an apartment building in the distance. One missionary looked at his watch and said, "We have about a half an hour before we end our fast, lets go down there and knock on a few doors." So they went to that apartment complex and knocked on some doors, no one let them in and they were about to head home when the spirit directed them to go to the fifth floor, up the stairs, to the end of the hall, where they were allowed to come in and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ. President Adams has asked the lady to write her story so that it can be shared with others. There was more to the story but I tried to summerize it. We hope this finds all of you doing well and hope you are enjoying your summer rains. We could use some here to clean the air. We were reading that you have had some flooding. We send our love to all of you. Elder & Sister Cornelius

Pictures: the first picture is our church and mission home.

 The next picture is of a turtle at the Crocodile Park. We were told that the way to tell the difference between the male and female is on the under side of the shell. If it is concaved it's a male. If it's flat it is a female. This one is a male.