15,000,000 members and counting! And at the end of this Saturday, it will be 15,000,005!

"What do you do when you have around 40 cockroaches running around the outside of your apartment after rain? You step on em, take a picture, and send it to your family!"

Dear Family,

It sounds like everything is going well for you guys at home! Poor Macey and her broken arm... That is something that I have never done, and never want to do in my life... The fact of having a broken arm makes my chicken skin! I have only broken my collar bone. I remember it too well! At the canyons with Kevin, very first time up on the big mountain haha. Good times, good times. Jackson is getting huge! Tell him not to worry, and that I will write him back! I know that I have been bad at doing that, as well with other people... Just know that I still love you all just the same! Except Debbie, "love ya like a 3rd cousin!" Hahaha.

Conference sounds like it was a success as well! That is so insane how much the church has been growing! 15,000,000 members and counting! And at the end of this Saturday, it will be 15,000,005! Because I have 5 baptisms this Saturday.. What shocked me was learning that more than half of the members of the church live outside of the United States! That will be something cool to tell people. People seem to think a lot that the church is an American church.. But then I just look at them and think to myself, "If this was just an American church, why the heck am I walking around with a Malagasy, in Togo, talking to people about baptism?" Sometimes the people you talk to... I am excited to read some of the talks on lds org. I am sure that there will be some on there. Especially Priesthood Session, those are always my favorite. It sounds like everyone is working hard and doing their best in all that they do! And that is what I always pray for! Gotta love the Layton/Miller family. Even though we are crazy. Not even just a little, but a lot.

"My companion (his last Sunday)… With Beatrice and a kid sucking on a sucker." 

This week, was a pretty productive week! Let's see what I can form into a letter and tell you about it... On Tuesday night we were anticipating the assistants, Elder Poll and Gomun to come and do a split with my companion and I, But the ending up coming over early on Wednesday morning instead. I worked with Elder Poll the whole day, and it was really fun. We both couldn't believe that we were both going home so soon. He said that I will probably be leaving to Benin that Thursday, and working there and sleeping at the mission office until that Saturday that I fly out... But we will see what happens when that gets a little closer. After that, all the Zone leaders were invited to go to a meeting with the district presidency to discuss an open house for the new chapel. The missionaries are responsible for welcoming people and answering questions of visitors. It was pretty funny, the district president was like, "the members are not allowed to answer any questions, because when they do, they go straight into talking about temple covenants and deep doctrine.." Which is totally true and when happened most the time when you go teaching with members... They are always so excited to share the gospel with people that they don't really think about what they are going to say... Then before you know it, you are having to explain how you can baptize, marry, and seal someone who is already dead. I'm sure it will be fun and everything will go smoothly! It is next Saturday, followed by a dedication of the chapel the following Sunday. I don't know if we will be assisting that or not... Seeing that we will have our own amis coming to church here in Anfamé. 

Missionary work is going absolutely awesome here in Anfamé... I broke a record for myself this Sunday with having 15 amis come to church! I was pretty stoked about that, and 12 of those people have baptismal dates, 5 of them for this Saturday. We are baptizing Kossi and Natalie, a couple that has been coming to church for quite some time now, but just got married, so they are now ready! The husband is super smart, and he pretty much runs priesthood quorum... He already has a super strong testimony of the gospel, and he will finally become a member of the Church this Saturday! And Fofo decided to keep his children here in Lomé! His wife was so excited! He is going to put them into Public school, which is free here, just for a year until he gets his feet on the ground again. Almost everyone puts their kids in privates school because it is a lot better schooling that the public ones... But I thought that you would be happy to hear that! I know that he is super happy that they will all be able to get baptized together. We gave his baby a baby blessing yesterday, and he was all smiles! Haha things a going good here in Anfamé. 

And they are about to get a lot better! Guess who my new companion is going to be!? Elder Dagrou!! How freaking awesome is that!? He was my companion that I had in Avotrou that I only had for 4 weeks and loved! But we are going to be together again!! And I am so excited for that! He will be here tomorrow night, along with the american I will be living with, Elder Faerber again.  I know that I am going to finish my mission with a hard working, super awesome companion! And no I am not training... There was a huge transfer this week, but the missionaries don't get here till next week, so there will be some threesomes and odd companionship's for a week. But then after that it'll all be back to normal.

We were supposed to have an activity this morning, but I dunno what really happened, we just got a call from the other zone leaders and they said that it was canceled... So that was a bummer. Maybe next Monday. All in all, the mission is going awesome, taking it day by day, and loving it. Thanks for all you do, I love you all, and I can't wait to read conference! Have a nice day.

                         Peace,

                              Elder Landon Dean Layton

PS

     I bought a new JanSport backpack for $4, and I really like it. I will probably even take it home with me.

"This is Linda. A beautiful daughter of God that is for sure! She turns 18 on November 8th and is going to be baptized on the 9th!"

I sent this to Elder Layton from Conference...

Increase in membership and missionaries

"President Thomas S. Monson opened the meetings with news of a milestone in Church membership and a dramatic increase in missionaries since the age change announced in the October 2012 General Conference.

"I am happy to announce that two weeks ago the membership of the Church reached 15 million. The Church continues to grow steadily and to change the lives of more and more people every year," he said.

President Monson said the church was founded with 30 members in 1830, and that it took more than a century to hit 1 million. Church membership has tripled since 1982 when there were 5 million members, said Matt Martinich, a member of the LDS Church who analyzes membership numbers with the nonprofit Cumorah Foundation.

More than half of all Latter-day Saints live outside of the U.S., church figures show.

"The church continues to grow steadily and to change the lives of more and more people every year," President Monson told about 20,000 members seated in a three-story auditorium in Salt Lake City. "It is spreading across the Earth as our missionary force seeks out those who are searching for the truth."

President Monson also said Saturday that there are now 80,000 missionaries around the world — up from 58,500 a year ago. The historic growth was triggered by the Church's decision to lower the minimum age for missionaries, which President Monson announced during this same conference a year ago."