Hi guys,
Well it sounds like all is well back at home. I had a pretty good week this week. With the highlight being interviews with president squires. He cleared up alot of the questions I had concerning this mission. This mission is so unique, i'm pretty sure that there is no other mission like it. I was a little confused as to why we were spending so much time with less active and recent converts and even with the members and not more time with investigators. I learned that we could probably baptize 10 a month if we wanted but the problem is after baptism these new members don't have leaders to continue there development in the gospel. The missionaries teach on a commitment and follow up basis and after the missionaries have taught them all that they should that commitment and follow up pattern is delegated to the leaders. If you bring people in and can't keep them, then why bring them in? So our focus is to build leaders. We Elders have home teaching assignments, so we can teach people how to teach. President said that as long as this country doesn't work to build its leaders the spirituality will not rise. The members here have a very simple knowledge of the gospel, not unlike our youth in Utah. That made me feel better that my work was actually for the good. But we were also counseled to always have 7-8 progressing investigators. And we do have 7 investigators right now. We have to be careful who we teach because we need to take this message to the "rich" (president preferres self-reliant) first and then to the poor. All of our investigators except 2 are member referrals. Our baptismal dates will have to be pushed back for now, but we have some more promising investigators that we should commit to baptism this week. Especially that young man that I mentioned last week.
He has 2 member friends that introduced him to us. Those 2 member friends weren't there on Sunday, but he was. This young man's parents have passed away and he is working to try and go to school. He came to me with questions about his reading in the book of mormon and seemed really excited to get the answer. He put forth the effort and it is paying off. I cant wait to teach him more. It is amazing that the Lord won't reveal anything to you until you put forth the effort. That is why we all must gain our own testimonies by asking even though you can live righteously off the testimonies of you parents. I had to do it as well, and once I did I never questioned my knowledge and testimony of my Savior. Elder and Sister Peterson are actually assigned to serve in our branch at Congo Cross. This congo Cross branc is one of the strongest branches in Sierra Leone. There is actually talk of spliting the branch soon because we had over 100 attend church last week. I have learned that you must always be prepared when attending church. I had to teach Sunday School this week and it has been known for elders to give talks randomly in sacrament meeting.
Ah. . tell brittany that I learned to drive that car in less than a week then I had to drive to work every day. Its not bad, you just have to do it. And what the heck, no dating high school graduates.
Anyone can be a missionary. Especially the primary children. I think they know more about what is right but its the adults that influence them. I think that is one reason why Christ loved the children so much.
I love spike.
I get plenty to eat here. Although the variety in food is not as broad but hey, food is food. I usually like to eat cookies from the lebanese store (they call them biscuits here). I have eaten so many different kinds of food. Like Fufu. imagine a ball of dough on a plate. in a bowl next to it is soup with meat and leaves. I take a small bit of the dough in my hands and dip it in the soup grabbing as much as I can with my fingers. Oh and did I mention that everything here is hot. like spicy hot. Holy crap we had this soup yesterday that was like liquid pepper. and it doesn't help that the only thing to drink was soda. Carbonation does not help cool a hot mouth. We usually eat from a big bowl and all of us go at it. Like today, we ate from the biggest bowl (we had rice) and all 12 of us in our zone ate this big mound of rice. it was actually kind of funny to see.I sleep alright I guess. Its 8 hours but its on a hard matress. I used to never wake up in the night. now I wake up all night long. But I have gotten used to it. Its not like I can complain because it is better than sleepin on what some of the people sleep on here. Alright have a great week and I'm glad to hear that our scripture study is getting better.
Elder Degen
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