E-mail dated 2/2/09

Hello, Buddy the Elf . .. Whats your favorite color?

So to start of the email this week I have to express to everyone how happy I am that Kristen Lemmert is getting baptized on Feb 14th. That is pretty cool. Ok, the next thing I want to tell is something that happened this morning. The four of us in the apartment were washing our clothes in the morning when one of the Elders heard something coming from the cupboard that holds our corned beef and beans. He was scared to open it because we had seen a mouse inside of the cupboard next to it a few days earlier. My companion comes over and casually opens the cupboard and starts moving the cans of corned beef. After a few cans he turns away and says "WOW". Lets just say we found the breeding grounds for the mice. 4 little baby mice were inside of our cupboard. The other Elder comes running in from the other room with bug spray and he is going for the matches. He torched the mice to death or at least scared them out of the cupboard while the rest of us were holding our flip-flops in our hands beating them to death once they fell. Good clean fun. We then had to clean up the mess we made and we found a lot of mouse crap. We ended up cleaning the whole apartment very well and that took forever. Not really P-day excitement but whatever makes you happy right? The mother mouse isn't going to be happy, but we are determinded to get it. Thats just a funny thing thats on my mind and thats not the first mouse story I've experienced since I've been here.

How does the water system work here? Well, we do have a tap in our apartment but that is a luxury for this country. Aparently wherever the water in cleansed it is perfect for drinking. The problem is that the pipes that get the water from the plant to the city. Here is the logic - plastic pipes that aren't buried and are placed on the paths that everyone walks. So the pipes are always broken and the water is getting contaminated. Seriously everywhere we walk there are pipes that are leaking water all over the street. The solution is to put a rock on top so it doesn't spray everyone. What a dumb idea. We actually wanted to go and fix all the pipes with duct tape as a service project but we haven't got around to doing that yet. We don't drink the water that comes out of the tap unless it goes through our filter. Bathing with the water probably isn't the best thing for the skin, but we do it anyway. Just remeber to say your morning prayer before you shower. And to add to all of that. We only have water half of the time. Normally we have it from 6 in the morning to 5 in the evening. The rest of the time the pump is on "lock". Bucket showers in the evening, WHOO! And yes its cold showers every morning. So wonderful. But I can't complain especially after an experience I had this last week. We were visiting a recent converts house and she expressed a need to fetch water. We offered our services as young men (it didn't hurt that I have a strong Samoan as a companion). But the distance this lady had to walk to fill 4 2+1/2 gallon buckets and one 5 gallong bucket was amazing. And they pull it from a natural well. They have to fetch water every day. If they want to drink it they would have to boil it. And its bucket showers all the time. It didn't help that it was an uphill return to the house. Just be grateful for everything you've got.

We kind of had a service week this week. That water fetching service project was unplanned during the week. We also had two additional service projects. We, as a District, went back to that school to teach these people math and English. I tried to teach my class how to divide but I learned that they didn't know thier times-tables very well. Just like teaching anyone about the gospel, you can't teach them the fourth principle unless they understand the previous three. You can't teach them the Restoration unless the understand why a restoration needed to happen. You can't teach them how to divide if they don't understand how to multiply. We also had a service project of breaking stones. It sounds really ridiculous, but that is what we did. We broke stones into small pebbles for one recent convert. many of the people here do this for a living. They break stone (black granite) and wait for builders to come and buy the stone to construct houses (the cement kind). For the work I did in 2 hours they would sell it for the evquivalent of one dollar. Its hard work and the pay only comes when a customer comes. The man that we helped hadn't had a customer in about a month. Right as we were leaving a truck pulled up and bought some of the stones that we just broke. I know that story doesn't make any sense to you but that is Sierra Leone.

Thats about all the time I've got for this week. We had a very busy week last week and we are hoping to have a baptism the 14th. We shall see what the new week provides. I love you all bing bing.

Elder Degen