E-mail dated 7/13/09

A Mechanical Bull? Wow, that sounds exciting Kalli!! I wish I could have seen that. You have inspired me to draw a picture and send it to Kalli. I can't say by when it shall arrive, but within the next year or so would be a good guess. The summer is half over, No way. Time is not really a factor to me anymore. When I first came I was counting the days and weeks but now I have no clue as to the time anymore. I can't believe its almost time for another football season soon.

Yes the news that Obama was in Ghana is very much part of this society. Almost everyone loves America here, especially African Americans. In fact I'm pretty much a celebrity in my area, as almost everyone knows me by face. So if I'm a celebrity then for sure Obama is. Everyone loves him here. Even if he were to wage war with their own country they would support Obama. And that is no exaggeration.

So last week sunday we had a random man come and visit the church. Now this is nothing out of the ordinary as we occasionally have that happen. So we did the normal and set an appointment with him to see if he was serious in investigating the church of if he just wanted money from the white man. Well, it turns out that this man is the ideal man for us to teach. If I were to name all the qualities I wanted in a dream investigator I would be describing this man. Right from the beginning he asks us 4 questions. 1) what is your stand on Alcohol 2) Is there life after death 3)do I need to be baptized again and 4)What is the book of Mormon. For you missionaries out there that covers all 4 of the standard lessons. I'm stuggling to get my other investigators to read the book of mormon. After one visit this man reads from the introduction to 1 Nephi 7 in two days!!! That never happens here. He is accepting everything like he had heard it long long ago. The gospel has that ring to it. We can't take any credit for this one. The Lord is truly helping is in this work. He even mentioned in the first visit that if he knows this church is true then he will bring some of his friends to the church. This man, Lawrence Grigsby, has such a strong desire to live the gospel its almost to good to be true. We are going to give him a baptismal date this week for the middle of August and hopefully we can start teaching his wife. I'm so excited and grateful for this man.

I think we have 44 missionaries in the mission. 16 in liberia. We serve wherever the lord wants us to serve. Usually missionaries spend time in both countries but I know a missionary that is going home in August that has spent his whole mission in Sierra Leone. It just depends.

Well, thanks for the updates.

Elder Degen