E-mail dated 8/3/09

I've just been staring at the screen for like 5 minutes now. I don't know what to say. I'll start by answering the questions, I guess. President Squires was here all last week and I only saw him a couple times for about 2 minutes each time. He is a pretty busy man. As for the Wires they are going home in late December or early January. The Mauldins are going home next April.

The rainy season in Monrovia is so crazy. In Freetown it was predictable, rain a little bit every day. Here in Monrovia I have no idea what season it is today. August is supposed to be the rainiest month, but we haven't had water running in our apartment in 3 days. The rain has just stopped for about a month. But for two weeks in late june/early july it rained so hard for so long. Maybe the heavens gave us all they got. I don't know whats going on.

The investigator that we contacted last week did not come to church this week. But we are still working with him. He was very busy trying to find a job to support his 6 children and 5 grandchildren. We were able to teach him about the Book of Mormon this week with him. I've decided that as missionaries its our job to get investigators to read the Book of Mormon, because if they read it conversion is only two steps away (pondering and praying are left). But the hard part is getting people to read it. Its like pulling teeth. I'm getting pretty creative. I've been teaching all of my investigators the stories inside the Book of Mormon. Like we read 1 Nephi 3 with them and its thier assignment to read 1 Nephi 4. OR the story of Ammon cutting off the arms of the servants. Or Abinadi getting burned. Or the brother of Jared praying. I could keep going. I'm convinced that if a member is reading the book of Mormon every day, their is no way they could be less active. So I stress reading the Book of Mormon with everyone. The frustrating part is when people want to be convinced of the truth with only the Bible, and they've been fed with so much anti-mormon crap about the Book of Mormon that they won't even touch the Book of Mormon. Funny thing is that if they really understood the Bible it clearly points that this is the only true church. (by the way i've seen the exact chruches that nephi saw in 2 nephi 28).

About your Zion's camp comment. Sister Mauldin made a comment some months ago that this mission is Zion's camp. How true it is. The Lord prepares his leaders at a young age, and thiers no better place for him to do it than when we are far away from home with nothing but the gospel to think about. As for this week it was basically the same. Nothing really exciting happened, that I can remember. So thats all for the week. Have a good'n.

Elder Degen