E-mail dated 11/16/09

This week has once again been a very normal week with nothing out of the ordinary. We did have transfer news on Tuesday and Elder lamb and I will be staying together for at least another transfer. We did get two different elders in our apartment this week. One of my former companions Elder Amegayie is now living with us and his companion Elder Visser from Iowa. Elder Yardley and Ogoloma are still with us from last transfer. The suspense last monday was killing us. We were all so excited to hear the news. Previously the news was announced on Saturday but president squires decided to change it to tuesday now. Now that we know what is going on we had alot of work trying to figure out all the exciting events for the next six weeks.

We are celebrating Thanksgiving on Sunday, and all of Bo zone is going to Freetown for the annual Christmas conference at the beggining of December. Our zone now has 14 Elders as we gained two this last transfer. One of the companionships that was covering two branches were split now only one set of Elders covers each branch. Our zone is diverse as we have four Elders from utah, one from iowa, one from denver, one from texas, and one from idaho, three from ghana, one from liberia, one from sierra leone (Elder Kargbo), and one from Nigeria. We seemed to have organized a zone football game every monday. We play against the branch missionaries of the various branches in bo and we are pretty good. The rumor is that for the Christmas conference that we will be playing the freetown zone in a football game and its got our whole zone excited.

Yes Elder Lamb is a chef. We cook french fries and hot dog sandwhiches, french toast, pancakes and eggs, hasbrowns, no-bake cookies, pizza, mashed potatoes and gravy, chicken. Combine that with Elder Amegayies cooking skills of all the african dishes and our apartment is in good hands. We have three supermarkets in the city of Bo. They aren't bad, but very very small compared to home. NO, I still have not seen a giraffe. Buscuit!!

I still do play the piano at church these days, but I don't have a keyboard in the apartment to practice. So basically I only have 15 minutes before church starts to practice. Oh, well. its better than having them sing off tune. We are currently working with about 15 people, but most of them are families. we have a family of 7, the kinawa family that is still coming to church. we are working to complete two other families as the Massaquio's and the Quee's somehow let their children reach the ages of 9 and 12 without baptizing them. Lets just say that Elder lamb and I are teaching a lot of children at the moment. We can't complian, we'll take them how the Lord gives them to us. I love you all and enjoy the week.

Elder Degen
Rice is Life

P.S. Happy Birthday Jimmy LEE!!!!!!!! Jimmy-jim-jim-jim-jimmy-jim-jim you are soooooooooooooo old!!!!!! I blew you a kiss. Catch it catch it.