E-mail dated 1/4/10

As I was reading your email you made a statement that our family is very predictable in what we do on New Years Eve. I think I'm in a little bit more of a position of predictability because I really do the same things every day. I love doing the same thing everyday but it really makes it difficult on what to write about. I don't really have an miraculous stories from week to week because miracles happen by small and simple things. At times we as missionaries don't recognize the miracle because we don't know the full story. The miracles I'm talking about are not miracles of healing or raising the dead or anything, although those are very possible, I'm talking about the miracle of conversion. I've learned that I can't change anyone, only they can change themselves. It ultimately comes down to a personal choice by everyone that we teach that they want to change. I've seen the hard-hearted have their hearts softened many times. I've seen that personal choice to change be made at times during teaching. When our investigators "cross that line" or "turn that corner" there is no turning back. Is there anything more miraculous than that? Elder Lauti and I have been seeking miracles in our proselyting and we decided to ask the Lord through fasting to soften the hearts of Emmanuel Buakai-Tongai and Amie Kinawa on Sunday. We are expecting miracles now according to our faith.

Wow, that was pretty spiritual. I've forgotten how to be any other way. President Squires gave a Book of Mormon challenge to the missionaries to start the new year. We all have a goal to finish the Book of Mormon by Easter. We are going to mark how many references to Christ with one color, Christs attributes with another color, Christ's words with another color, and the doctrines and principles contained in the book of mormon in another color. I've only read 11 chapters and my eyes have been opened of how much the book of Mormon really testifies of the Savior. I'm excited to finish this activity as we are going to add all of them up when we are done.

For our service project this week we watered the garden of the Kinawa family. Now gardens here don't have a nice sprinkling system installed inside. There is no city water here in Bo. All water is drawn from a well (even in our own apartment, any time we want water we go to the well). The gardens in the dry season are positioned in the swamps, where water is. We only had one watering can and about 4 buckets. It was a really fun project because the younger Kinawa children helped us every step of the way. I got some cool pictures of us in the swamp watering "plassas".

We didn't really do anything to celebrate the New Year. We can't really stay up until twelve because we have to be in bed by 10:30. Elder Amegayie set his alarm for midnight and yelled in the apartment "Happy new year".

Elder Degen
Rice is Life