Good Morning America,
Wow, word gets around fast. Yes, I am staying here in Congo Town for another transfer. The surprising news is that Elder Kargbo is going to serve in Bo in his own country. He has never been to Bo so its still all new to him. The even more surprising news is that I'm training another Elder straight from the MTC. I know that the Squires know the kid as he lives somewhere north of Salt Lake. His name is Elder Smoot. Sis Squires said his grandfather served as a mission president. I can put two and two together and I'm pretty sure that he is the grandson of your mission president, dad. Crazy, eh? I guess I'll learn alot about him this week.
The predominant religion where I'm serving now, is Christian. Although all of those churches think that worshipping God is dancing and clapping for Jesus. In Sierra Leone the dominant religion is Muslim. Many people here in Congo Town have heard about the church, and they all get fed alot of anti-mormon crap. Many people have a problem believing the Book of Mormon to be inspired literature. Actually there are so many misconceptions about us that I can't even begin to name them all. We are not instructed, or taught, how to respond to these matters. Thats why we have personal and companionship study. I've had many people yell at me, most of them are drunk though. Oh, well. Focusing on the negative only makes things worse.
On Thursday evening to sunday morning we had the Assistants to the president in our Apartment. Now both of the assistants have been my companions at one point (Amegayie and Seawright) so I was enjoying thier presence this week. (and I didn't get much done in the evenings, so once again I had plenty to wash today). (biscuit)
Oh, we had an amazing baptism on Saturday. Annie and Debah Brown were both baptized. Annie is the mother and Debah is the daughter. I have been seeing this family twice a week for almost 6 months now. I absolutely love them and I was so happy for them to take this big step. That feeling I had when I was baptizing them was definitly how the celestial kingdom feels. I don't think I've grown closer to anyone else since I've been here. I'm glad that Heavenly Father allowed me to be apart of thier conversion.
Brittany get a job, Gavin cut you hair, josh bear your testimony to your 10 yr old friend, and kalli draw me a picture.
Elder Degen
Monday, August 17, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
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E-mail dated 8/10/09
We just got back from a pretty sweet Super P-day on the Beach. Now remember that we are in the rainiest month of the rainy season, so it was raining almost the whole time. That didn't stop 16 missionaries from playing Volleyball and Soccer on the beach. Playing in the rain is so much fun, oh and we had the whole beach to ourselves. We also enjoyed lunch and some other activities that the Mauldins (the couples) prepared for us. All in all, I'm pretty tired and I still haven't done my laundering. Biscuit!!
This past week was the same old same old. During District meeting on Tuesday we were instructed to focus a little bit more on the Recent Converts and Less Active members. We've had a mission goal of 60/40, meaning 60% of our lessons taught to investigators and 40% to members. President Squires wouldn't mind if we did 50/50. Which I think is the greatest idea. How can these people be "continually nourished be the good word of God" if we as missionaries leave them off the schedule for other investigators. We for sure can't leave that up to the branches. I'm seeing that the converts that we baptized just one year ago are less active now, because they were never nourished by the good word of God. I'm not going to let that pattern repeat. We even went to the extent of teaching our recent converts the hymns (its hard for them to learn at church because of the small amount of books available and no organ). One of our converts from May (Mator Prompaye), was so excited that he called me and asked me for the tunes of some of the other hymns. I'm so excited for him.
Another thing I started on Thursday, was I began to read the Book of Mormon again, but this time I'm doing a Preach my Gospel activity of marking every time there is a reference to the Savior ( any of his names or Pronouns). I've only reached to Mosiah 22, and I've found that he is on every page almost 20 times. You would be very surprised at how many times the Book of Mormon mentions him. I had no idea. I hope to finish it this week and count them up. Now for your questions.
About transfers, I don't think I'm going anywhere (or at least that is my hope, I absolutely love this branch). There are 8 different areas in Monrovia that are possible for missionaries to serve in. None of my apartment mates are leaving either, or at least I think. My health this week is fine. Have I been hiding anything from you? One day all these things will be made known unto you. he he (now you are scared). "Of course I'm sure how dare you question my authority . . . Morning". Yes I still have to be careful about the water. My branch was not effected with the Branch Presidency changes. Change is good.
Elder Degen
This past week was the same old same old. During District meeting on Tuesday we were instructed to focus a little bit more on the Recent Converts and Less Active members. We've had a mission goal of 60/40, meaning 60% of our lessons taught to investigators and 40% to members. President Squires wouldn't mind if we did 50/50. Which I think is the greatest idea. How can these people be "continually nourished be the good word of God" if we as missionaries leave them off the schedule for other investigators. We for sure can't leave that up to the branches. I'm seeing that the converts that we baptized just one year ago are less active now, because they were never nourished by the good word of God. I'm not going to let that pattern repeat. We even went to the extent of teaching our recent converts the hymns (its hard for them to learn at church because of the small amount of books available and no organ). One of our converts from May (Mator Prompaye), was so excited that he called me and asked me for the tunes of some of the other hymns. I'm so excited for him.
Another thing I started on Thursday, was I began to read the Book of Mormon again, but this time I'm doing a Preach my Gospel activity of marking every time there is a reference to the Savior ( any of his names or Pronouns). I've only reached to Mosiah 22, and I've found that he is on every page almost 20 times. You would be very surprised at how many times the Book of Mormon mentions him. I had no idea. I hope to finish it this week and count them up. Now for your questions.
About transfers, I don't think I'm going anywhere (or at least that is my hope, I absolutely love this branch). There are 8 different areas in Monrovia that are possible for missionaries to serve in. None of my apartment mates are leaving either, or at least I think. My health this week is fine. Have I been hiding anything from you? One day all these things will be made known unto you. he he (now you are scared). "Of course I'm sure how dare you question my authority . . . Morning". Yes I still have to be careful about the water. My branch was not effected with the Branch Presidency changes. Change is good.
Elder Degen
Monday, August 3, 2009
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
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
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
E-mail dated 7/27/09
Happy 26th. Today the whole country of LIberia is celebrating thier independence day. This year makes them 162 old. Lets have a little history lesson now. Liberia was colonized by the United States during the administration of President James Monroe. The capitol city (monrovia) was named after this president. This holiday is the biggest holiday of the year for these people (which is a mystery to me because the are celebrating Independence, when I know darn well that all of them want to be in the United States anyway). I am lucky to be emailing you today because the cafe we normally go to is closed so we found this very small and very slow one.
We were able to have our baptism on Saturday. Emmanuel Jayjay has come a long way since I started teaching him. He's always had the desire to be baptized but he wasn't willing to work towards it . Slowly he started to realize that he wasn't going to be baptized until he did something. He changed his life. Before all he was thinking of was girls. Now he has asked for work off on Sundays and has a strong desire to get married in the temple. I was actually kind of surprised that he was able to make all these changes. I'm very happy for him.
You asked me a question about tracting. Yeah we don't do any of that (I mean no knocking on doors, because they don't have doors) . But we do contact as many people as we can. Society here is outside so everyone is outside almost all day. The problem is that when we contact people they don't really react, so its hard for me to contact when I know darn well that they won't act on our message. But that doesn't stop me from doing it. This week we actually had a man, that I contacted come to church. Upon finding his house we taught this man the message of the restoration. He was so humble and completely under stood why we need the priesthood. He basically told us that if he finds out this church is true then he will join. And if he joins he's got a massive family that would most likely follow him. My hopes are high.
Well I love you all. Enjoy, August is around the corner.
Elder Degen
We were able to have our baptism on Saturday. Emmanuel Jayjay has come a long way since I started teaching him. He's always had the desire to be baptized but he wasn't willing to work towards it . Slowly he started to realize that he wasn't going to be baptized until he did something. He changed his life. Before all he was thinking of was girls. Now he has asked for work off on Sundays and has a strong desire to get married in the temple. I was actually kind of surprised that he was able to make all these changes. I'm very happy for him.
You asked me a question about tracting. Yeah we don't do any of that (I mean no knocking on doors, because they don't have doors) . But we do contact as many people as we can. Society here is outside so everyone is outside almost all day. The problem is that when we contact people they don't really react, so its hard for me to contact when I know darn well that they won't act on our message. But that doesn't stop me from doing it. This week we actually had a man, that I contacted come to church. Upon finding his house we taught this man the message of the restoration. He was so humble and completely under stood why we need the priesthood. He basically told us that if he finds out this church is true then he will join. And if he joins he's got a massive family that would most likely follow him. My hopes are high.
Well I love you all. Enjoy, August is around the corner.
Elder Degen
Monday, July 20, 2009
E-mail dated 7/20/09
The work here in Congo Town was about the same as usual. We are busy trying to find some new investigators as the ones we are working with will be baptized in the next four weeks. I remember you asking the names of our investigators about a year ago so I'm going to give you some of the names of the people we are working with now. Emmanuel Jayjay (who will be baptized this Saturday), Annie Brown, Dabeh Brown, Andrew Ziama, Amie Freeman, Augustine Tamba, Emmanuel Curry, Lawrence Grigsby, Lucy Mulbah, and Mayonnah Johnson. Now not all of them will be baptized soon, but most of them are progressing towards that. If all goes as planned we will have three on the 15 of August.
One of the things we have recently been working on as a district is to have weekly service projects. We have set aside thursdays mornings from 8-12 to do a weekly service project. When we first got the instruction to do so, I was hesitant because its hard to find service projects monthly, and weekly seemed like an impossible task. But we have been succesfull this past month. One week we drew water from the well and planted a garden for our investigators, another week we whitewashed a house, the past couple of weeks we have brushed (which is pretty much mowing the lawn with a sword, its hard work and it takes a lot of time) a member house and a community park. This week we will be painting someones house. Opportunities to serve are really everywhere. It has really opened my eyes as to how we can serve others. I'm sure if everyone was looking for ways in which we could serve others it would sure make a lot of burdens lighter (which is what we covenanted to do when we were baptized). We also covenanted to stand as a witness at all times, which means to be an example and share the gospel at all times. I love these service projects.
I had the experience of giving comfort to one of our investigators this week. She had lost her only child due to sickness and we happened to be at the house when she returned home from the hospital. She wasn't really in good shape. I can't even imagine how she is feeling but the only thing I could testify of was the plan of salvation. I don't know if she was touched or whatnot, but life is very precious. I've always had a soft heart for those who lose loved ones. The funny thing is that when the family loses a loved one the remaining family members become closer than ever before. I felt as if I was part of this family. Lawrence is still progressing. I know he will eventually be baptized, he said he wanted more time to get accustomed to the church before baptism. I've never had an investigator read the entire Book of Mormon before baptism (some of them can't even read). But this man might be the first. I'm happy for his progression.
Elder Degen
One of the things we have recently been working on as a district is to have weekly service projects. We have set aside thursdays mornings from 8-12 to do a weekly service project. When we first got the instruction to do so, I was hesitant because its hard to find service projects monthly, and weekly seemed like an impossible task. But we have been succesfull this past month. One week we drew water from the well and planted a garden for our investigators, another week we whitewashed a house, the past couple of weeks we have brushed (which is pretty much mowing the lawn with a sword, its hard work and it takes a lot of time) a member house and a community park. This week we will be painting someones house. Opportunities to serve are really everywhere. It has really opened my eyes as to how we can serve others. I'm sure if everyone was looking for ways in which we could serve others it would sure make a lot of burdens lighter (which is what we covenanted to do when we were baptized). We also covenanted to stand as a witness at all times, which means to be an example and share the gospel at all times. I love these service projects.
I had the experience of giving comfort to one of our investigators this week. She had lost her only child due to sickness and we happened to be at the house when she returned home from the hospital. She wasn't really in good shape. I can't even imagine how she is feeling but the only thing I could testify of was the plan of salvation. I don't know if she was touched or whatnot, but life is very precious. I've always had a soft heart for those who lose loved ones. The funny thing is that when the family loses a loved one the remaining family members become closer than ever before. I felt as if I was part of this family. Lawrence is still progressing. I know he will eventually be baptized, he said he wanted more time to get accustomed to the church before baptism. I've never had an investigator read the entire Book of Mormon before baptism (some of them can't even read). But this man might be the first. I'm happy for his progression.
Elder Degen
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