The past few weeks have been full of excitement that this week it feels like I have nothing to write about. We had no holidays no super p-days, no trips to Kenema or Freetown. I guess it was just a normal week of proselyting. Nothing has really changed.
No we did not celebrate thanksgiving last week. But we are planning on having a thanksgiving day feast. We might have to substitute the turkey with chicken, but thats no problem with me. We did just get done with a football game against some local boys. I don't think I've lost my competitive edge. Elder Yardley and I get a little to into the games. At least I got some exercise in this week. I think I've gained a little bit of weight since my arrival in Bo. Maybe its because my companion is a chef. We enjoy almost every day.
I'm really sorry for the short emial. I don't know what to say. Tell Andrew and Caleb Congratulations for me. And greet Erik Tondevold for me. I love you all and enjoy the week.
Elder Degen
Rice is Life
Monday, November 9, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
E-mail dated 11/2/09
I would first like to apologize for last weeks silence. But it was for a good cause, just to let you know. Last week monday we had Super P-day and now that I'm in charge of that we only had a one hour gap to go to the cafe. Well, at the cafe the internet was not hooked up so I wrote you a letter and it will be there in a few weeks.
As for this past week. Lets just say we had a lot of fun. Only tuesday we called a Zone Meeting with all the members of our zone and we instructed them on the importance of following the morning schedule. "as your morning schedule goes, so goes your mission" -Elder Golden-. For Halloween we had a busy day planned. In the morning we went out to Kenema for some Baptismal interviews which took away most of our proselyting time for the day. By the time we got back we only had two hours of daylight left and we got right to work. The Lord blessed us with an amazing family in the evening. We had been teaching the father, but on saturday night it was the first time we got the whole family to attend our lesson. Holy blessings from heaven this family is good. The hardest part will be to convince the muslim mother. But the 5 children were really involved in the lesson. I'm excited for this Kinawa family.
After teaching that amazing lesson, we had to go to the other missionary apartment in Bo (new london) and give them the conference discs for sunday. We just happened to dress up like muslims (with my jazz headband- I was a basketball playin' muslim) and go trick-or-treating. Elder Gifford gave me some Gushers and thus saith Elder Degen "it is good". We ended our halloween celebration by carving pumpkins. Man it was so much fun. We put candles inside of them and put them on our compound fense (in the razor wire) for all to see. The whole neighborhood thought we were crazy. (I forgot to add that I ate reeses for breakfast because we ran out of rice). What an amazing Halloween eh?
On sunday we watched the sunday afternoon session of conference. Let me just say that Elder Holland gave the most powerful testimony of the book of mormon ever recorded on earth or in heaven. That man has a testimony and no one on earth can deny it. "I did not sail with the brother of Jared, or listen to King Benjamins angelically delivered sermon, or proselyte with Alma or Amulek, or touch the saviors hands in the land bountiful, or weep with mormon or moroni at the destruction of a civilization. But I know as much as they know that the Book of Mormon is true. When I stand before the judgement bar of God I want the world to know that I know that the Book of Mormon is true!" (not an exact quote) It feels like Elder Holland just hit a 3 pointer for team Jesus and put us back in the lead. Oh man that was sweet. I'm getting the chills just thinking about it.
To finish our Halloween weekend of celebration we made Pizza last night. That right PIZZA. Elder Lamb is an amazing chef and we made Pizza. tasted so good. You don't know how good you've got it over there. I spent 20,000 Le just on the cheese. In total all the indredient cost $10. Best ten dollars I've ever spent. We traveled to Freetown this morning to attend a zone council and I'm sitting in the mission office typing this letter to you. All in all it was a pretty good week. I love you all.
Elder Degen
Pizza(not rice baby!!) is life
PS. Congratulations on the mission call Jason!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bing!!!!!!!!!!!!
As for this past week. Lets just say we had a lot of fun. Only tuesday we called a Zone Meeting with all the members of our zone and we instructed them on the importance of following the morning schedule. "as your morning schedule goes, so goes your mission" -Elder Golden-. For Halloween we had a busy day planned. In the morning we went out to Kenema for some Baptismal interviews which took away most of our proselyting time for the day. By the time we got back we only had two hours of daylight left and we got right to work. The Lord blessed us with an amazing family in the evening. We had been teaching the father, but on saturday night it was the first time we got the whole family to attend our lesson. Holy blessings from heaven this family is good. The hardest part will be to convince the muslim mother. But the 5 children were really involved in the lesson. I'm excited for this Kinawa family.
After teaching that amazing lesson, we had to go to the other missionary apartment in Bo (new london) and give them the conference discs for sunday. We just happened to dress up like muslims (with my jazz headband- I was a basketball playin' muslim) and go trick-or-treating. Elder Gifford gave me some Gushers and thus saith Elder Degen "it is good". We ended our halloween celebration by carving pumpkins. Man it was so much fun. We put candles inside of them and put them on our compound fense (in the razor wire) for all to see. The whole neighborhood thought we were crazy. (I forgot to add that I ate reeses for breakfast because we ran out of rice). What an amazing Halloween eh?
On sunday we watched the sunday afternoon session of conference. Let me just say that Elder Holland gave the most powerful testimony of the book of mormon ever recorded on earth or in heaven. That man has a testimony and no one on earth can deny it. "I did not sail with the brother of Jared, or listen to King Benjamins angelically delivered sermon, or proselyte with Alma or Amulek, or touch the saviors hands in the land bountiful, or weep with mormon or moroni at the destruction of a civilization. But I know as much as they know that the Book of Mormon is true. When I stand before the judgement bar of God I want the world to know that I know that the Book of Mormon is true!" (not an exact quote) It feels like Elder Holland just hit a 3 pointer for team Jesus and put us back in the lead. Oh man that was sweet. I'm getting the chills just thinking about it.
To finish our Halloween weekend of celebration we made Pizza last night. That right PIZZA. Elder Lamb is an amazing chef and we made Pizza. tasted so good. You don't know how good you've got it over there. I spent 20,000 Le just on the cheese. In total all the indredient cost $10. Best ten dollars I've ever spent. We traveled to Freetown this morning to attend a zone council and I'm sitting in the mission office typing this letter to you. All in all it was a pretty good week. I love you all.
Elder Degen
Pizza(not rice baby!!) is life
PS. Congratulations on the mission call Jason!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bing!!!!!!!!!!!!
E-mail from 10/26/09 that never sent
Last weeks that never sent.
We just returned from an awesome Super P-day. My companion and I planned for the whole zone to go to the Njagboima chapel and play Dodgeball. Yes, thats right folks we played dodgeball for super p-day. We found some balls that could be used for throwing and there was no turning back. I guess its just a nice change from the usual Football games. We are still planning on having a zone dinner tonight and me and my companion are making french toast for everyone. So far the day has been going pretty good. It was fun to teach the African missionaries how to play a new game and of course they enjoyed it. I mean who wouldn't, you get to throw a ball at your companion (just kidding we all love our companions).
This past zone conference we were instructed to focus more on member present lessons. You know the lessons where members of the branch participate in helping the missionaries teach. Normally we have a mission goal of getting 20% of our lessons taught to investigators as member present lessons, and that is where we were. But this past week we started to find more ways to get the members involved in our teaching and we had great success. I think our percentage went from 20% all the way up to the high seventies. I'm pretty excited to see the long term effects of this increased participation of our members. Honestly, every member could sacrifice a little bit more of their time and take an hour or two out of thier schedule to help the missionaries teach. Anybody with the priesthood has made a promise to do so. Actually anyone who has been baptized also has that duty to share the gospel. The best way for members to help share the gospel is to offer thier homes for the missionaries to teach and to be the investigators friend. If the members started to do this, the church would all be taken into heaven like the city of Enoch.
There are seven branches here in bo and one branch in kenema. We have a total of 12 missionaries out here in the bush. Only three of the branches meet at the chapel in Njagboima. The others have a building to rent. Our branch pulled a quick one on us this week and announced on sunday that our meeting time is changing from 10 to 8 in the morning.
We just returned from an awesome Super P-day. My companion and I planned for the whole zone to go to the Njagboima chapel and play Dodgeball. Yes, thats right folks we played dodgeball for super p-day. We found some balls that could be used for throwing and there was no turning back. I guess its just a nice change from the usual Football games. We are still planning on having a zone dinner tonight and me and my companion are making french toast for everyone. So far the day has been going pretty good. It was fun to teach the African missionaries how to play a new game and of course they enjoyed it. I mean who wouldn't, you get to throw a ball at your companion (just kidding we all love our companions).
This past zone conference we were instructed to focus more on member present lessons. You know the lessons where members of the branch participate in helping the missionaries teach. Normally we have a mission goal of getting 20% of our lessons taught to investigators as member present lessons, and that is where we were. But this past week we started to find more ways to get the members involved in our teaching and we had great success. I think our percentage went from 20% all the way up to the high seventies. I'm pretty excited to see the long term effects of this increased participation of our members. Honestly, every member could sacrifice a little bit more of their time and take an hour or two out of thier schedule to help the missionaries teach. Anybody with the priesthood has made a promise to do so. Actually anyone who has been baptized also has that duty to share the gospel. The best way for members to help share the gospel is to offer thier homes for the missionaries to teach and to be the investigators friend. If the members started to do this, the church would all be taken into heaven like the city of Enoch.
There are seven branches here in bo and one branch in kenema. We have a total of 12 missionaries out here in the bush. Only three of the branches meet at the chapel in Njagboima. The others have a building to rent. Our branch pulled a quick one on us this week and announced on sunday that our meeting time is changing from 10 to 8 in the morning.
Monday, October 19, 2009
E-mail dated 10/18/09
Well, I’m typing this email on word because the server is down and I don’t want to waste my browsing time. Hopefully the server comes back up so this can get to you all the way across the world. I was able to read your email before it went down, so I’ll do my best to remember everything.
First thing I have an announcement. I have been called to repentance by President Squires. During his instruction in our zone conference on Thursday we reviewed some of the mission rules in the missionary handbook. The one that I realized that I was not keeping was emialing only family. So please help me be obedient and only family emial me. It is much better to be obedient because obedience equals the companionship of the Spirit, and if I don't have the spirit then what am I doing here. So here is the situation, everyone can either do the hard thing and email me your writing address and write me a letter, or the easy thing and just read my blog. From here on out I will not reply to any emails other than those in whom I'm related to (aunts, cousins, and grandparents are ok).
That is so cool you got to see Elder Seawright and listen to his homecoming!! Tell the Peterson's hello for me, and now you can tell them to write me as well, since I'm no longer going to email them. The next American missionary to come home would be the wires who are returning right after Christmas. The next one will be Elder Mills, whom I lived with in freetown for 3 months, and he will be returning home in march.
I'm finally starting to get comfortable in my new area. Coming back to Krio was no problem but I still would rather teach in English. If they can understand me when I speak English I will speak it everytime, but if they can't I will do my best in Krio. What do we do with all the time in the evening? Well, we usually return about 7:30 or 8, so we have to plan for the next day and then we have to cook because we usually don't eat during the day. Journal and with my new repsonsibilities, I'd say we keep pretty busy.
The only things that I will need for Christmas is some more contact solution. Two more bottles should do me until next summer. Everything else is up to you. But just to let you know, most of the stuff you send me will most likely be left here or given to other missionaries, unless its candy, then I will eat it. Pictures are always good. Nothing else is really needed. My shoes are doing just fine. I might have to resole the other pair but, now that it is dry season it doesn't really matter.
Conratulations Adam and Brooke. Sorry Lisa about your head. If it makes you feel any better I had my leg glued shut about a year ago, but that is another story for another day. I love you all and have a great week.
Elder Degen
Rice is Life
First thing I have an announcement. I have been called to repentance by President Squires. During his instruction in our zone conference on Thursday we reviewed some of the mission rules in the missionary handbook. The one that I realized that I was not keeping was emialing only family. So please help me be obedient and only family emial me. It is much better to be obedient because obedience equals the companionship of the Spirit, and if I don't have the spirit then what am I doing here. So here is the situation, everyone can either do the hard thing and email me your writing address and write me a letter, or the easy thing and just read my blog. From here on out I will not reply to any emails other than those in whom I'm related to (aunts, cousins, and grandparents are ok).
That is so cool you got to see Elder Seawright and listen to his homecoming!! Tell the Peterson's hello for me, and now you can tell them to write me as well, since I'm no longer going to email them. The next American missionary to come home would be the wires who are returning right after Christmas. The next one will be Elder Mills, whom I lived with in freetown for 3 months, and he will be returning home in march.
I'm finally starting to get comfortable in my new area. Coming back to Krio was no problem but I still would rather teach in English. If they can understand me when I speak English I will speak it everytime, but if they can't I will do my best in Krio. What do we do with all the time in the evening? Well, we usually return about 7:30 or 8, so we have to plan for the next day and then we have to cook because we usually don't eat during the day. Journal and with my new repsonsibilities, I'd say we keep pretty busy.
The only things that I will need for Christmas is some more contact solution. Two more bottles should do me until next summer. Everything else is up to you. But just to let you know, most of the stuff you send me will most likely be left here or given to other missionaries, unless its candy, then I will eat it. Pictures are always good. Nothing else is really needed. My shoes are doing just fine. I might have to resole the other pair but, now that it is dry season it doesn't really matter.
Conratulations Adam and Brooke. Sorry Lisa about your head. If it makes you feel any better I had my leg glued shut about a year ago, but that is another story for another day. I love you all and have a great week.
Elder Degen
Rice is Life
Monday, October 12, 2009
E-mail dated 10/12/09
Hello from the great city of Bo. Man, what were they thinking when they named this city. Maybe it was something like the easiest sound to make. Think about it bo is pretty easy to say. Tell Adam to make his childs first word "Bo". Well, that seems like a little ways down the road. Anywho . . . Bo is a lot smaller than Freetown and Monrovia put still pretty big considering we are out in the middle of the bush. Bo is a tribal village of the tribe "mende". I can actually speak small mende now, but I don't really have the zeal to learn it well. Everyone here speaks this language and I here it all day. "poomwee" means white man in mende. If I had a dollar for everytime I heard that word I would be . . .(use your imagination here). The main means of transportation here is motorcyle. Yep, I ride on the back of a motorcyle two or three times a day. Add that to the list of things I'd never thought I would do on mission.
My branch worships in the church owned chapel here in Bo. The only church owned chapel in Sierra Leone (Liberia has three church owned chapels f.y.i) The same problems still exist here as in any of the other branches I've served in. Our apartment is pretty "bo-bo pain" (krio for poor man) but I'm pretty used to that by now. I'm excited that we have light some of the time and I get to sleep with a fan on half the time. Sadly we are moving into dry season and light here in Bo stops coming in the dry season. which means we are back to generator.
Well, it looks like this weeks email won't be much of a spiritual one. I'm still trying to get used to new faces and having to learn a new branch. Things are coming on small small. The package you sent finally found its way to me. Thanks for the pants and the pictures. Gram thanks for the small envelope. I hope the wedding goes great this week and sorry, but I'm out of things to say. Send me the Ensign just in case please. Let me know how Elder Seawrights talk is. I love that guy.
Elder Degen
Rice is Life
My branch worships in the church owned chapel here in Bo. The only church owned chapel in Sierra Leone (Liberia has three church owned chapels f.y.i) The same problems still exist here as in any of the other branches I've served in. Our apartment is pretty "bo-bo pain" (krio for poor man) but I'm pretty used to that by now. I'm excited that we have light some of the time and I get to sleep with a fan on half the time. Sadly we are moving into dry season and light here in Bo stops coming in the dry season. which means we are back to generator.
Well, it looks like this weeks email won't be much of a spiritual one. I'm still trying to get used to new faces and having to learn a new branch. Things are coming on small small. The package you sent finally found its way to me. Thanks for the pants and the pictures. Gram thanks for the small envelope. I hope the wedding goes great this week and sorry, but I'm out of things to say. Send me the Ensign just in case please. Let me know how Elder Seawrights talk is. I love that guy.
Elder Degen
Rice is Life
Monday, October 5, 2009
E-mail dated 10/5/09
Well, I'm here in Bo right now and boy are things different. Maybe its just because I was so used to the Monrovia culture that everything is crazy again to me. Once again I feel like a new missionary and started my third mission. I am back to speaking Krio and using Leones(the currency). But I'm still getting used to not knowing anybody (in my branch) but once I start to develop a relationship with them I will be just fine. Right before I left on my mission I learned that the hard way. Two of the most important things in this life (1) Our relationship with God and (2) our Relationships with others. I have really learned how to improve both of them since I've been here on mission. I'm so grateful that I was able to spend time in Liberia and get to develop a relationship of love with them. But how great will my joy be when I will see them again.
The branch that I've been assigned to is called Sewa Road. Bascially the church has the same problems here in Bo as they do in Liberia so the work is the same. I'm enjoying my apartment. We have six elders total in the apartment and one of them is my MTC mate who was at the airport with me (Elder Yardley). I have seen Elder Kargbo and Elder Gifford who were living with me in Liberia, they are living in the other apartment in Bo. In the Zone we have 12 Elders. 10 of them are in Bo and 2 of them are in Kenema (close to the border of Liberia on a map). Today we played football against some branch missionaries and we beat them 6-3. Elder Smoot stayed in Liberia. I am now on my 9th different companion which is actually quite a bit. I guess I'm just a troublesome missionary that nobody wants to be with?
I was not able to watch any of General Conference. I don't think we will be watching it until November. So how was it? Kalli hang in there, I'll cook some rice for you when I get back.
Elder Degen
Rice is Life
The branch that I've been assigned to is called Sewa Road. Bascially the church has the same problems here in Bo as they do in Liberia so the work is the same. I'm enjoying my apartment. We have six elders total in the apartment and one of them is my MTC mate who was at the airport with me (Elder Yardley). I have seen Elder Kargbo and Elder Gifford who were living with me in Liberia, they are living in the other apartment in Bo. In the Zone we have 12 Elders. 10 of them are in Bo and 2 of them are in Kenema (close to the border of Liberia on a map). Today we played football against some branch missionaries and we beat them 6-3. Elder Smoot stayed in Liberia. I am now on my 9th different companion which is actually quite a bit. I guess I'm just a troublesome missionary that nobody wants to be with?
I was not able to watch any of General Conference. I don't think we will be watching it until November. So how was it? Kalli hang in there, I'll cook some rice for you when I get back.
Elder Degen
Rice is Life
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