This past Saturday we had a zone service project held at the Njagboima chapel. This wasn't an ordinary service project. We organized a little nativity called "journey to Bethlehem". This nativity wasn't like the nativity that occurs every Christmas with the smith family. The difference is that instead of the nativity moving on and off the stage the audience moves from room to room making their "journey to bethlehem". The event started in the hall of the chapel where an announcement was made that all people need to make there way to bethlehem for the taxing. The audience was divided into groups and they were led to bethlehem by captains (a couple of missionaries). The first room had two missionaries dressed up as travelers where small conversation broke out between them and the captian of the group. They proceeded to the next room and found Mary and Joseph also making the journey. (Mary and Joseph were recent converts from our branch). The next room the group found three sheperds and the announcement of the angel that Christ was born. The travelers made haste to the next room, where they met the wisemen. Right before the group reached the chapel door they met the innkeeper. Once inside the chapel my companion was dressed up as Nephi and he read Nephi's testimony of the Savior being born in 1 Nephi 10. I was a Bible character and I read Luke 2:1-19 to the group. A small film clip was played and we sang "away in a manger" and "silent night". The service project was a success as we had about 6 or 7 groups go through. It brings a big reminder as to why we celebrate Christmas and the difficult journey Mary and joseph made to go to Bethlehem. It was nice to feel the spirit as each group came into the chapel.
The answers to your questions. How many members in my branch? I have no idea, I do know that we have about 110 come to church each sunday. Maybe around 500 on the membership record. How many square miles? Once again I have no idea. Some parts of our area don't really have borders because it goes straight into the bush. Is getting to church a problem for some members? Its a problem if your testimony isn't strong. If you really want to go you will, even if you live 30 minutes walking distance and church starts at 8 am.
This upcoming week will be really really short because our whole zone, all 14 of us, are traveling to freetown for the Christmas conference. Wooo!!!!! I'm so excited. I also got news this week that three of the investigators that I was working with in Congo Town have been baptized since I've left. I was so happy for them.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KALLI!!!!!!!
Enjoy the week and RICE IS LIFE(honestly I'm getting a little tired of it)
Elder Degen
Monday, December 7, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
E-mail dated 11/30/09
Well let me just wish everyone a happy december because its the first tomorrow!!! Our whole apartment is getting very excited for Christmas. But let me first update you on this past week. For Thanksgiving day we had a normal day of proselyting until about 4. Then our whole zone got together at a school and we brushed their school yard for them. Yes all 14 of us were cutting bush with cutlasses for this school. After the service project our District went to the only restaurant in town and ordered a 20,000 le hamburger for our thanksgiving celebration, again.
The next day was zone conference in which we got fed again this time rice. For zone conference we were instructed by sister squires about being grateful, even for the difficult things in life. She told us a story that I'm going to try and share over email. A woman was going through a hard time during this years Thanksgiving season. It seemed as if everything in her life was going wrong. She had got in a car accident three months ealier when she was 6 months pregnant and the accident killed there child. (you can fill in the blanks with other difficult times that we all face). She went into a flower shop to order the usual Thanksgiving bouquet of flowers. She approached the clerk and the clerk greeted her, and she grumbled something back. They got talking and all of the things going wrong in this womans life made her a little ungrateful for what God has blessed her with. The clerk said "Oh, I have the perfect arraignment for you. Its the Thanksgiving special." "What's that?" the woman murmured in return. Just at that moment another customer came up and thanked the clerk for preparing the special for him. The woman was amazed when the clerk came out with twelve rose stems with the roses cut off. the woman couldn't believe that this man just paid for 12 rose stems. She asked "How is that the special?" The clerk replied that " we need to be grateful for the thorns in life, to make us better appriciate the roses." "How can I be grateful for all these bad things that have happened to me and ruined my life?" retorted the woman back. Just at that moment another customer came to pick up her pre-ordered 'thanksgiving special'. The clerk and the woman once again got into conversation and the clerk reminded her " If we aren't grateful for the thorns in life the roses won't mean anything to us. Let us remember that Jesus Christ suffered all of our difficult times for us and that it was a crown of thorns that they placed on his head in his hour of difficulty." At that moment the woman began to feel a burden lift off of her shoulder and for the first time in a long time her heart was touched. "I'll take one of those 'thanksgiving specials' asked the woman. The clerk replied "the first years always on me." (I just quoted that from memory. Maybe google it if you want the full extended version).
This story made me reailze that not only do I need to be gratful for the roses in my life, but also the thorns. for through these thorny times is when I have grown nearer to God than at any other moment. I'm grateful for all the trials I've had in my life and all the experiences I've gone through, because they really have made me who I am today.
On Saturday we had a District Conference for the Bo District. All 7 branches in Bo and the one branch in kenema met at our District center for this event. After the conference President and Sister Squires drove Elder Lamb and I back to freetown for us to attend a meeting there. So here I am in Freetown now. Today was one of those thorns I'm grateful for. Ironically Elder Lamb and I both woke up not feeling the best and we have both been staggering along all day. I'm also grateful for the priesthood as I've learned to always ask for blessings when I'm sick. It sounds kind of wierd back home to offer a blessing to someone with just a fever. Its as if we only offer blessings back home when we are on our death beds. I know the power of the priesthood will heal me from my sickness and we will go and do what the lord commands us. I love being out here on mission. I've gone through many thorny times and many rosy times and I wouldn't trade this experience for the world.
Elder Degen
Rice is Life
The next day was zone conference in which we got fed again this time rice. For zone conference we were instructed by sister squires about being grateful, even for the difficult things in life. She told us a story that I'm going to try and share over email. A woman was going through a hard time during this years Thanksgiving season. It seemed as if everything in her life was going wrong. She had got in a car accident three months ealier when she was 6 months pregnant and the accident killed there child. (you can fill in the blanks with other difficult times that we all face). She went into a flower shop to order the usual Thanksgiving bouquet of flowers. She approached the clerk and the clerk greeted her, and she grumbled something back. They got talking and all of the things going wrong in this womans life made her a little ungrateful for what God has blessed her with. The clerk said "Oh, I have the perfect arraignment for you. Its the Thanksgiving special." "What's that?" the woman murmured in return. Just at that moment another customer came up and thanked the clerk for preparing the special for him. The woman was amazed when the clerk came out with twelve rose stems with the roses cut off. the woman couldn't believe that this man just paid for 12 rose stems. She asked "How is that the special?" The clerk replied that " we need to be grateful for the thorns in life, to make us better appriciate the roses." "How can I be grateful for all these bad things that have happened to me and ruined my life?" retorted the woman back. Just at that moment another customer came to pick up her pre-ordered 'thanksgiving special'. The clerk and the woman once again got into conversation and the clerk reminded her " If we aren't grateful for the thorns in life the roses won't mean anything to us. Let us remember that Jesus Christ suffered all of our difficult times for us and that it was a crown of thorns that they placed on his head in his hour of difficulty." At that moment the woman began to feel a burden lift off of her shoulder and for the first time in a long time her heart was touched. "I'll take one of those 'thanksgiving specials' asked the woman. The clerk replied "the first years always on me." (I just quoted that from memory. Maybe google it if you want the full extended version).
This story made me reailze that not only do I need to be gratful for the roses in my life, but also the thorns. for through these thorny times is when I have grown nearer to God than at any other moment. I'm grateful for all the trials I've had in my life and all the experiences I've gone through, because they really have made me who I am today.
On Saturday we had a District Conference for the Bo District. All 7 branches in Bo and the one branch in kenema met at our District center for this event. After the conference President and Sister Squires drove Elder Lamb and I back to freetown for us to attend a meeting there. So here I am in Freetown now. Today was one of those thorns I'm grateful for. Ironically Elder Lamb and I both woke up not feeling the best and we have both been staggering along all day. I'm also grateful for the priesthood as I've learned to always ask for blessings when I'm sick. It sounds kind of wierd back home to offer a blessing to someone with just a fever. Its as if we only offer blessings back home when we are on our death beds. I know the power of the priesthood will heal me from my sickness and we will go and do what the lord commands us. I love being out here on mission. I've gone through many thorny times and many rosy times and I wouldn't trade this experience for the world.
Elder Degen
Rice is Life
Monday, November 23, 2009
E-mail dated 11/23/09
Hello again. Let me first update you on our Thanksgiving we had this past sunday. I don't know what you are all excited for because we had an awesome thanksgiving. Elder Lamb and myself took the positions of the cooks. Since there are no turkeys here in Sierra leone, we had to settle for chicken. Everyone got a chicken thigh and a leg and we cooked a mountain of potatoes. We had a ginormous fruit salad where we cut three pinapples and about 20 bananas into goodness. we also bought 48 oranges (for a dollar) for the whole zone to enjoy. We arrainged with our banana bread making lady to make every one two cakes of bread. And for the amazing dessert we made some no bake cookies. The only problems was that when dinner was ready to eat we did not have power in the apartment and our generator decided it was not going to work again. We had Thanksgiving in a romantic candlelit setting. 12 missionaries enjoyed that night. in fact its almost time for dinner again and I haven't eaten anything since that great event. Elder Lamb and I even bought sparkling cider that we found for the event. Oh, but the celebration is not done as we are planning for something on the actual Thanksgiving day. I'll let you know next week.
A typical P-day for me the past 2 months. 6:30 arise and start washing my clothes. I get as far as I can in the clothes washing until 8 when we start personal study. at 9 companionship study. at 10 we play football as a zone against the branch missionaries from various branches until we are tired (which today was about 1). Go home and wash, dress in priesthood attire and we go to town to buy our food for the week and email and get haircuts or whatever. We then go to family home evening which last until 7:30 or 8. By then its to dark to go anywhere so its back to the apartment and we plan for the activities on Tuesday and cook dinner if we didn't get any food. P-days are not relaxing here. We fill every hour full of activities.
So I still have a little bit of time and i remembered some things that happened this week that I might as well let you know about. For our service project this week we went to the Thomas family with the intention to cut some trees down. When we arrived we found that the tree was already cut down and now they wanted it cut up into small pieces to use for firewood for cooking. There are no such things as tree cutters here, so we were whacking away at this montrous tree with our cutlasses and an ax. My hands were destroyed afterwards because of all that cutting. Anywho, we got the job done and it was alot of work.
On Saturday, we were passing by the same Thomas family and the neighbor children started yelling "snake". Of course our curiosity got the best of us and we ran over to see it. It was one of those green ones that climb trees. Everyone was having a hissyfit because they could see a snake. Everyone here is terrified of them. We saved the day by chopping the snakes head off with a cutlass. yeah!
Well thats all I've got for this week. Everything is going good. Happy Thanksgiving to all and to
all a good week.
Elder Degen
Rice is Life
A typical P-day for me the past 2 months. 6:30 arise and start washing my clothes. I get as far as I can in the clothes washing until 8 when we start personal study. at 9 companionship study. at 10 we play football as a zone against the branch missionaries from various branches until we are tired (which today was about 1). Go home and wash, dress in priesthood attire and we go to town to buy our food for the week and email and get haircuts or whatever. We then go to family home evening which last until 7:30 or 8. By then its to dark to go anywhere so its back to the apartment and we plan for the activities on Tuesday and cook dinner if we didn't get any food. P-days are not relaxing here. We fill every hour full of activities.
So I still have a little bit of time and i remembered some things that happened this week that I might as well let you know about. For our service project this week we went to the Thomas family with the intention to cut some trees down. When we arrived we found that the tree was already cut down and now they wanted it cut up into small pieces to use for firewood for cooking. There are no such things as tree cutters here, so we were whacking away at this montrous tree with our cutlasses and an ax. My hands were destroyed afterwards because of all that cutting. Anywho, we got the job done and it was alot of work.
On Saturday, we were passing by the same Thomas family and the neighbor children started yelling "snake". Of course our curiosity got the best of us and we ran over to see it. It was one of those green ones that climb trees. Everyone was having a hissyfit because they could see a snake. Everyone here is terrified of them. We saved the day by chopping the snakes head off with a cutlass. yeah!
Well thats all I've got for this week. Everything is going good. Happy Thanksgiving to all and to
all a good week.
Elder Degen
Rice is Life
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, November 9, 2009
E-mail dated 11/9/09
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
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 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.
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