Hello Family,
I'm glad to hear that your week went by fast. Mine on the other hand went by very slow. I'm not going to lie but last week was crappy. But please don't worry about me (MOM). Last week Saturday I got Malaria (gasp gasp). Let me tell you that it is not fun to get. I didn't recover as quick as i should have and we concluded that I also had a bacteria infection. Last week was very tiring and I didn't take the time to rest that I needed. Which only made the problem worse. I learned from my mistake and on Saturday I took the whole day to rest from my labors. I feel so much better now and you really have no need to worry. But it really made me even more grateful for many things, as if coming to africa hasn't done that enough already. I am really grateful for my health, especially now that it is better. I was also very humbled as to how important it is to have you body feeling well to be more spiritual. Reminded me of the promise at the end of the word of wisdom. nothing is temporal to God, all things are spiritual. But please don't fret, All is well with me now.
I have been studying to doctrine and covenants and I read something yesterday that was really good. Look at the beginning of D&C 58 about adversity. I've also learned so much a bout the history of the church while studying. Man it would have been terrible to be an early saint. They went through so much. Like before the whole walking across the plains thing. I got to watch the last session of conference and half of the first session. (in that order, don't ask me why) I absolutely loved them. I can't wait to get the ensign to read all the words of the prophets, seers, and revelators. My favorite (so far) was the talk by Neil L Anderson. It was about not knowing everything but knowing enough. Wow that story about the deaf child was amazing.
Questions: Yes I have a zone conference this week. Tell Sherrie I recieved her package last week and thank you very much. Put something for Elder Kpodi inside. Just put whatever and I'll share it with everyone. The rain is slowly going away (which means its hotter than . . .. .well you know)
(1) It is hot at night. Expecially when the power is gone because the fan can't work without power. (2) Pizza might be the thing I want most when I get back (3) I can speak Krio, but I only do it to those that can't understand English (4) I'll let you know how they celebrate Christmas here in a couple months from now.
Have a good one
Elder Degen
Monday, October 27, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
E-mail dated 10/20/08
Degen Family:
How are we doing this week? From what it sounds things are going very well. Sorry you couldn't go to St. George and enjoy, but hanging out ht home is just as fun. So before I answer questions this time I'm going to go over my week and maybe some of your questions will be answered whilst you read. Elder Kpodi and I are finding ways to make the work progress here and we found a way to teach even more lessons in one day. We went on splits with branch missionaries for the whole day on wednesday. Combined we ended up teaching eleven lessons. The branch missionary I went with introduced me to this white couple from Kentucky (Yes pa, Kentucky) who are here helping to solve the child malnutrution problem. The are planning to set up a factory that produces a formula to help the children with malnutrition. They will stay here as long as it takes (bless their hearts). I had the opportunity to teach them the first lesson. It was very weird teaching a non-seirra leonean. I'm pretty sure I was called to teach the africans and not americans. but all the same we will see if we can help them in thier efforts to make this country better.
The rest of the week wasn't bad. I went on splits a couple of other days with the District and Zone leader. Today for P-day we played volleyball and ate fufu (some food that none of you would ever eat). There are 4 couples in this mission. 2 in freetown and two in liberia.
I need a washing machine, air conditioner, milk, ice cream, pizza, 24 power, and running water all the time for Christmas. But that is not possible so make sure you send me some contact solution. don't forget the contact solution.
I haven't seen any snakes yet. I've seen plenty of frogs. We have cockroaches in the apartment. I see geckos in the apartment sometimes too. I've never seen monkeys running the streets. Of course its lawful to have them as pets. I know of some missionaries in the past that have had them as pets. And people here love to eat them. I'm getting plenty to eat. I've gained like 5 pounds. Everything else is fine. I'm glad to hear to great news about the utes (grandpa is rolling over in his grave right now, laurie and brittany at the game?).
I love you all.
Elder Degen
How are we doing this week? From what it sounds things are going very well. Sorry you couldn't go to St. George and enjoy, but hanging out ht home is just as fun. So before I answer questions this time I'm going to go over my week and maybe some of your questions will be answered whilst you read. Elder Kpodi and I are finding ways to make the work progress here and we found a way to teach even more lessons in one day. We went on splits with branch missionaries for the whole day on wednesday. Combined we ended up teaching eleven lessons. The branch missionary I went with introduced me to this white couple from Kentucky (Yes pa, Kentucky) who are here helping to solve the child malnutrution problem. The are planning to set up a factory that produces a formula to help the children with malnutrition. They will stay here as long as it takes (bless their hearts). I had the opportunity to teach them the first lesson. It was very weird teaching a non-seirra leonean. I'm pretty sure I was called to teach the africans and not americans. but all the same we will see if we can help them in thier efforts to make this country better.
The rest of the week wasn't bad. I went on splits a couple of other days with the District and Zone leader. Today for P-day we played volleyball and ate fufu (some food that none of you would ever eat). There are 4 couples in this mission. 2 in freetown and two in liberia.
I need a washing machine, air conditioner, milk, ice cream, pizza, 24 power, and running water all the time for Christmas. But that is not possible so make sure you send me some contact solution. don't forget the contact solution.
I haven't seen any snakes yet. I've seen plenty of frogs. We have cockroaches in the apartment. I see geckos in the apartment sometimes too. I've never seen monkeys running the streets. Of course its lawful to have them as pets. I know of some missionaries in the past that have had them as pets. And people here love to eat them. I'm getting plenty to eat. I've gained like 5 pounds. Everything else is fine. I'm glad to hear to great news about the utes (grandpa is rolling over in his grave right now, laurie and brittany at the game?).
I love you all.
Elder Degen
Monday, October 13, 2008
E-mail dated 10/13/08
Degen family:
Wow snow!! I hope your ready for winter. As for me I will be enjoying the rain for another month or so. October is actually the month of thunder and lightning. HOLY COW can it thunder here. I swear world war three had broken out and every country had decided to attack Sierra Leone (I'm not quite sure why they would). Man it was loud. Yesterday we had a huge storm coming in and Elder Kpodi and I did not want to be caught in it so we began to go back to the apartment early. We didn't quite make it so we began to run to not get to soaked. That is actually a common sight with us in the rainy season.
As for the spiritual aspect of it: We had 2 more baptized on Saturday. Marie Kargbo and Elizabeth Wilkinson. I actually performed the baptisms again and it went very well. They both showed up to church on Sunday and both recieved the Holy Ghost.
Oh another thing we did this week. we had a zone service project at the Cemetery. first of all cemetery's here in Africa are not as nice as cemetery's in Utah. This country has alot of problems with the living to worry about so the dead are kind of in a mess. 12 missionaries cleaned one corner of the cemetery for four hours. 8 of them had cutlasses (they look exactly like swords) and they were cutting down all the green so they could see the gravestones. I was stuck pulling weeds for four hours around the headstones. It was actually fun and it looked so much better. It was just a funny sight to see 8 missionaries with swords attacking anything green in front of them.
Kalli I'm pretty sure Halloween isn't celebrated over here. thanksgiving is not either. but I will try and do something to celebrate them anyway. I hear alot about American Politics over here. For some reason they would rather talk about american politics than sierra leone politics. Don't ask me why.
Thank you for the information about my friends. I don't really hear from anyone but family. So Grady got his call. Sweet. I do hear from CJ as Lisa forwards me his emails. And we both write each other. Sonja as well. Thank you for all the information and I hope you have a great week.
Elder Degen
Wow snow!! I hope your ready for winter. As for me I will be enjoying the rain for another month or so. October is actually the month of thunder and lightning. HOLY COW can it thunder here. I swear world war three had broken out and every country had decided to attack Sierra Leone (I'm not quite sure why they would). Man it was loud. Yesterday we had a huge storm coming in and Elder Kpodi and I did not want to be caught in it so we began to go back to the apartment early. We didn't quite make it so we began to run to not get to soaked. That is actually a common sight with us in the rainy season.
As for the spiritual aspect of it: We had 2 more baptized on Saturday. Marie Kargbo and Elizabeth Wilkinson. I actually performed the baptisms again and it went very well. They both showed up to church on Sunday and both recieved the Holy Ghost.
Oh another thing we did this week. we had a zone service project at the Cemetery. first of all cemetery's here in Africa are not as nice as cemetery's in Utah. This country has alot of problems with the living to worry about so the dead are kind of in a mess. 12 missionaries cleaned one corner of the cemetery for four hours. 8 of them had cutlasses (they look exactly like swords) and they were cutting down all the green so they could see the gravestones. I was stuck pulling weeds for four hours around the headstones. It was actually fun and it looked so much better. It was just a funny sight to see 8 missionaries with swords attacking anything green in front of them.
Kalli I'm pretty sure Halloween isn't celebrated over here. thanksgiving is not either. but I will try and do something to celebrate them anyway. I hear alot about American Politics over here. For some reason they would rather talk about american politics than sierra leone politics. Don't ask me why.
Thank you for the information about my friends. I don't really hear from anyone but family. So Grady got his call. Sweet. I do hear from CJ as Lisa forwards me his emails. And we both write each other. Sonja as well. Thank you for all the information and I hope you have a great week.
Elder Degen
E-mail dated 10/6/08
Family,
I really wish I could have heard conference. It sounds like it was awesome. (then again, when is conference not awesome) 80% of the churches population is within a day of the temple. I'm part of that 20 percent right now. It takes like a week to get to the temple for people here. One day (probably during the Millenium) Salone will have a temple. We probably won't get to watch conference until the end of October, and I will probably only get to watch one session. People here don't really understand the big words used in conference so their attention spans last for only one session. At least this is what older missionaries have told me.
This whole country is run on cell phones. I think I've seen one land-line the whole time i've been here. But you have to pre-pay instead of post-pay. It kind of stinks but oh well. As for this week we had about 30 appointments, but we worked just as hard if not harder. We are literally teaching all day. We only go out on monday evenings on p-day. Our investigators are no more than a 45 minutes walk from the chapel. So we walk alot. As for the petersons, they came in march and will be serving until next october. The usual 18 months for couple missionaries. I usually see them at least once a week.
Baptisms are usually combined with another branch. So we communicate with other missionaries to see if they are holding a service the same day we are. Since we are the only ones in the congo Cross branch and all Elders are assigned to one branch only it is common that I see investigators that I did not teach.Our last conference was on thursday. It was really good. I really liked what president squires told me. He told me to look back at the end of each day and look for the ways that the lord was helping us in the work. It reminded me of Pres Eyrings talk on his journal in last years conference. Wow, it really does humble you. Everyone should try it and write it in thier journals. How have you seen the Lords hand in your day today.
I'm sorry if it is short today but the internet is very crappy. I tried to send you a longer one earlier but the internet went down. So now I'm writing everything over again and my time is almost up. don't be upset. only joking.
Elder Degen
I really wish I could have heard conference. It sounds like it was awesome. (then again, when is conference not awesome) 80% of the churches population is within a day of the temple. I'm part of that 20 percent right now. It takes like a week to get to the temple for people here. One day (probably during the Millenium) Salone will have a temple. We probably won't get to watch conference until the end of October, and I will probably only get to watch one session. People here don't really understand the big words used in conference so their attention spans last for only one session. At least this is what older missionaries have told me.
This whole country is run on cell phones. I think I've seen one land-line the whole time i've been here. But you have to pre-pay instead of post-pay. It kind of stinks but oh well. As for this week we had about 30 appointments, but we worked just as hard if not harder. We are literally teaching all day. We only go out on monday evenings on p-day. Our investigators are no more than a 45 minutes walk from the chapel. So we walk alot. As for the petersons, they came in march and will be serving until next october. The usual 18 months for couple missionaries. I usually see them at least once a week.
Baptisms are usually combined with another branch. So we communicate with other missionaries to see if they are holding a service the same day we are. Since we are the only ones in the congo Cross branch and all Elders are assigned to one branch only it is common that I see investigators that I did not teach.Our last conference was on thursday. It was really good. I really liked what president squires told me. He told me to look back at the end of each day and look for the ways that the lord was helping us in the work. It reminded me of Pres Eyrings talk on his journal in last years conference. Wow, it really does humble you. Everyone should try it and write it in thier journals. How have you seen the Lords hand in your day today.
I'm sorry if it is short today but the internet is very crappy. I tried to send you a longer one earlier but the internet went down. So now I'm writing everything over again and my time is almost up. don't be upset. only joking.
Elder Degen
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Eric's e-mail from 9/29/08
Greetings from Freetown,
Ok, so let me first try and answer all of your eleventy-billion questions. My week was great thanks for asking. The most exciting part of my week was definitely the baptism we had on Saturday. We baptized a young boy of 16 yrs old who is amazingly educated for this country. His name is Wusu Samura and he is the son of the Man we baptized 2 weeks ago. Now the whole family is baptized and active. Now the fun part was filling the font before the service. Water here is not always running so in order for anyone to have water in case the pump is locked then you need a huge tank of water that you can draw out of. Well, the tank was not full at the chapel at belliar park (the font is outside) so we could not fill the font. We had to go to the Mission office, which is next door, and steal the water from thier tank to fill the baptismal font . . . Bucket by Bucket. It took like an hour for 8 of us to fill the baptismal font. But we were determinded to baptized these people so we were working hard in our shirts and ties. I actually got to baptize this time and it was pretty sweet.
When we are teaching someone we usually extend the commitment either during the first or second lesson. Now people here learn slowly so we split the first and second lessons into 4 different lessons. So we usually extend the invitation when we start the Plan of Salvation. Their response? Well they have two choices - yes or no. Mostly everyone will say yes, but its up to us to determine whether they will remain active after they are baptized. Teaching straight out of preach my gospel - like having the book in front of me, No. But all of our lessons are derived from it. We teach each lesson differently according to the needs of the investigators. Does it still rain alot - Yes, people here tell me that august is the worst month for rain, but I'm pretty sure September stole the crown from august this year. I'm used to being wet all the time and it really doesn't bother me.
How does Freetown dispose of Garbage? Well in a perfect world we would have trash cans and a dump but this city has NO trash cans so that means that their is trash everywhere. People here litter like its nothing. Our apartment has made friends with the neighbors so we give them our leftover rice in exchange that they take out our trash. Where they take it I don't know but as long as it out of our apartment I'm happy. Other apartments burn their trash, which if jimmy and cj were with me that would probably not be a good thing.
My Krio is coming along just fine. It comes and goes. Some days I can speak it like a Sierra Leonian and others . . . not so much. Krio is dominant in freetown. If i ever go to Bo then the dominant language is Mende but everyone can speak english as well. In Liberia everyone speaks English so no worries.
Elder Kpodi and I get along just fine. We both have a desire to work really hard and our numbers this week showed. We taught 35 lessons this week!!! We had a branch conference this week so our attendance was just shy of 200. We had 41 investigators at church. We have another busy week planned in teaching all of these new investigators.
Mom I'm fine, to answer your last question. This internet is really slow today so I'm not even going to try to send pictures. Osh ya.
Elder Degen
Ok, so let me first try and answer all of your eleventy-billion questions. My week was great thanks for asking. The most exciting part of my week was definitely the baptism we had on Saturday. We baptized a young boy of 16 yrs old who is amazingly educated for this country. His name is Wusu Samura and he is the son of the Man we baptized 2 weeks ago. Now the whole family is baptized and active. Now the fun part was filling the font before the service. Water here is not always running so in order for anyone to have water in case the pump is locked then you need a huge tank of water that you can draw out of. Well, the tank was not full at the chapel at belliar park (the font is outside) so we could not fill the font. We had to go to the Mission office, which is next door, and steal the water from thier tank to fill the baptismal font . . . Bucket by Bucket. It took like an hour for 8 of us to fill the baptismal font. But we were determinded to baptized these people so we were working hard in our shirts and ties. I actually got to baptize this time and it was pretty sweet.
When we are teaching someone we usually extend the commitment either during the first or second lesson. Now people here learn slowly so we split the first and second lessons into 4 different lessons. So we usually extend the invitation when we start the Plan of Salvation. Their response? Well they have two choices - yes or no. Mostly everyone will say yes, but its up to us to determine whether they will remain active after they are baptized. Teaching straight out of preach my gospel - like having the book in front of me, No. But all of our lessons are derived from it. We teach each lesson differently according to the needs of the investigators. Does it still rain alot - Yes, people here tell me that august is the worst month for rain, but I'm pretty sure September stole the crown from august this year. I'm used to being wet all the time and it really doesn't bother me.
How does Freetown dispose of Garbage? Well in a perfect world we would have trash cans and a dump but this city has NO trash cans so that means that their is trash everywhere. People here litter like its nothing. Our apartment has made friends with the neighbors so we give them our leftover rice in exchange that they take out our trash. Where they take it I don't know but as long as it out of our apartment I'm happy. Other apartments burn their trash, which if jimmy and cj were with me that would probably not be a good thing.
My Krio is coming along just fine. It comes and goes. Some days I can speak it like a Sierra Leonian and others . . . not so much. Krio is dominant in freetown. If i ever go to Bo then the dominant language is Mende but everyone can speak english as well. In Liberia everyone speaks English so no worries.
Elder Kpodi and I get along just fine. We both have a desire to work really hard and our numbers this week showed. We taught 35 lessons this week!!! We had a branch conference this week so our attendance was just shy of 200. We had 41 investigators at church. We have another busy week planned in teaching all of these new investigators.
Mom I'm fine, to answer your last question. This internet is really slow today so I'm not even going to try to send pictures. Osh ya.
Elder Degen
Monday, September 22, 2008
E-mail dated 9/22/08
Hello there,
My week was very fine thank you very much. I recieved a new companion this week as Elder Sadare was transferred to Monrovia. My new companions name is Elder Kpodi (the K is silent) from Liberia. (Sadare was from Nigeria). I am enjoying the change as he is a great teacher. He came in March and is only 3 months older than me on mission. He is like 25 yrs old and I am enjoying. We had three leave our apartment and three more come in. We now have four americans in the apartment and two Liberians. So my week was pretty much a farwell tour for Elder Sadare, as he tried to visit every member of our branch in two days. He had been in this area since the beginning of February so it was time for him to leave. Now i am leading around my new companion showing him around the area and telling him who we need to teach. It is kind of weird because he is still my senior companion.
I don't really have any exciting stories like what happened to us last week, but yes Elder Stice and I were the ones Elder Peterson was talking about. We did have an all African service project on Saturday and All the church members in the Freetown District cleaned the streets of Freetown up from all the litter. It looks much better now. I
do get to go to the primary often. I am currently teaching the primary a new song every week. Last week I taught them "Book of Mormon Stories". Its hard for them to learn songs they have never heard of so because I am the only one that knows the tune I go and teach them how to sing. Every week. I love it.
Elder Degen
My week was very fine thank you very much. I recieved a new companion this week as Elder Sadare was transferred to Monrovia. My new companions name is Elder Kpodi (the K is silent) from Liberia. (Sadare was from Nigeria). I am enjoying the change as he is a great teacher. He came in March and is only 3 months older than me on mission. He is like 25 yrs old and I am enjoying. We had three leave our apartment and three more come in. We now have four americans in the apartment and two Liberians. So my week was pretty much a farwell tour for Elder Sadare, as he tried to visit every member of our branch in two days. He had been in this area since the beginning of February so it was time for him to leave. Now i am leading around my new companion showing him around the area and telling him who we need to teach. It is kind of weird because he is still my senior companion.
I don't really have any exciting stories like what happened to us last week, but yes Elder Stice and I were the ones Elder Peterson was talking about. We did have an all African service project on Saturday and All the church members in the Freetown District cleaned the streets of Freetown up from all the litter. It looks much better now. I
do get to go to the primary often. I am currently teaching the primary a new song every week. Last week I taught them "Book of Mormon Stories". Its hard for them to learn songs they have never heard of so because I am the only one that knows the tune I go and teach them how to sing. Every week. I love it.
Elder Degen
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Eric's e-mail dated 9/15/08 - Not too chatty this week!
Hello guys,
My week was great this past week. We ended it with another baptism. This time it was an older gentleman, who in my opinion will serve as a branch president one day. The other baptism was a sister of a member. Sunday was also a good day. Most of our recent converts came to church and we were also blessed with some new investigators that visited the church as well. My companion, Elder Sadare, is going to be leaving me on Wednesday for Liberia. So that means I will be getting a new companion this week. I'll find out if that is a good thing by this time next week.
So I have a story to tell but sadly its not as good through email as it would be if I were telling it. But I will try. So on thursday it rained extremely hard. Elder Stice and I (I was on splits that day) decided to wait it out and sat in an investigators house for like an hour. We realized that it was not going to stop and we needed to start heading back to the apartment because it was getting dark. We had no choice but to trek in the rain. Lets just say that the closer we got to the apartment the worse the rain got. It started out that the water was up to my ankles, then it got up to my knees. By the end of it I was wading in water that was just below my waist. Now that I look back it is very humorous, but at the time. . . . no. I will never forget that day. And the crappy thing was that we only taught two lessons that day and we got filthy dirty.
I won't need a copy of the conference because we get the ensign. we will watch conference on discs like a month after it happens. We have a freezer in our apartment so our water is either frozen or warm depending of if we have power. There is absolutley no milk in this country. Unless you count the powder or the condensed milk. Maybe rechargeable battries would be nice, so i guess go ahead and send them for christmas. I don't need another memory card yet. For the rest of the day we are going to family home evening with a member family tonight. And i'm sure tomorrow we will be visiting almost every member in our branch for my companion to say good-bye.
Elder Degen
PS. Go utes. I am sorry to hear about Sis Nunley. Dad how was work today?
My week was great this past week. We ended it with another baptism. This time it was an older gentleman, who in my opinion will serve as a branch president one day. The other baptism was a sister of a member. Sunday was also a good day. Most of our recent converts came to church and we were also blessed with some new investigators that visited the church as well. My companion, Elder Sadare, is going to be leaving me on Wednesday for Liberia. So that means I will be getting a new companion this week. I'll find out if that is a good thing by this time next week.
So I have a story to tell but sadly its not as good through email as it would be if I were telling it. But I will try. So on thursday it rained extremely hard. Elder Stice and I (I was on splits that day) decided to wait it out and sat in an investigators house for like an hour. We realized that it was not going to stop and we needed to start heading back to the apartment because it was getting dark. We had no choice but to trek in the rain. Lets just say that the closer we got to the apartment the worse the rain got. It started out that the water was up to my ankles, then it got up to my knees. By the end of it I was wading in water that was just below my waist. Now that I look back it is very humorous, but at the time. . . . no. I will never forget that day. And the crappy thing was that we only taught two lessons that day and we got filthy dirty.
I won't need a copy of the conference because we get the ensign. we will watch conference on discs like a month after it happens. We have a freezer in our apartment so our water is either frozen or warm depending of if we have power. There is absolutley no milk in this country. Unless you count the powder or the condensed milk. Maybe rechargeable battries would be nice, so i guess go ahead and send them for christmas. I don't need another memory card yet. For the rest of the day we are going to family home evening with a member family tonight. And i'm sure tomorrow we will be visiting almost every member in our branch for my companion to say good-bye.
Elder Degen
PS. Go utes. I am sorry to hear about Sis Nunley. Dad how was work today?
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