So some of you may be wondering why i'm emailing on a Tuesday... its because Sierra Leone's independence day was on the 27th so Monday was a holiday as well and the mission decided that more people would be home on Monday so it would be a very good opportunity to find more families. It was a good idea because we got a sweet new family to teach!!
So this past week we had our zone meeting for the transfer and i got to conduct..... conducting by the way is a lot harder than it looks.... Elder Sumrak and Elder Stanford (the AP's) attended as well and for the most part of the meeting we discussed finding Kingdom Builders, people who have families, are educated for the most part and will be strong members in the church. So right after that Elder Hamilton and i went out to find and boy to we find someone who's gonna make us work! We found a sweet guy who's relatively old and he's a pretty strong Muslim man. His name is Abduli "Garrinche" Sesay. The "Garrinche" name is a name that was given to him way back in the day when he played football for the national Sierra Leone team... the name followed him through his career as he moved from playing on the team to coaching the national team. Now he's a Football junky and that's all he does every day. I tell you what tho.... it's been a long time since i've been able to talk sports with someone, so we had a pretty sweet connection. He's a pretty strong Muslim but Elder Hamilton and i got him to pray "the Christian way" in our last lesson with him on Saturday. Sadly he didn't come to church on Sunday, but small small.
So yesterday i gave instruction in district meeting on weekly planning and the importance of setting goals. The AP's were also present at this meeting. I loved giving this instruction and i felt very inspired and i enjoyed having the AP's comments in the meeting since my district tends to be a little.... quiet. Tomorrow i'll be going to Kossoh Town for another meeting with our zone and Waterloo zone(my old zone), the AP's will be there as well... i tell you what... i think i see Elder Sumrak just as much now as i did when i was his companion, its so sweet!!! The meeting is about mental health.... we have been having many many missionaries going home lately from our mission and some is because they get in their heads that they can't last the two years in this rough of living conditions. It's really crappy to see so many go home... i'm proud to say that my MTC group of 26 (largest in this mission so far) still has all of the missionaries in the field! WOOOHOOO!
The picture you asked about mom is when we were waiting for interviews with President Ostler. We were in the Wellington Chapel... notice the barbed wire on the walls... that's to keep the bad guys out. That's a very very very common thing here... most places with compound walls have barbed wire on top and shattered glass cemented to the top of the wall and some even have guard dogs or a security guard.
Dogs here are so crazy... in Allen Town they are scattered around during the day and afraid of everything that moves, at night they pack together and they hunt things... people included. Elder Barrick almost got eaten one time.... that's a pretty funny story actually but it's for another day. So anyways i think that's about all for today. I love you all so much! Malloway!
-Elder Rogers
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
Easter
Well everyone i hope you all enjoyed your Easter!! This year's Easter was a lot more different than last years..... no egg hunt, no m&m's, and i guess the Easter bunny doesn't travel all the way out to SaLone... that guys a joke! So they celebrate Easter much different here. They focus a lot more on "Good Friday" instead of Easter.... this is due to how many apostate churches there are in SaLone. So on Good Friday what do they do.. well it starts off as a normal every Sunday kind of service but the Pastors have crazy amounts of offerings so they can make even more money and then at the end they have a reenactment of the Crucifixion of Christ... and they do it crazy realistic like..... a man acts like Christ... naked, wears a crown of thorns, they use fake blood on him, they tie him to a cross. So. Apostate. So Easter Sunday is much different than that. That day is primarily used for Pastors to just make boku boku cash. We all know the three days that everyone goes to church... Christmas, Easter, and the first Sunday of the year. So they use that opportunity to make a bunch of false prophecies about how if you give a big offering there will be a spot on the right hand of God for you and yadayadayada. So also there is a bar/club right outside our apartment... and Easter weekend is a big time for them as well... they just play music... LOUD... all night long. So Sunday i was asleep in church for most of the service because they stopped playing music at 6 in the morning and i couldn't fall asleep until they turned the music off but hey i'm grateful for the experience because its a good journal entry! So i think that's pretty much all for this week. I love you all and hope that you guys are doing great!!!! Malloway!!!!
Friday, April 18, 2014
A few pics from the mission Facebook page
From the Sierra Leone Freetown Mission Facebook page. It said they were waiting for interviews. They aren't the best pictures, but any glimpse of him is good!
Monday, April 14, 2014
So you're teaching Elders Quorum right??? hah.
So this week was so sweet! Gave my second instruction and it was sweet! A lot of it was training my district members how to send their numbers in and the importance of a neat and clean baptismal record. By the way mom... you'd be surprised at how clean i keep everything now.... i suggest having Tanner, Korbin, and Kennli brook their clothes for a month. It really makes you appreciate everything a lot more... and it's really fun to do. But back to the fact... i can't stand disorganization now.... so that was most of the instruction but the other part was about working together with our Branch Mission Leader. Since our BML can be very difficult we mostly discussed patience... which is something that everyone needs to work on every day.
So we taught 23 lessons this week which was a HUGE improvement compared to last weeks 14 lessons. Also this week we had a very interesting experience (happens every day but this one was extraordinary!). SO we're sitting there in the chapel just before Elders Quorum starts and today had been a 'Missionary Sunday' which means that the missionaries handle all the talks, music and teachings for the day. Well they only gave assignments to the speakers and they gave us an assignment of singing the closing hymn as just the missionaries....... so we're sitting there and we're singing the opening hymn for Elders Quorum. Elder Arhinful (one of the elders in the branch) comes over to me and grabs my arm to get my attention to tell me 'man they just told me that me and my companion need to teach young mens, the sisters are teaching young womens, but we need someone to teach Elders Quorum.' At this point the branch first counselor (the man who was supposed to make the assignments) comes over to us and tells me the same thing and he throws this at the end "... and its a missionary Sunday which means you guys are supposed to take every class. That's how it was when i was a missionary." And he said in such a chastising way.... i couldn't hold it back "and i bet when you were a missionary they gave you a week to prepare." So anyways after that i realized that i'll have to do it because everyone else around me is a younger missionary and half of them gave talks... so i stood up after the prayer... nothing prepared... and i gave an instruction on the importance of Enduring to the End and the Importance of the Sacrament. Well it wasn't that bad... and it was well needed because we have 540 members in this branch and only 147 came to church Sunday.... big problem with retention here but we're workin on it.. small small.
So after church we went out to teach.. we found a few of our referrals that needed to be contacted and one guy flagged us down to come and teach him... so we walk inside his compound and start teaching him and the concern that God doesn't have a body comes up and normally we would deflect that and save it till the next lesson but he needed an answer. So Brother Sonky (one of our branch missionaries) opens up to Genesis 1 where it says "let us create man in our own image and likeness" and he started telling us how God doesn't have an image because he doesn't have a body... okay buddy.... Exodus 33 where it says "And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." So he agreed that he had a body but he saw a painting of God that showed God without a head... so he can't have a face..... we showed him that the prophets wrote the bible and a prophet didn't paint that picture..... He was just confused.... he said that in the film he watched where Moses talks with God.... that explained most of it because he was being deceived by one of the many apostate films that are out here. Then Elder Hamilton made an example about when the sun goes down and the moon comes up and he started relating that to what we were talking about and the guy stood up and says "you think the sun and the moon are different things! When the sky starts to get dark the sun cools down and changes into the moon!!!" well that explained pretty much all we needed to know about this guy.... so after a ton of laughing and finally agreeing that he was right about the moon we prayed and left.... most likely never to return there.
Anyways guys that's all for this week. I love you all tons and hope that you enjoy the upcoming Easter Sunday!!!! Malloway!!
-Elder Rogers
Oh and guys conference was soooo sweet!!!!! actually i haven't seen it and won't see it for about like 4 weeks but i wanted to fit in with the rest of everyone else:)
So we taught 23 lessons this week which was a HUGE improvement compared to last weeks 14 lessons. Also this week we had a very interesting experience (happens every day but this one was extraordinary!). SO we're sitting there in the chapel just before Elders Quorum starts and today had been a 'Missionary Sunday' which means that the missionaries handle all the talks, music and teachings for the day. Well they only gave assignments to the speakers and they gave us an assignment of singing the closing hymn as just the missionaries....... so we're sitting there and we're singing the opening hymn for Elders Quorum. Elder Arhinful (one of the elders in the branch) comes over to me and grabs my arm to get my attention to tell me 'man they just told me that me and my companion need to teach young mens, the sisters are teaching young womens, but we need someone to teach Elders Quorum.' At this point the branch first counselor (the man who was supposed to make the assignments) comes over to us and tells me the same thing and he throws this at the end "... and its a missionary Sunday which means you guys are supposed to take every class. That's how it was when i was a missionary." And he said in such a chastising way.... i couldn't hold it back "and i bet when you were a missionary they gave you a week to prepare." So anyways after that i realized that i'll have to do it because everyone else around me is a younger missionary and half of them gave talks... so i stood up after the prayer... nothing prepared... and i gave an instruction on the importance of Enduring to the End and the Importance of the Sacrament. Well it wasn't that bad... and it was well needed because we have 540 members in this branch and only 147 came to church Sunday.... big problem with retention here but we're workin on it.. small small.
So after church we went out to teach.. we found a few of our referrals that needed to be contacted and one guy flagged us down to come and teach him... so we walk inside his compound and start teaching him and the concern that God doesn't have a body comes up and normally we would deflect that and save it till the next lesson but he needed an answer. So Brother Sonky (one of our branch missionaries) opens up to Genesis 1 where it says "let us create man in our own image and likeness" and he started telling us how God doesn't have an image because he doesn't have a body... okay buddy.... Exodus 33 where it says "And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." So he agreed that he had a body but he saw a painting of God that showed God without a head... so he can't have a face..... we showed him that the prophets wrote the bible and a prophet didn't paint that picture..... He was just confused.... he said that in the film he watched where Moses talks with God.... that explained most of it because he was being deceived by one of the many apostate films that are out here. Then Elder Hamilton made an example about when the sun goes down and the moon comes up and he started relating that to what we were talking about and the guy stood up and says "you think the sun and the moon are different things! When the sky starts to get dark the sun cools down and changes into the moon!!!" well that explained pretty much all we needed to know about this guy.... so after a ton of laughing and finally agreeing that he was right about the moon we prayed and left.... most likely never to return there.
Anyways guys that's all for this week. I love you all tons and hope that you enjoy the upcoming Easter Sunday!!!! Malloway!!
-Elder Rogers
Oh and guys conference was soooo sweet!!!!! actually i haven't seen it and won't see it for about like 4 weeks but i wanted to fit in with the rest of everyone else:)
Monday, April 7, 2014
1/4...wow
Hello everyone!
I hit 6 months this week and that was crazy... it's weird to think that 6 months ago i was sitting in the MTC in Ghana and now i have a million stories to tell.... only 6 months... it goes too quick sometimes. So my new area... is tough. Not rollin too hot at the moment because it's suffering from having one of the trunkiest missionaries die inside it. So that's pretty much all for my area. My companion... is a sweet guy. He's not like me in almost every aspect but we get along really well. My apartment is dusty... dustiest place i've been in all of my mission... goodness it's disgusting, but we manage it small small. So my first week as a DL was kinda crappy to be honest.. we only got to teach 14 lessons because i had to go to shell (the place we go for everything you need) to buy fuel for our generator and we had to wait for the water truck to bring water for our apartment on Saturday and they didn't come till 9:00 p.m. so we were waiting all day long.... not sweet. But we're not dead yet so i guess i'm not doin too bad. It's very sweet being a district leader because you get to learn much patience and how to continually serve..... difficult but it'll be worth it! Honestly not too much else happened this week but we did teach one lesson inside a Salonian courthouse..... it's a shack with a big chair at the head of the room for the justice and a few benches in front of it so that the people can sit inside... on the wall there is a list of fines.. most of them are totally ridiculous. like if you shout... 5,000 fine. if you argue with the justice its a 10,000 fine... just ridiculous things... like this one.. in Salone it's offensive to cross your legs.. it signals that you aren't open to what others are saying. That is a 15,000 leone fine... the court is so corrupt... its just a money-making business not a place of law.... that's one problem with this place. But hey it's an imperfect world but i love em all the same. Anyways that's it for this week! I love you all. Malloway!!
-Elder Rogers
I hit 6 months this week and that was crazy... it's weird to think that 6 months ago i was sitting in the MTC in Ghana and now i have a million stories to tell.... only 6 months... it goes too quick sometimes. So my new area... is tough. Not rollin too hot at the moment because it's suffering from having one of the trunkiest missionaries die inside it. So that's pretty much all for my area. My companion... is a sweet guy. He's not like me in almost every aspect but we get along really well. My apartment is dusty... dustiest place i've been in all of my mission... goodness it's disgusting, but we manage it small small. So my first week as a DL was kinda crappy to be honest.. we only got to teach 14 lessons because i had to go to shell (the place we go for everything you need) to buy fuel for our generator and we had to wait for the water truck to bring water for our apartment on Saturday and they didn't come till 9:00 p.m. so we were waiting all day long.... not sweet. But we're not dead yet so i guess i'm not doin too bad. It's very sweet being a district leader because you get to learn much patience and how to continually serve..... difficult but it'll be worth it! Honestly not too much else happened this week but we did teach one lesson inside a Salonian courthouse..... it's a shack with a big chair at the head of the room for the justice and a few benches in front of it so that the people can sit inside... on the wall there is a list of fines.. most of them are totally ridiculous. like if you shout... 5,000 fine. if you argue with the justice its a 10,000 fine... just ridiculous things... like this one.. in Salone it's offensive to cross your legs.. it signals that you aren't open to what others are saying. That is a 15,000 leone fine... the court is so corrupt... its just a money-making business not a place of law.... that's one problem with this place. But hey it's an imperfect world but i love em all the same. Anyways that's it for this week! I love you all. Malloway!!
-Elder Rogers
Saturday, April 5, 2014
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