Elder Collin Park

July 29, 2013

This was an awesome week.

It was Liberia's Independence Day on Friday.  That was a wonderful day for missionaries, not because of how many lessons we taught, we taught very few people that day, but because of the amount of food we ate.  I had 4 different people invite us over for food.  i have never eaten so much rice in my entire life!!!  I also never felt like throwing us so bad either.  The food was amazing!!!!  Just WAY too much of it!!

We had a baptismal service on Saturday.  Saturday was a long day for all of us.  We woke up before 6 to start pumping water for the font that we have at our building, but the generator had no fuel.   So we went to the well and hauled it for about an hour and a half.  Hauling water really sucks when you have to fight away mosquitoes and you're half asleep.  (for some reason I was just sleep deprived this week.  Hopefully I will be able to catch up later today).  We eventually got enough water to baptize people.  We then had a normal Saturday.

I got a hair cut this week.  Since my clippers died a couple months ago I have to find a Liberian to cut my hair.  They are far and few between.  Not many can cut white man hair, but the way they cut hair here is by using a comb and razor.  It’s actually really interesting.  Every missionary has to have one bad hair cut on their mission.  I am bound to have several.  This one I have now is actually really good, not exactly what I wanted but it works. 

On Mondays after emailing, me and Elder Tolar go and play basketball.  Playing with Liberians gets rid of stress and frustration but they get way too physical.  For me, I like to be physical when playing, but so do Liberians.  It sometimes gets a little out of hand, but it’s always fun.  I wish I was better at shooting and dribbling and, well just better at basketball in general. 

Today we are celebrating my companion's one year mark by taking him to town and going to a BBQ restaurant.  It should be a lot of fun. 

This was a crazy one, but I still love being a missionary. 

I love you all and miss you all. 

Elder Park

The White African

T.I.A. 

 

I got lucky again and was online when he was.  Here are some notes from the short emails we sent back and forth:

Hauling water sucks, but sometimes we have to do it.  We had one baptism,  William Smith.

Independence Day (from America):  Liberia was colonized by freed slaves so they brought back American names.  They call people with American names the Congos.   Liberia has only had non Congo presidents in it’s history, since 1870 something.  Independence Day was very calm.  Just a lot of music and dancing and drinking.  We were inside when it really started to change to that.  No violence here.  No fireworks due to the war.   I asked him if people there like America, he said:  Some love America more than I do, and some want to send us home because they don’t. 

He said the tall Liberians play basketball and the short ones play soccer, but everyone can play soccer.  What they call baseball is just kickball, and only the women play it. 

I asked him what he was reading right now:  I’m trying to finish the Book of Mormon again by the end of this transfer.  I have about 20/21 days left.

A friend of Collin’s asked if Collin had been sick, and I told his friend that Collin probably wouldn’t tell me if he had been sick.  So I asked him about it.  He said he hadn’t been sick, and that I was probably right, he wouldn’t tell me.