Blog Description

This is a blog for the family and friends of Collin Park. He will be serving a two year mission in the Sierra Leone Freetown Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, he left on January 24, 2013. While Collin is on his mission his Mom will be posting pictures and letters as she gets them, the content will be straight from Collin (unless otherwise noted) - spelling and punctuation will be corrected of course! Commentary and clarification may be added by his Mom as needed.
UPDATE: Collin's mission was split in half! The Sierra Leone Mission included the country of Liberia when Collin first left. As of July 1, 2013, the mission was split along the border and the new mission created: the Liberia, Monrovia Mission. Collin will never see the country of Sierra Leone. He has been in Monrovia Liberia since he left the MTC in Ghana.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Because of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Liberia and Sierra Leone Missions were evacuated on August 4, 2014 and missionaries were reassigned to different missions. Collin was reassigned to the Salt Lake City Central Mission.

Monday, April 14, 2014


April 14, 2014
Good afternoon everyone!!! Its 2:45 pm, slightly cloudy and humid as always!

This week was really good even though we didn’t accomplish our goals.  It was busy week too.  Very frustrating on Wednesday though ….  The reason behind that is we taught a less active girl that is younger than I am and has a baby (unfortunately, this is all too common here is LIB).  We’ve sat with her many times before and have very thoroughly covered what the Priesthood is with her.  We sit with her and her first question was, “what’s the Priesthood?” so frustrating.  But it was good, we explained it again and also how important it was, so hopefully she understands now.  To make it better, as we were walking back to the apartment, we ran into another less active man.  We asked him why he didn’t come to church and he just laughed.  It’s frustrating that people don’t always understand why coming to church is so important.  When we got to the apartment, I took my frustration out on the floor by doing as many pushups as a I possible could do, resting for a second and then doing it again.  I did a lot of pushups that night.  That was the only downer of the week though.  The rest of the week was great!! Sorry to start off on a sad note.
On Thursday I went on exchange with Elder Nabende who is going home to Uganda at the end of the month.  I look up to him so much.  I love this man!!  But that’s not the best part of Thursday. The best part is HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!!!!  (I love this kid!)

We have a man we are teaching named Travis Kollie.  I think I talked about him last week but we had a great lesson with him.  He wanted to learn more about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. So we covered that very thoroughly. We were expecting to see him at church but he didn’t come, so he’s not fully progressing anymore… but we have someone else who is progressing.  Beatrice has been sitting with us for about 3 weeks now.   We had a fantastic lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ this week.  The Spirit was so strong.  It really showed how important and true the Book of Mormon is.  We used a lot of scriptures from all of the Book of Mormon to teach the 5 principals.   I think that because of that lesson, she decided to come to church for the first time yesterday.  She came late so we didn’t actually see her till the end of Sunday school, but she said she’d been there for about 20 minutes.  So much for calling us…  but after church the Relief Society Sisters talked with her for a second which makes every missionary just happen!  I invite everyone who sees a new face come to church, go up and say hello to them.  Make a friend!!

We had a couple more first timers come to church yesterday too.  I am always happen when people we invite actually keep their commitments.  What’s  even better is when you meet 2 people on Saturday, teach them a quick lesson and then they come to church the next day.  I love people that do that!!!
Saturday was interesting.  I had a cousin get married, shout out to you Kim!! Congrats!! And I also had a close friend get married too, Congrats Mackenzie!!!  I wish both the newlyweds good luck!  But what was crazy about Saturday was this, I went to a wedding too!  Hahaha it was great!  Brother Felix is the man, he is the one we call if anything gets messed up or broken in the apartment.  He did the civil marriage on Saturday so that he can then go the temple in a couple months.  It was really cool to see how people get married here.  Tradition is great.  They had it at the district center and that place was PACKED!!!!

Sunday, we had 52 partake of the sacrament, and then by the end of sacrament meeting, we had about 80 in the chapel!!! I was so happy!
This morning I woke up a little vexed.  Last night there was a crazy storm that made it really windy which I loved, but also it kicked up a lot of sand… so I woke to find a thin layer of sand covering my body and my bed.  Oh I was happy, but I was too tired to complain about it.  I just undid my net and then took my sheet outside and shook it and put it in the wash, I mean I put into the bucket…  that’s life here in LIB!

Mission is the best.  I love everything that I’m able to do here and the people I meet.  I love this Gospel. I know it is true.  I hope you all had a great week!!

Elder Park
The White African
T.I.A.

 
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)